Preface and Glossary of the Story of an African Farm. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Sally McConnell in Bettys Bay, South Africa, in February 2010. The Story of an African Farm. I have to thank cordially the public and my critics for the reception they have given this little book. Dealing with a subject that is far removed from the round of English daily life, it of necessity lacks the charm that hangs about the ideal representation of familiar things, and its reception has therefore been the more kindly. A word of explanation is necessary. Two strangers appear on the scene, and some had fancied that in the second they have again the first, who returns in a new guise. Why this should be, we cannot tell, unless there is a feeling that a man should not appear upon the scene and then disappear, leaving behind him no more substantial trace than a mere book, that he should return later on as husband or lover, to fill some more important part than that of the mere stimulator of thought. Human life may be painted according to two methods. There is the stage method. According to that each character is duly marshaled at first, and ticketed. We know with an immutable certainty that at the right crises each one will reappear and act his part, and when the curtain falls all will stand before it, bowing. There is a sense of satisfaction in this and of completeness. But there is another method. The method of the life we all lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange coming and going of feet. Men appear, act, and react upon each other and pass away. When the crisis comes the man who would fit it does not return. When the curtain falls no one is ready. When the footlights are brightest they are blown out. And what the name of the play is no one knows. If there sits a spectator who knows, he sits so high that the players in the gas light cannot hear his breathing. Life may be painted according to either method. But the methods are different. The cannons of criticism that bear upon the one cut cruelly upon the other. It has been suggested by a kind critic that he would rather have liked the little book if it had been a history of wild adventure, of cattle driven into inaccessible cronces by Bushman, of encounters with ravening lions and hare-breath escapes. This could not be. Such works are best written in Piccadilly or in the Strand. There the gifts of the creative imagination untrammeled by contact with any fact may spread their wings. But should one sit down to paint the scenes among which he has grown, he will find that the facts creep in upon him. Those brilliant phases and shapes which the imagination sees in far-off lands are not for him to portray. Sadly he must squeeze the colour from his brush, and dip it into the grey pigments around him. He must paint what lies before him. Our iron. We must see the first images which the external world casts upon the dark mirror of his mind. Almost hear the first words which awaken the sleeping powers of thought and stand by his earliest efforts if we would understand the prejudices, the habits and the passions that will rule his life. The entire man is, so to speak, to be found in the cradle of the child. Alexis de Toville. End of preface. Glossary. Several Dutch and colonial words occurring in this work, the sub-joint glossary is given explaining the principle. Benotete. Indigestion. Brachy. A little cur of low degree. Biltong. Dried meat. In span. To harness. Cuppie. A sunbonnet. Karoo. The wide sandy plains in some parts of South Africa. Karoo Bushers. The bushes that take the place of grass on these plains. Cartel. The wooden bed fastened in an ox wagon. Cuppie.  Crawl. The space surrounded by a stone wall or hedged with thorn branches into which sheep or cattle are driven at night. Millies. Indian corn. Niercat. A small weasel-like animal. Maybos. Preserved and dried apricots. Nachtmal. The Lord's sapper. Outspan. To unharness or replace in the field where one unharnesses. Predicant. Parsen. Rim. Leather rope. Schlecht. Bad. Sluit. A dry watercourse. Spook. A ghost. Stamp block. A wooden block hollowed out in which mealy's a place to be pounded before cooking. Upsitting. In Boar courtship the man and girl are supposed to sit up together the whole night. Felskun. Shoes of undressed leather. End of glossary. Chapter One. Part One. Of the story of an African farm. The Slibri Vox recording is in the public domain. Read by Sally McConnell in Betty's Bay, South Africa. In February 2010. Shadows from Child Life. The Watch. Full African moon poured down its light from the blue sky into the wide, lonely plain. The dry, sandy earth with its coating of stunted karoo bushes a few inches high. The low hills that skirted the plain. The milk bushes with their long finger-like leaves. All were touched by a weird and an almost oppressive beauty as they lay in the white light. In one spot only was the solemn monotony of the broken plain. Near the centre a small solitary copy rose.  