American Pie Read Online Free Page B

required little imagination to recognize the hardship Stefan had endured to save the twenty-seven dollars required for her passage to America. "I will make this up to you," she said softly.
    He waved the promise aside then leaned forward eagerly. "Lucie, tell me about home. Are the mother and father well? Is the barley out of the ground? Did Ivan Bobich clear his forest land? And my cowhas my cow calved yet?"
    After pouring more coffee, Lucie assured him their parents were well, then she spoke of the village and village gossip until darkness gathered outside the window.
    "I have news, too," Stefan announced when she finished speaking. A flush of color seemed to rise from his collar and his voice softened to a tone Lucie had not heard before. "I am to be married. As soon as there is money enough."
    Surprise rounded Lucie's mouth, then she clapped her hands in delight and rushed to embrace him. "Oh, Stefan! What wonderful news. Tell me everything about her!"
    "Her name is Greta Laskowski," Stefan said, smiling broadly. "Her people are from a village outside Warsaw. The family immigrated to America four years ago, but things did not go well for them. The parents died. Two sisters married and returned to Poland. Her brother went west." It seemed as if a cloud passed and Stefan's expression darkened.
    "Greta wanted to be here to welcome you, but her health has suffered lately. Already she thinks of you as a sister."
    Moisture dampened Lucie's lashes. It would be good to have a sister in this strange confusing land. Reaching across the scarred table, she clasped Stefan's hand. "It is my turn to help you. I'll find work, and in no time at all we'll save your marriage money." She owed him that much.
    The softness faded from Stefan's dark eyes. "I wish it were that easy, Lucie," he said, shaking his head. "Work is hard to find; the pay is low. Every day hundreds of immigrants pour into the city, all desperate for work. Any man who demands decent wages will find someone standing behind him willing to do the same job for pennies." Frowning, he looked at the darkness pressing against the window. "It's not like we thought. Yes, there is opportunity here, but a man must look hard to find it. It isn't enough to have two hands and a strong back."
    Determination firmed the lines of Lucie's mouth. "I'll find something," she said brusquely. "Tomorrow we begin saving for your marriage to my new sister."
    After Stefan lit the table lamp he examined her expression, then laughed. "You sound like Greta. Both of you can find a glimmer of sunlight in the darkest shadow." He pressed Lucie's hand. "Tomorrow you must rest from your journey, then take a day or so to explore. There's so much to see."
    "Right now I need to explore for our supper," she said, pushing up from the table. There was no meat in the salt box beside the scuttle, but considering the heat she hadn't really expected there would be. Nor was there much of anything else.
    In the end Lucie relied on her mother's recipe for hard times and crumbled a hardening loaf of dark bread into two cracked bowls she found on the shelf. Though it added to the heat trapped in the room, she fed the stove until a pot bubbled then she poured the boiling water over the bread. After waiting a moment she poured off the excess water, added a generous amount of salt and pepper then stirred in a spoonful of the cooking grease she found in a crock on the back of the stove.
    "Even when I'm rich," Stefan said with a wink, "I'll want Greta to prepare water-bread to remind me of home."
    Lucie laughed and refrained from mentioning that no one in Wlad imagined people in America ate water-bread.
    But she thought of it later when she was lying on her thin mattress in the tar-black second room, listening to an argument on the other side of the wall that sounded as if it were taking place at her elbow. She listened to the angry despairing voices, listened to the scrabble of miceshe hoped it was only micerunning up the walls,