hen Sunday came she was glad
to have a day of rest. One night at supper Fuchs told us he had seen Mr.
Shimerda out hunting.

'He's made himself a rabbit-skin cap, Jim, and a rabbit-skin collar that
he buttons on outside his coat. They ain't got but one overcoat among
'em over there, and they take turns wearing it. They seem awful scared
of cold, and stick in that hole in the bank like badgers.'

'All but the crazy boy,' Jake put in. 'He never wears the coat. Krajiek
says he's turrible strong and can stand anything. I guess rabbits must
be getting scarce in this locality. Ambrosch come along by the cornfield
yesterday where I was at work and showed me three prairie dogs he'd
shot. He asked me if they was good to eat. I spit and made a face and
took on, to scare him, but he just looked like he was smarter'n me and
put 'em back in his sack and walked off.'

Grandmother looked up in alarm and spoke to grandfather. 'Josiah, you
don't suppose Krajiek would let them poor creatures eat prairie dogs, do
you?'

'You had better go over and see our neighbours tomorrow, Emmaline,' he
replied gravely.

Fuchs put in a cheerful word and said prairie dogs were clean beasts
and ought to be good for food, but their family connections were against
them. I asked what he meant, and he grinned and said they belonged to
the rat family.

When I went downstairs in the morning, I found grandmother and Jake
packing a hamper basket in the kitchen.

'Now, Jake,' grandmother was saying, 'if you can find that old rooster
that got his comb froze, just give his neck a twist, and we'll take him
along. There's no good reason why Mrs. Shimerda couldn't have got hens
from her neighbours last fall and had a hen-house going by now. I reckon
she was confused and didn't know where to begin. I've come strange to a
new country myself, but I never forgot hens are a good thing to have, no
matter what you don't have.

'Just as you say, ma'm,' said Jake, 'but I hate to think of Krajiek
getting a leg of that old rooster.' He tramped out through the long
cellar and dropped the heavy door behind him.

After breakfast grandmother and Jake and I bundled ourselves up and
climbed into the cold front wagon-seat. As we approached the Shimerdas',
we heard the frosty whine of the pump and saw Antonia, her head tied
up and her cotton dress blown about her, throwing all her weight on the
pump-handle as it went up and down. She heard our wagon, looked back
over her sho