Here and there a few tufts of grass or small succulent plants had sprung up among its stones. And on the very summit a clump of prickly pears lifted their thorny arms. And reflected, as from mirrors the moonlight and their broad, fleshy leaves. At the foot of a copy lay the homestead. First the stone walled sheep crawls and calfahuts. Beyond them the dwelling house a square red brick building with thatched roof. Even on its bare red walls and the wooden ladder that led up to the loft the moonlight cast a kind of dreamy beauty. And quite etherealised the low brick wall that ran before the house. And which enclosed a bare patch of sand and two straggling sunflowers. On the zinc roof of the great open wagon house, on the roofs of the art buildings that jutted from its side the moonlight glinted with a quite peculiar brightness till it seemed that every ribbon the metal was of burnished silver. Sleep ruled everywhere and the homestead was not less quiet than the solitary plain. In the farmhouse on her great wooden bedstead Tant Sunny the Boer woman rolled heavily in her sleep. She had gone to bed as she always did in her clothes and the night was warm and the room close and she dreamed bad dreams. Not of the ghosts and devils that so haunted her waking thoughts. Nor of her second husband the consumptive Englishman whose grave lay away beyond the ostrich camps. Nor of her first the young Boer but only of the sheeps trotters she had eaten for supper that night. She dreamed that one stuck fast in her throat and she rolled her huge form from side to side and snorted horribly. In the next room where the maid had forgotten to close the shutter the white moonlight fell in in a flood and made it light as day. There were two small beds against the wall. In one lay a yellow haired child with a low forehead and a face of freckles but the loving moonlight had defects here as elsewhere and showed only the innocent face of a child in its first sweet sleep. The figure in the companion bed belonged of right to the moonlight for it was of quite elfen-like beauty. The child had dropped her cover on the floor and the moonlight looked in at the naked little limbs. Presently she opened her eyes and looked at the moonlight that was bathing her. Em, she called to the sleeper in the other bed but received no answer. Then she drew the cover from the floor, turned her pillow and pulling the sheet over her head went to sleep again. Only in one of the art buildings had jutted from the wagon house there was someone who was not asleep. The room was dark, door and shutter were closed not a ray of light entered anywhere. The German overseer, to whom the room belonged, lay sleeping soundly on his bed in the corner, his great arms folded and his bushy gray and black beard rising and falling on his breast. But one in the room was not asleep. Two large eyes looked about in the darkness and two small hands were smoothing the patchwork quilt. The boy who slept in a box under the window had just wakened from his first sleep.  He stared about in the darkness. Nothing was visible, not even the outline of one worm-eaten rofter nor of the deal table on which lay the Bible from which his father had read before they went to bed. No one could tell where the toolbox was and where the fireplace. There was something very impressive to the child in the complete darkness. At the head of his father's bed hung a great silver hunting watch. It ticked loudly. The boy listened to it and began mechanically to count. Tick, tick, one, two, three, four. He lost count presently and only listened. Tick, tick, tick, tick. It never waited. It went on inexorably and every time it ticked a man died. He raised himself a little on his elbow and listened. He wished it would leave off. How many times had it ticked since he came to lie down a thousand times, a million times perhaps. He tried to count again and sat up to listen better. Dying, dying, dying, said the watch. Dying, dying, dying. He heard it distinctly. Where were they going to all those people? He lay down quickly and pulled the cover up over his head but presently the silky curls reappeared. Dying, dying, dying, said the watch. Dying, dying, dying. He thought of the words his father had read that evening. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in there at. Many, many, many, said the watch. Because straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. Few, few, few, said the watch. The boy lay with his eyes wide open. He saw before him a long stream of people, a great dark multitude that moved in one direction. Then they came to the edge of the world and went over. He saw them passing on before him and there was nothing that could stop them. He thought of how that stream had rolled on through all the long ages of the past. How the old Greeks and Romans had gone over. The countless millions of China and India they were going over now. Since he had come to bed how many had gone. And the watch said, eternity, eternity, eternity.  