They were always ready to
forget their troubles at home, and to run away with me over the prairie,
scaring rabbits or starting up flocks of quail.
I remember Antonia's excitement when she came into our kitchen one
afternoon and announced: `My papa find friends up north, with Russian
mans. Last night he take me for see, and I can understand very much talk.
Nice mans, Mrs. Burden. One is fat and all the time laugh. Everybody
laugh. The first time I see my papa laugh in this kawntree. Oh, very
nice!'
I asked her if she meant the two Russians who lived up by the big dog-town.
I had often been tempted to go to see them when I was riding in that
direction, but one of them was a wild-looking fellow and I was a little
afraid of him. Russia seemed to me more remote than any other country--
farther away than China, almost as far as the North Pole. Of all the
strange, uprooted people among the first settlers, those two men were the
strangest and the most aloof. Their last names were unpronounceable, so
they were called Pavel and Peter. They went about making signs to people,
and until the Shimerdas came they had no friends. Krajiek could understand
them a little, but he had cheated them in a trade, so they avoided him.
Pavel, the tall one, was said to be an anarchist; since he had no means of
imparting his opinions, probably his wild gesticulations and his generally
excited and rebellious manner gave rise to this supposition.
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