d perhaps he even felt some stirrings of remorse for his
indifference to the old man's misery and loneliness.

At supper the men ate like vikings, and the chocolate cake, which I
had hoped would linger on until tomorrow in a mutilated condition,
disappeared on the second round. They talked excitedly about where
they should bury Mr. Shimerda; I gathered that the neighbours were all
disturbed and shocked about something. It developed that Mrs. Shimerda
and Ambrosch wanted the old man buried on the southwest corner of
their own land; indeed, under the very stake that marked the corner.
Grandfather had explained to Ambrosch that some day, when the country
was put under fence and the roads were confined to section lines, two
roads would cross exactly on that corner. But Ambrosch only said, 'It
makes no matter.'

Grandfather asked Jelinek whether in the old country there was some
superstition to the effect that a suicide must be buried at the
cross-roads.

Jelinek said he didn't know; he seemed to remember hearing there had
once been such a custom in Bohemia. 'Mrs. Shimerda is made up her mind,'
he added. 'I try to persuade her, and say it looks bad for her to all
the neighbours; but she say so it must be. "There I will bury him, if
I dig the grave myself," she say. I have to promise her I help Ambrosch
make the grave tomorrow.'

Grandfather smoothed his beard and looked judicial. 'I don't know whose
wish should decide the matter, if not hers. But if she thinks she will
live to see the people of this country ride over that old man's head,
she is mistaken.'

XVI

MR. SHIMERDA LAY DEAD in the barn four days, and on the fifth they
buried him. All day Friday Jelinek was off with Ambrosch digging the
grave, chopping out the frozen earth with old axes. On Saturday we
breakfasted before daylight and got into the wagon with the coffin. Jake
and Jelinek went ahead on horseback to cut the body loose from the pool
of blood in which it was frozen fast to the ground.

When grandmother and I went into the Shimerdas' house, we found the
womenfolk alone; Ambrosch and Marek were at the barn. Mrs. Shimerda sat
crouching by the stove, Antonia was washing dishes. When she saw me, she
ran out of her dark corner and threw her arms around me. 'Oh, Jimmy,'
she sobbed, 'what you tink for my lovely papa!' It seemed to me that I
could feel her heart breaking as she clung to me.

Mrs. Shimerda, sitting on the stump by the stove, kept loo