And all the while the watch kept ticking on, just like God's will that never changes or altars you may do what you please. Great beads of perspiration stood on the boy's forehead. He climbed out of bed and lay with his face turned to the mud floor. Oh, God, God save them! he cried in agony. Only some, only a few. Only for each moment I am praying here one.  God, God save them! he groveled on the floor. Oh, the long, long ages of the past in which they had gone over. Oh, the long, long future in which they would pass away. Oh, God, the long, long, long eternity which has no end. The child wept and crept closer to the ground. The sacrifice. The farm by daylight was not as the farm by moonlight. The plain was a wary flat of loose red sand that cracked beneath the tread like tinder and showed the red earth everywhere. Here and there a milk bush lifted its pale colored rods and in every direction the ants and beetles ran about in the blazing sand. The red walls of the farmhouse, the zinc roofs of the art buildings, the stone walls of the crawls all reflected the fierce sunlight till the eye ached and blenched. No tree or shrub was to be seen far or near. The two sunflowers that stood before the door, outstared by the sun, drooped their brazen faces to the sand and the little cicada-like insects cried aloud among the stones of the copy. The boar woman seen by daylight was even less lovely than when in bed she rolled and dreamed. She sat on a chair in the great front room with her feet on a wooden stove and wiped her flat face with the corner of her apron and drank coffee and in Cape Dutch swore that the beloved weather was damned.   I try, said the little one gravely, moistening her tiny finger. That is why. The overseer seen by daylight was a huge German wearing a shabby suit and with a childish habit of running his hands and nodding his head prodigiously when pleased at anything. He stood out at the crawls in the blazing sun, explaining to two Kaffer boys the approaching end of the world. The boys as they cut the cakes of dung-winked at each other and worked as slowly as they possibly could, but the German never saw it. Away beyond the copy, Waldo, his son, herded the ewes and lambs. A small and dusty herd powdered all over from head to foot with red sand, wearing a ragged coat and shoes of undressed leather through whose holes the toes looked out. His hat was too large and had sunk down to his eyes concealing completely the silky black curls. It was a curious small figure. His flock gave him a little trouble. It was too hot for them to move far. They gathered round every little milk-bush as though they hoped to find shade and stood there motionless in clumps. He himself crept under a shelving rock that lay at the foot of the copy, stretched himself on his stomach and waved his dilapidated little shoes in the air. Soon, from the blue bag where he kept his dinner, he produced a fragment of slate and arithmetic and a pencil. Proceeding to put down a sum with Solomon Ernest Amina, he began to add it up aloud. Six and two is eight, and four is twelve, and two is fourteen, and four is eighteen. Here he paused, and four is eighteen, and four is eighteen. The last was very much drawled. Slowly the pencil slipped from his fingers and the slate followed it into the sand. For a while he lay motionless, then began maturing to himself. Filled at his little arms, laid his head down upon them, and might have been asleep, but for the mattering sound that from time to time proceeded from him. A curious old you came to sniff at him, but it was long before he raised his head. When he did, he looked at the far-off hills with his heavy eyes. Ye shall receive, ye shall receive, shall shall shall, he muttered. He sat at them. Slowly the downless and heaviness melted from his face. It became radiant. Midday had come now, and the sun's rays were poured down vertically. The earth throbbed before the eye. The boy stood up quickly and cleared a small space from the bushes which covered it. Looking carefully, he found twelve small stones of somewhat the same size. Kneeling down, he arranged them carefully on the cleared space in a square pile in shape like an altar. Then he walked to the bag where his dinner was kept. In it was a mutton chop and a large slice of brown bread. The boy took them out and turned the bread over in his hand, deeply considering it. Finally he threw it away and walked to the altar with the meat and laid it down on the stones. Close by in the red sand he knelt down. Sure, never since the beginning of the world was there so ragged and so small a priest. He took off his great hat and placed it solemnly on the ground. Then closed his eyes and folded his hands. He prayed aloud, Oh God, my Father, I have made thee a sacrifice. I have only