d saddles and
tools, and old coats and boots. That day the floor was covered with
garden things, drying for winter; corn and beans and fat yellow
cucumbers. There were no screens or window-blinds in the house, and all
the doors and windows stood wide open, letting in flies and sunshine
alike.

Peter put the melons in a row on the oilcloth-covered table and stood
over them, brandishing a butcher knife. Before the blade got fairly into
them, they split of their own ripeness, with a delicious sound. He gave
us knives, but no plates, and the top of the table was soon swimming
with juice and seeds. I had never seen anyone eat so many melons as
Peter ate. He assured us that they were good for one--better than
medicine; in his country people lived on them at this time of year. He
was very hospitable and jolly. Once, while he was looking at Antonia,
he sighed and told us that if he had stayed at home in Russia perhaps
by this time he would have had a pretty daughter of his own to cook and
keep house for him. He said he had left his country because of a 'great
trouble.'

When we got up to go, Peter looked about in perplexity for something
that would entertain us. He ran into the storeroom and brought out a
gaudily painted harmonica, sat down on a bench, and spreading his fat
legs apart began to play like a whole band. The tunes were either very
lively or very doleful, and he sang words to some of them.

Before we left, Peter put ripe cucumbers into a sack for Mrs. Shimerda
and gave us a lard-pail full of milk to cook them in. I had never heard
of cooking cucumbers, but Antonia assured me they were very good. We had
to walk the pony all the way home to keep from spilling the milk.

VI

ONE AFTERNOON WE WERE having our reading lesson on the warm, grassy bank
where the badger lived. It was a day of amber sunlight, but there was
a shiver of coming winter in the air. I had seen ice on the little
horsepond that morning, and as we went through the garden we found the
tall asparagus, with its red berries, lying on the ground, a mass of
slimy green.

Tony was barefooted, and she shivered in her cotton dress and was
comfortable only when we were tucked down on the baked earth, in the
full blaze of the sun. She could talk to me about almost anything by
this time. That afternoon she was telling me how highly esteemed our
friend the badger was in her part of the world, and how men kept a
special kind of dog, with very short leg