Russians. Peter told his troubles
to Mr. Shimerda: he was unable to meet a note which fell due on the
first of November; had to pay an exorbitant bonus on renewing it, and
to give a mortgage on his pigs and horses and even his milk cow. His
creditor was Wick Cutter, the merciless Black Hawk money-lender, a man
of evil name throughout the county, of whom I shall have more to say
later. Peter could give no very clear account of his transactions with
Cutter. He only knew that he had first borrowed two hundred dollars,
then another hundred, then fifty--that each time a bonus was added to
the principal, and the debt grew faster than any crop he planted. Now
everything was plastered with mortgages.

Soon after Peter renewed his note, Pavel strained himself lifting
timbers for a new barn, and fell over among the shavings with such a
gush of blood from the lungs that his fellow workmen thought he would
die on the spot. They hauled him home and put him into his bed, and
there he lay, very ill indeed. Misfortune seemed to settle like an evil
bird on the roof of the log house, and to flap its wings there, warning
human beings away. The Russians had such bad luck that people were
afraid of them and liked to put them out of mind.

One afternoon Antonia and her father came over to our house to get
buttermilk, and lingered, as they usually did, until the sun was low.
Just as they were leaving, Russian Peter drove up. Pavel was very bad,
he said, and wanted to talk to Mr. Shimerda and his daughter; he had
come to fetch them. When Antonia and her father got into the wagon, I
entreated grandmother to let me go with them: I would gladly go without
my supper, I would sleep in the Shimerdas' barn and run home in the
morning. My plan must have seemed very foolish to her, but she was often
large-minded about humouring the desires of other people. She asked
Peter to wait a moment, and when she came back from the kitchen she
brought a bag of sandwiches and doughnuts for us.

Mr. Shimerda and Peter were on the front seat; Antonia and I sat in the
straw behind and ate our lunch as we bumped along. After the sun sank,
a cold wind sprang up and moaned over the prairie. If this turn in the
weather had come sooner, I should not have got away. We burrowed down in
the straw and curled up close together, watching the angry red die out
of the west and the stars begin to shine in the clear, windy sky. Peter
kept sighing and groaning. Tony whispered to m