tuppence, so I cannot buy a lamb. If the lambs were mine I would give thee one. But now I have only this meat. It is my dinner meat. Please, my Father, send fire down from heaven to burn it. Thou hast said, whoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou cast into the sea, nothing doubting, it shall be done. I ask for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen. He knelt down with his face upon the ground and he folded his hands upon his curls. The fierce sun poured down its heat upon his head and upon his altar. When he looked up he knew what he should see, the glory of God. For fear his very heart stood still. His breath came heavily. He was half-suffocated. He dared not look up. Then at last he raised himself. Above him was the quiet blue sky, about him the red earth. There were the clumps of silent youths and his altar. That was all. He looked up. Nothing broke the intense stillness of the blue overhead. He looked round in astonishment. Then he bowed down again and this time longer than before. When he raised himself the second time, all was unaltered. Only the sun had melted the fat of the little mutton-chop and it ran down upon the stones. Then the third time he bowed himself. When at last he looked up some ants had come to the meat on the altar. He stood up and drove them away. Then he put his hat on his hot curls and sat in the shade. He clasped his hands about his knees. He sat to watch what would come to pass. The glory of the Lord God Almighty. He knew he should see it. My dear God is trying me, he said, and he sat there through the fierce heat of the afternoon. Still he watched and waited when the sun began to slope and when it neared the horizon and the sheep began to cast long shadows across the caroo, he still sat there. He hoped when the first rays touched the hills till the sun dipped behind them and was gone. Then he called his eyes together and broke down the altar and threw the meat far, far away into the field. He walked home behind his flock. His heart was heavy. He reasoned so. God cannot lie. I had faith. No fire came. I am like Cain. I am not his. He will not hear my prayer. God hates me. The boy's heart was heavy. When he reached the crawl gate the two girls met him. Come! said the yellow-haired him. Let us play coop. There is still time before it gets dark. You, Waldo, go and hide on the copy. Lindell and I will shut eyes here and we will not look. The girls hid their faces in the stone wall of the sheep crawl and the boy clambered halfway up the copy. He crouched down between two stones and gave the call. Just then the milkherd came walking out of the car crawl with two pails. He was an ill-looking kaffa. Ah! thought the boy.  I must pray for him. I must pray. Then he thought, where am I going to? And he prayed desperately. Ah! this is not right at all. Little M said peeping between the stones and finding him in a very curious posture. What are you doing, Waldo? It is not the play, you know. You should run out when we came to the white stone. Ah! you did not play nicely. I—I will play nicely now, said the boy, coming out and standing sheepishly before them. I—I only forgot. I will play now. He has been to sleep, said freckled M. No, said beautiful little Lindell, looking curiously at him. He's been crying. She never made a mistake. The confession. One night, two years after, the boy sat alone on the copy. He had crept softly from his father's room and come there. He often did, because when he prayed or cried aloud, his father might awaken hear him. And none knew his great sorrow, and none knew his grief but he himself, and he buried them deep in his heart. He turned up the brim of his great hat and looked at the moon, but most at the leaves of the prickly pear that grew just before him. They glinted and glinted and glinted, just like his own heart, cold, so hard, and very wicked. His physical heart had pain also.  He had sat there for half an hour, and he dared not go back to the close house. He felt horribly lonely. There was not one thing so wicked as he in all the world, and he knew it. He folded his arms and began to cry. Not aloud. He sobbed without making any sound, and his tears lift scorched mocks where they fell. He could not pray. He had prayed night and day for so many months, and to-night he could not pray.   With his swollen eyes he sat there on a flat stone at the very top of the copy, and the tree with every one of its wicked leaves blinked and blinked and blinked at him. Presently he began to cry again and then stopped his crying to look at it. He was quiet for a long while, then he knelt up slowly and bent forward. There was a secret he had carried in his heart for a year. He had not dared to look at it. He had not whispered it to himself, but for a year he had carried it.  