the sun. They were as thick and curly as
carded wool. His rosy face, with its snub
nose, set in this fleece, was like a melon among
its leaves. He was usually called "Curly
Peter," or "Rooshian Peter."

The two Russians made good farmhands,
and in summer they worked out together. I
had heard our neighbors laughing when they
told how Peter always had to go home at
night to milk his cow. Other bachelor home-
steaders used canned milk, to save trouble.
Sometimes Peter came to church at the sod
schoolhouse. It was there I first saw him,
sitting on a low bench by the door, his plush
cap in his hands, his bare feet tucked apolo-
getically under the seat.

After Mr. Shimerda discovered the Rus-
sians, he went to see them almost every eve-
ning, and sometimes took Antonia with him.
She said they came from a part of Russia
where the language was not very different
from Bohemian, and if I wanted to go to their
place, she could talk to them for me. One
afternoon, before the heavy frosts began, we
rode up there together on my pony.

The Russians had a neat log house built on
a grassy slope, with a windlass well beside the

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