The Story of an African Farm Page 8

  Chapter 1.VI. Bonaparte Blenkins Makes His Nest.

  "Ah, what is the matter?" asked Waldo, stopping at the foot of theladder with a load of skins on his back that he was carrying up to theloft. Through the open door in the gable little Em was visible, herfeet dangling from the high bench on which she sat. The room, once astoreroom, had been divided by a row of mealie bags into two parts--theback being Bonaparte's bedroom, the front his schoolroom.

  "Lyndall made him angry," said the girl tearfully; "and he has givenme the fourteenth of John to learn. He says he will teach me to behavemyself when Lyndall troubles him."

  "What did she do?" asked the boy.

  "You see," said Em, hopelessly turning the leaves, "whenever he talksshe looks out at the door, as though she did not hear him. Todayshe asked him what the signs of the Zodiac were, and he said he wassurprised that she should ask him; it was not a fit and proper thing forlittle girls to talk about. Then she asked him who Copernicus was; andhe said he was one of the Emperors of Rome, who burned the Christians ina golden pig, and the worms ate him up while he was still alive. I don'tknow why," said Em plaintively, "but she just put her books under herarm and walked out; and she will never come to his school again, shesays, and she always does what she says. And now I must sit here everyday alone," said Em, the great tears dropping softly.

  "Perhaps Tant Sannie will send him away," said the boy, in his mumblingway, trying to comfort her.

  "No," said Em, shaking her head; "no. Last night when the littleHottentot maid was washing her feet, he told her he liked such feet, andthat fat women were so nice to him; and she said I must always put purecream in his coffee now. No; he'll never go away," said Em dolorously.

  The boy put down his skins and fumbled in his pocket, and produced asmall piece of paper containing something. He stuck it out toward her.

  "There, take it for you," he said. This was by way of comfort.

  Em opened it and found a small bit of gum, a commodity prized by thechildren; but the great tears dropped down slowly on to it.

  Waldo was distressed. He had cried so much in his morsel of life thattears in another seemed to burn him.

  "If," he said, stepping in awkwardly and standing by the table, "if youwill not cry I will tell you something--a secret."

  "What is that?" asked Em, instantly becoming decidedly better.

  "You will tell it to no human being?"

  "No."

  He bent nearer to her, and with deep solemnity said:

  "I have made a machine!"

  Em opened her eyes.

  "Yes; a machine for shearing sheep. It is almost done," said the boy."There is only one thing that is not right yet; but it will be soon.When you think, and think, and think, all night and all day, it comes atlast," he added mysteriously.

  "Where is it?"

  "Here! I always carry it here," said the boy, putting his hand to hisbreast, where a bulging-out was visible. "This is a model. When it isdone they will have to make a large one."

  "Show it me."

  The boy shook his head.

  "No, not till it is done. I cannot let any human being see it tillthen."

  "It is a beautiful secret," said Em; and the boy shuffled out to pick uphis skins.

  That evening father and son sat in the cabin eating their supper. Thefather sighed deeply sometimes. Perhaps he thought how long a time itwas since Bonaparte had visited the cabin; but his son was in that landin which sighs have no part. It is a question whether it were not betterto be the shabbiest of fools, and know the way up the little stairof imagination to the land of dreams, than the wisest of men, who seenothing that the eyes do not show, and feel nothing that the hands donot touch. The boy chewed his brown bread and drank his coffee; but intruth he saw only his machine finished--that last something found outand added. He saw it as it worked with beautiful smoothness; and overand above, as he chewed his bread and drank his coffee, there was thatdelightful consciousness of something bending over him and loving him.It would not have been better in one of the courts of heaven, where thewalls are set with rows of the King of Glory's amethysts and milk-whitepearls, than there, eating his supper in that little room.

  As they sat in silence there was a knock at the door. When it wasopened the small woolly head of a little nigger showed itself. She wasa messenger from Tant Sannie: the German was wanted at once at thehomestead. Putting on his hat with both hands, he hurried off. Thekitchen was in darkness, but in the pantry beyond Tant Sannie and hermaids were assembled.

  A Kaffer girl, who had been grinding pepper between two stones, knelton the floor, the lean Hottentot stood with a brass candlestick in herhand, and Tant Sannie, near the shelf, with a hand on each hip, wasevidently listening intently, as were her companions.

  "What may be it?" cried the old German in astonishment. The room beyondthe pantry was the storeroom. Through the thin wooden partition therearose at that instant, evidently from some creature ensconced there, aprolonged and prodigious howl, followed by a succession of violent blowsagainst the partition wall.

  The German seized the churn-stick, and was about to rush round thehouse, when the Boer-woman impressively laid her hand upon his arm.

  "That is his head," said Tant Sannie, "that is his head."

  "But what might it be?" asked the German, looking from one to the other,churn-stick in hand.

  A low hollow bellow prevented reply, and the voice of Bonaparte lifteditself on high.

