Ántonia and Jim ride over to visit Pavel and Peter, two Russians whom Ántonia’s father has befriended. Pavel isn’t home, but Peter is delighted to see them. He shows them around the farm, feeds them watermelon, and entertains them by playing the harmonica. When they are ready to leave, he gives them some cucumbers for Mrs. Shimerda and a lard-pail full of milk.
Jim and Ántonia have a reading lesson on the bank near the badger hole. They discuss the badger, how he is esteemed in Bohemia, and they rescue a frail green insect, which, in return for the warmth of Ántonia’s hands, chirps for them. Ántonia is reminded of Old Hata, a beggar woman in Bohemia who dug herbs in the forest and sold them. Children loved to hear the songs she sang in her old cracked voice.
On the way home, they see Mr. Shimerda on the hill where he’s been hunting. He shows them the three rabbits he has killed and tells Ántonia that he’ll make her a rabbit hat for winter. He says that someday he’ll give Jim this gun, which he brought from Bohemia. The sadness of Mr. Shimerda’s smile depresses Jim.
Ántonia is four years older and more traveled than Jim, and he resents her air of superiority. Her attitude changes one day, however, when they are on their way home after borrowing a spade from the two Russians. At the prairie dog town, Jim almost backs into a rattlesnake. Ántonia screams at him in Bohemian. He whirls around and kills the rattler with the spade, but he’s cross with her for not warning him in English. After this adventure, Ántonia brags about how Jim killed the snake, and she begins to treat him as an equal.
As late autumn lingers, the Russians get into trouble with Black Hawk’s moneylender, Wick Cutter, who forces them to pay a huge bonus on an overdue loan and give him a mortgage on their livestock. Later, Pavel injures himself while building a barn. When Mr. Shimerda, Ántonia, and Jim visit the Russians, thin and emaciated Pavel rouses himself from his sickbed and tells Mr. Shimerda why they left Russia, a story that Ántonia translates for Jim. A few days afterward, Pavel dies. Peter sells everything and goes away to cook at a construction camp.