The wind took the words away and ran away with them among the stones and threw the leaves of the prickly pear. He thought it died away halfway down the copy. He had told it now. I love Jesus Christ, but I hate God. The wind carried away that sound as it had done the first. Then he got up and buttoned his old coat about him. He knew he was certainly lost now. He did not care. If half the world were to be lost, why not he too? He would not pray for mercy any more. Better so. Better to know certainly. It was ended now. Better so. He began scrambling down the sides of the copy to go home. Better so. But oh the loneliness, the agonised pain, for that night and for nights on nights to come, the anguish that sleeps all day on the heart like a heavy worm, and wakes up at night to feed. There are some of us who in after years say to fate, now deal us your hardest blow. Give us what you will. But let us never again suffer as we suffered when we were children. The barb in the arrow of childhood suffering is this. It's intense loneliness. It's intense ignorance. End of chapter one part one. Chapter one part two of the story of an African farm by Olive Shreiner. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Sally McConnell. Plans and Bushman paintings. At last came the year of the Great Drat, the year of 1862. From end to end of the land the earth cried for water. Man and beast turned their eyes to the pitiless sky that lack the roof of some brazen oven arched overhead. On the farm day after day, month after month, the water and the dams fell lower and lower. The sheep died in the fields. The cattle scarcely able to crawl, tottered as they moved from spot to spot in search of food. Week after week, month after month, the sun looked down from the cloudless sky till the karoo bushes were leafless sticks broken into the earth and the earth itself was naked and bare and only the milk bushes like old hags pointed their shriveled fingers heavenwards, praying for the rain that never came. It was on an afternoon of a long day in that thirsty summer that on the side of the copy furthest from the homestead the two girls sat. They were somewhat grown since the days when they played hide and seek there, but they were mere children still. Their dress was of dark, coarse stuff. Their common blue pinafores reached to their ankles and on their feet they wore homemade felt-scun. They sat under a shelving rock on the surface of which were visible some old Bushman paintings, and on their feet they wore their red and black pigments having been preserved through long years from wind and rain by the overhanging ledge. Grotesque oxen, elephants, rhinoceroses and a one-horned beast such as no man ever has seen or ever shall. The girls sat with their backs to the paintings. In their laps were a few fern and ice-plant leaves, which by dint of much searching there had gathered under the rocks.  Diamonds must look as these drops do, she said, carefully bending over the leaf and crushing one crystal drop with her delicate little nail. When I, she said, am grown up I shall wear real diamonds exactly like these in my hair. Her companion opened her eyes and drinkled her low forehead. Where will you find them, Lindell? The stones are only crystals that we picked up yesterday. Old Otto says so.  The lip trembled scornfully. Oh, nurses, her companion. I suppose someday we shall go somewhere. But now we're only twelve and we cannot marry until we're seventeen. Four years, five. That's a long time to wait. And we might not have diamonds if we did marry. And you think that I'm going to stay here until then? Well, where are you going? asked her companion. The girl crushed an ice-plant leaf between her fingers. Tant Sunny is a miserable old woman. She said, Your father married her when he was dying because he thought she would take better care of the farm and of us than an English woman. He said we should be taught and sent to school. Now she saves every fathering for herself, buys us not even one old book. She does not ill-use us. Why? Because she's afraid of your father's ghost. Only this morning she told her hot-and-tot that she would have beaten you for breaking the plate, but that three nights ago she heard a rustling and a grunting behind the pantry door and knew it was your father coming to spook her. She is a miserable old woman, said the girl, throwing the leaf from her. But I intend to go to school. And if she won't let you, I shall make her. How? The child took not the slightest notice of the last question and folded her small arms across her knees. But why do you want to go, Lindell? There is nothing helps in this world, said the child slowly, but to be very wise and to know everything, to be clever. But I should not like to go to school. Persist of the small freckled face. And you do not need to. When you are seventeen this poor woman will go. You will have this farm and everything that is upon it for your own. But I, said Lindell, will have nothing. I must learn. Oh, Lindell, I'll give you some of my sheep, said him with a sudden