breaking up this place and making the first crops grow Cuzak is referring to plowing his land and making it suitable for growing crops.
capote a long cloak, usually with a hood. Cather is metaphorically referring to the green feathers on the ducks’ heads and necks as such a cloak.
he’ll be rich some day Here, Ántonia equates hard work with financial success, as did most of the immigrant pioneers.
hollyhocks tall, usually biennial plants of the mallow family, with palmately lobed leaves, a hairy stem, and large, showy flowers of various colors in elongated spikes.
Jan the Bohemian equivalent of John; pronounced “yahn.”
Niobrara a river flowing from eastern Wyoming east through northern Nebraska into the Missouri River.
kolaches (ko-LAH-cheese) small, round Bohemian pastries with fruit filling in their centers. The Ceske Kolaces (Czech kolaches) that Ántonia and her family eat are made with lard and require much time to make (the dough must rise five separate times). Josie Macha Nemec shared this modern, and quite tasty, equivalent still made by the Czechs in southeast Nebraska.
Refrigerator Butter Kolaches
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup cold milk
1 cup butter or margarine
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
2 packages yeast
2 teaspoons salt
Cut butter or margarine into flour as for pie crust. Mix together sugar, salt, and dry yeast; add flour mixture. Beat yolks, cold milk, and one egg together, and add to flour mixture. Stir together until elastic, adding more flour, if needed. Place in a bowl, cover, and refrigerate overnight. The next day, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll dough into a 1-inch thick sheet and cut into 2-inch circles. Place on ungreased sheets; let rise until almost double. Make depression in center of each circle with fingers and fill with your favorite filling. Let finish rising until double. Bake 15–20 minutes.
Prune Filling
Cook 50 prunes until soft. Drain, pit, and mash. Add 4 tablespoons sugar and a small amount of the prune juice you drained, if needed. Prune, poppy seed, apricot, and cottage cheese are traditional kolache fillings, but you may substitute almost any canned pie filling (cherry is particularly good).
