`I will say, Jake, some of our brothers and sisters are hard to keep.
Where's a body to begin, with these people? They're wanting in everything,
and most of all in horse-sense. Nobody can give 'em that, I guess. Jimmy,
here, is about as able to take over a homestead as they are. Do you reckon
that boy Ambrosch has any real push in him?'
`He's a worker, all right, ma'm, and he's got some ketch-on about him; but
he's a mean one. Folks can be mean enough to get on in this world; and
then, ag'in, they can be too mean.'
That night, while grandmother was getting supper, we opened the package
Mrs. Shimerda had given her. It was full of little brown chips that looked
like the shavings of some root. They were as light as feathers, and the
most noticeable thing about them was their penetrating, earthy odour. We
could not determine whether they were animal or vegetable.
`They might be dried meat from some queer beast, Jim. They ain't dried
fish, and they never grew on stalk or vine. I'm afraid of 'em. Anyhow, I
shouldn't want to eat anything that had been shut up for months with old
clothes and goose pillows.'
She threw the package into the stove, but I bit off a corner of one of the
chips I held in my hand, and chewed it tentatively. I never forgot the
strange taste; though it was many years before I knew that those little
brown shavings, which the Shimerdas had brought so far and treasured so
jealously, were dried mushrooms.
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