together. I had heard our neighbours laughing when they told how Peter
always had to go home at night to milk his cow. Other bachelor
homesteaders used canned milk, to save trouble. Sometimes Peter came to
church at the sod schoolhouse. It was there I first saw him, sitting on a
low bench by the door, his plush cap in his hands, his bare feet tucked
apologetically under the seat.

After Mr. Shimerda discovered the Russians, he went to see them almost
every evening, and sometimes took Antonia with him. She said they came
from a part of Russia where the language was not very different from
Bohemian, and if I wanted to go to their place, she could talk to them for
me. One afternoon, before the heavy frosts began, we rode up there
together on my pony.

The Russians had a neat log house built on a grassy slope, with a windlass
well beside the door. As we rode up the draw, we skirted a big melon
patch, and a garden where squashes and yellow cucumbers lay about on the
sod. We found Peter out behind his kitchen, bending over a washtub. He
was working so hard that he did not hear us coming. His whole body moved
up and down as he rubbed, and he was a funny sight from the rear, with his
shaggy head and bandy legs. When he straightened himself up to greet us,
drops of perspiration were rolling from his thick nose down onto his curly
beard. Peter dried his hands and seemed glad to leave his washing. He
took us down to see his chickens, and his cow that was grazing on the
hillside. He told Antonia that in his country only rich people had cows,
but here any man could have one who would take care of her. The milk was
good for Pavel, who was often sick, and he could make butter by beating
sour cream with a wooden spoon. Peter was very fond of his cow. He patted
her flanks and talked to her in Russian while he pulled up her lariat pin
and set it in a new place.