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.
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