burst of pitting generosity. I do not want your sheep, said the girl slowly. I want things of my own. When I'm grown up, she added, the flush on her delicate features deepening at every word. There will be nothing that I do not know. I shall be rich, very rich. And I shall wear not only for the best, but every day, a pure white silk and little rose buds, like the lady in Tunt Sunny's bedroom, and my petticoats will be embroidered, not only at the bottom, but all through. The lady in Tunt Sunny's bedroom was a gorgeous creature from a fashion-sheet, which the bore woman, somewhere obtaining, had pasted up at the foot of her bed, to be profoundly admired by the children. It would be very nice, said him, but it seemed a dream of quite too transcendent a glory ever to be realised. At this instant there appeared at the foot of the copy two figures, the one, a dog, white and sleek, one yellow ear hanging down over its left eye, the other his master, a lad of fourteen, and no other than the boy Waldo, grown into a heavy, slouching youth of fourteen. The dog mounted the copy quickly, his master followed slowly. He wore an aged jacket, much too large for him, and rolled up at the wrists, and, as of old, a pair of dilapidated felt-scones, and a felt hat. He stood before the two girls at last. What have you been doing today? asked Lindel, lifting her eyes to his face, looking after youths and lambs below the dam. Here, he said holding out his hand awkwardly. I brought them for you. There were a few green blades of tender grass. Where did you find them? On the dam wall. She fastened them beside the leaf on her blue pinafore. They looked nice there, said the boy awkwardly, rubbing his great hands and watching her. Yes, but the pinafore spoils it all. It's not pretty. He looked at it closely. Yes, the squares are ugly, but it looks nice upon you. Beautiful. He now stood silent before them, his great hands hanging loosely at either side. Someone has come today. He mumbled off suddenly when the idea struck him. Who? asked both girls. An Englishman on foot. What does he look like? asked him. I did not notice, but he has a very large nose, said the boy slowly. He asked the way to the house. Did he tell you his name? Yes, Bonaparte blinkens. Bonaparte, said him. Why, that is like the real hot and trot's hunts plays on the violin. Bonaparte, Bonaparte, my wife is sick in the middle of the week, but Sunday's not. I give her rice and beans for soup. It is a funny name. There was a living man called Bonaparte once, said she of the great eyes. Oh yes, I know, said him. The poor prophet whom the lions ate. I'm always so sorry for him. Her companion cast a quiet glance upon her. He was the greatest man who ever lived, she said. The man I lack best. And what did he do? asked him, conscious that she had made a mistake. And that her prophet was not the man. He was one man, only one, said her little companion slowly. Yet all the people in the world feared him. He was not born great, he was common as we are. Yet he was master of the world at last. Once he was only a little child, then he was a lieutenant, then he was a general, then he was an emperor. When he said a thing to himself he never forgot it. He waited, and waited, and waited, and it came at last. He must have been very happy, said him. I do not know, said Lindell, but he had what he said he would have, and that is better than being happy. He was their master and all the people were quite with fear of him. They joined together to fight him. He was one and there were many, and they got him down at last. They were like the wild cats when their teeth are fast in a great dog, like cowardly wild cats, said the child. They would not let him go, they were many, he was only one. They sent him to an island in the sea, a lonely island, and kept him there fast. He was one man, and they were many, and they were terrified at him. It was glorious, said the child. And what then, said him? Then he was alone there in that island with men to watch him always, said her companion slowly and quietly. And in the long, lonely nights he used to lie awake and think of the things he had done in the old days, and the things he would do if they let him go again. In the day when he walked near the shore it seemed to him that the sea all around him was a cold chain about his body, pressing him to death. And then, said him, much interested. He died there in that island, he never got away. It's rather a nice story, said him, but the end is sad. It is a terrible, hateful ending, said the little teller of the story, leaning forward on her folded arms. And the worst is it's true. I have noticed, added the child very deliberately, that it is only the made-up stories that end nicely. The true ones all end so. As she spoke, the boy's dark, heavy eyes rested on her face. You have read it, have you not? He nodded. Yes, but the brown history tells only what he did, not what he