t be rather degraded creatures. The dog-town was
a long way from any pond or creek. Otto Fuchs said he had seen populous
dog-towns in the desert where there was no surface water for fifty
miles; he insisted that some of the holes must go down to water--nearly
two hundred feet, hereabouts. Antonia said she didn't believe it; that
the dogs probably lapped up the dew in the early morning, like the
rabbits.

Antonia had opinions about everything, and she was soon able to make
them known. Almost every day she came running across the prairie to have
her reading lesson with me. Mrs. Shimerda grumbled, but realized it was
important that one member of the family should learn English. When the
lesson was over, we used to go up to the watermelon patch behind the
garden. I split the melons with an old corn-knife, and we lifted out the
hearts and ate them with the juice trickling through our fingers.
The white Christmas melons we did not touch, but we watched them with
curiosity. They were to be picked late, when the hard frosts had set
in, and put away for winter use. After weeks on the ocean, the Shimerdas
were famished for fruit. The two girls would wander for miles along the
edge of the cornfields, hunting for ground-cherries.

Antonia loved to help grandmother in the kitchen and to learn about
cooking and housekeeping. She would stand beside her, watching her
every movement. We were willing to believe that Mrs. Shimerda was a
good housewife in her own country, but she managed poorly under new
conditions: the conditions were bad enough, certainly!

I remember how horrified we were at the sour, ashy-grey bread she gave
her family to eat. She mixed her dough, we discovered, in an old tin
peck-measure that Krajiek had used about the barn. When she took the
paste out to bake it, she left smears of dough sticking to the sides of
the measure, put the measure on the shelf behind the stove, and let this
residue ferment. The next time she made bread, she scraped this sour
stuff down into the fresh dough to serve as yeast.

During those first months the Shimerdas never went to town. Krajiek
encouraged them in the belief that in Black Hawk they would somehow be
mysteriously separated from their money. They hated Krajiek, but they
clung to him because he was the only human being with whom they could
talk or from whom they could get information. He slept with the old man
and the two boys in the dugout barn, along with the oxen. They kept