  "Mary-Ann! my angel! my wife!"

  "Isn't it dreadful?" said Tant Sannie, as the blows were repeatedfiercely. "He has got a letter; his wife is dead. You must go andcomfort him," said Tant Sannie at last, "and I will go with you. Itwould not be the thing for me to go alone--me, who am only thirty-three,and he an unmarried man now," said Tant Sannie, blushing and smoothingout her apron.

  Upon this they all trudged round the house in company--the Hottentotmaid carrying the light, Tant Sannie and the German following, and theKaffer girl bringing up the rear.

  "Oh," said Tant Sannie, "I see now it wasn't wickedness made him dowithout his wife so long--only necessity."

  At the door she motioned to the German to enter, and followed himclosely. On the stretcher behind the sacks Bonaparte lay on his face,his head pressed into a pillow, his legs kicking gently. The Boer-womansat down on a box at the foot of the bed. The German stood with foldedhands looking on.

  "We must all die," said Tant Sannie at last; "it is the dear Lord'swill."

  Hearing her voice, Bonaparte turned himself on to his back.

  "It's very hard," said Tant Sannie, "I know, for I've lost twohusbands."

  Bonaparte looked up into the German's face.

  "Oh, what does she say? Speak to me words of comfort!"

  The German repeated Tant Sannie's remark.

  "Ah, I--I also! Two dear, dear wives, whom I shall never see any more!"cried Bonaparte, flinging himself back upon the bed.

  He howled, till the tarantulas, who lived between the rafters and thezinc roof, felt the unusual vibration, and looked out with their wickedbright eyes, to see what was going on.

  Tant Sannie sighed, the Hottentot maid sighed, the Kaffer girl wholooked in at the door put her hand over her mouth and said "Mow-wah!"

  "You must trust in the Lord," said Tant Sannie. "He can give you morethan you have lost."

  "I do, I do!" he cried; "but oh, I have no wife! I have no wife!"

  Tant Sannie was much affected, and came and stood near the bed.

  "Ask him if he won't have a little pap--nice, fine, flour pap. There issome boiling on the kitchen fire."

  The German made the proposal, but the widower waved his hand.

  "No, nothing shall pass my lips. I should be suffocated. No, no! Speaknot of food to me!"

  "Pap, and a little brandy in," said Tant Sannie coaxingly.

  Bonaparte caught the word.

  "Perhaps, perhaps--if I struggled with myself--for the sake of my dutiesI might imbibe a few drops," he said, looking wi
th quivering lip up intothe German's face. "I must do my duty, must I not?"

  Tant Sannie gave the order, and the girl went for the pap.

  "I know how it was when my first husband died. They could do nothingwith me," the Boer-woman said, "till I had eaten a sheep's trotter, andhoney, and a little roaster-cake. I know."

  Bonaparte sat up on the bed with his legs stretched out in front of him,and a hand on each knee, blubbering softly.

  "Oh, she was a woman! You are very kind to try and comfort me, but shewas my wife. For a woman that is my wife I could live; for the womanthat is my wife I could die! For a woman that is my wife I could--Ah!that sweet word 'wife'; when will it rest upon my lips again?"

  When his feelings had subsided a little he raised the corners of histurned-down mouth, and spoke to the German with flabby lips.

  "Do you think she understands me? Oh, tell her every word, that she mayknow I thank her."

  At that instant the girl reappeared with a basin of steaming gruel and ablack bottle.

  Tant Sannie poured some of its contents into the basin, stirred it well,and came to the bed.

  "Oh, I can't, I can't! I shall die! I shall die!" said Bonaparte,putting his hands to his side.

  "Come, just a little," said Tant Sannie coaxingly; "just a drop."

  "It's too thick, it's too thick. I should choke."

  Tant Sannie added from the contents of the bottle and held out aspoonful; Bonaparte opened his mouth like a little bird waiting for aworm, and held it open, as she dipped again and again into the pap.

  "Ah, this will do your heart good," said Tant Sannie, in whose mind therelative functions of heart and stomach were exceedingly ill-defined.

  When the basin was emptied the violence of his grief was much assuaged;he looked at Tant Sannie with gentle tears.

  "Tell him," said the Boer-woman, "that I hope he will sleep well, andthat the Lord will comfort him, as the Lord only can."

  "Bless you, dear friend, God bless you," said Bonaparte.

  When the door was safely shut on the German, the Hottentot, and theDutchwoman, he got off the bed and washed away the soap he had rubbed onhis eyelids.

  "Bon," he said, slapping his leg, "you're the cutest lad I ever cameacross. If you don't turn out the old Hymns-and-prayers, and pummelthe Ragged coat, and get your arms round the fat one's waist and awedding-ring on her finger, then you are not Bonaparte. But you areBonaparte. Bon, you're a fine boy!"

  Making which pleasing reflection, he pulled off his trousers and gotinto bed cheerfully.