`These
foreigners ain't the same. You can't trust 'em to be fair. It's dirty to
kick a feller. You heard how the women turned on you--and after all we
went through on account of 'em last winter! They ain't to be trusted. I
don't want to see you get too thick with any of 'em.'
`I'll never be friends with them again, Jake,' I declared hotly. `I
believe they are all like Krajiek and Ambrosch underneath.'
Grandfather heard our story with a twinkle in his eye. He advised Jake to
ride to town tomorrow, go to a justice of the peace, tell him he had
knocked young Shimerda down, and pay his fine. Then if Mrs. Shimerda was
inclined to make trouble--her son was still under age--she would be
forestalled. Jake said he might as well take the wagon and haul to market
the pig he had been fattening. On Monday, about an hour after Jake had
started, we saw Mrs. Shimerda and her Ambrosch proudly driving by, looking
neither to the right nor left. As they rattled out of sight down the Black
Hawk road, grandfather chuckled, saying he had rather expected she would
follow the matter up.
Jake paid his fine with a ten-dollar bill grandfather had given him for
that purpose. But when the Shimerdas found that Jake sold his pig in town
that day, Ambrosch worked it out in his shrewd head that Jake had to sell
his pig to pay his fine.
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