She peeped out at me and smiled, but, glancing up at
her mother, hid again. Antonia was washing pans and dishes in a dark
corner. The crazy boy lay under the only window, stretched on a gunny-sack
stuffed with straw. As soon as we entered, he threw a grain-sack over the
crack at the bottom of the door. The air in the cave was stifling, and it
was very dark, too. A lighted lantern, hung over the stove, threw out a
feeble yellow glimmer.
Mrs. Shimerda snatched off the covers of two barrels behind the door, and
made us look into them. In one there were some potatoes that had been
frozen and were rotting, in the other was a little pile of flour.
Grandmother murmured something in embarrassment, but the Bohemian woman
laughed scornfully, a kind of whinny-laugh, and, catching up an empty
coffee-pot from the shelf, shook it at us with a look positively
vindictive.
Grandmother went on talking in her polite Virginia way, not admitting their
stark need or her own remissness, until Jake arrived with the hamper, as if
in direct answer to Mrs. Shimerda's reproaches. Then the poor woman broke
down. She dropped on the floor beside her crazy son, hid her face on her
knees, and sat crying bitterly. Grandmother paid no heed to her, but
called Antonia to come and help empty the basket.
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