thought. It is in the brown history that I read of him, said the girl. But I know what he thought. Books do not tell everything. No, said the boy, slowly drawing nearer to her and sitting down at her feet. What you want to know they never tell. Then the children fell into silence, till Doss, the dog, growing uneasy at its long continuous, sniffed at one and the other, and his master broke forth suddenly. If they could talk, if they could tell us now, he said, moving his hand out over the surrounding objects, then we would know something. This copy, if it could tell us how it came here, the physical geography says, he went on most rapidly and confusedly, that what are dry lands now were once lakes. And what I think is this, these low hills were once the shores of a lake. This copy is some of the stones that were at the bottom rolled together by the water. But there is this. How did the water come to make one heap here alone in the centre of the plain? It was a ponderous question, no one volunteered an answer. When I was little, said the boy, I always looked at it and wondered, and I thought a great giant was buried under it. Now I know the water must have done it, but how? It is very wonderful. Did one little stone come first and stuck the others as they rolled? Said the boy, with earnestness and a low voice, more is speaking to himself than to them. Oh, Walder! God put the little copy here! said him with solemnity. But how did he put it here? By wanting! But how did the wanting bring it here? Because it did. The last words were uttered with the air of one who produces a clinching argument. What effect it had on the questioner was not evident, for he made no reply and turned away from her. Drawing closer to Lindell's feet, he said after a while in a low voice, Lindell, has it ever seemed to you that the stones were talking with you? Sometimes, he added in a yet lower turn, I lie under there with my sheep, and it seems that the stones are really speaking, speaking of the old things, of the time when the strange fishers and animals lived that are turned into stone now, and the legs were here, and then of the time when the little bushmen lived here, so small and so ugly, and used to sleep in the wild dog-holes, and in the sloots, and eat snacks, and shoot the bucks with their poisoned arrows. It was one of them, one of those wild bushmen that painted those, said the boy nodding towards the pictures, one who was different from the rest. He did not know why, but he wanted to make something, so he made these. He worked hard, very hard, to find the juice to make the paint, and then he found this place where the rocks hang over, and he painted them. To us there are only strange things that make us laugh, but to him they were very beautiful. The children had turned round and looked at the pictures. He used to kneel here naked, painting, painting, painting, and he wondered that the things he made himself, said the boy rising and moving his hand in deep excitement. Now the boars have shot them all, so that we shall never see a yellow face peeping out among the stones. He paused, a dreamy look coming over his face. And the wild bucks have gone, and those days, and we are here. But we will be gone soon, and only the stones will lie on here, looking at everything like they look now. I know that it is I who am thinking, the fellow added slowly, but it seems as though it were they who were talking. Has it ever seemed so to you, Lindell? No, it never seems so to me, she answered. The sun had dipped now below the hills, and the boy, suddenly remembering the use and lambs, started to his feet. Let us go to the hearse and see who has come, said him, as the boy shuffled away to rejoin his flock, while Doss ran at his heels, snapping at the ends of the torn trousers as they fluttered in the wind. Chapter 1 Part 3 of Story of an African Farm by Olive Shriner This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Sally McConnell. I was a stranger, and ye took me in. As the two girls rounded the side of the copy, an unusual scene presented itself. A large group was gathered at the back door of the homestead.  At her feet sat the yellow hot-and-tot maid, her satellite, and around stood the black cafe-maids, with blankets twisted round their half-naked figures. Two, who stamped meelies on the wooden block, held the great stampers in their hands, and stared stupidly at the object of attraction. It was certainly not to look at the old German overseer, who stood in the centre of the group, that they had all gathered together. His salt-and-pepper suit, grizzly black beard and grey eyes, were as familiar to everyone on the farm as the red gables of the homestead itself. But beside him stood the stranger, and on him all eyes were fixed. Ever and on the newcomer cast a glance over his pendulous red nose to the spot where the boar woman stood, and smiled faintly. I'm not a child! cried the boar woman in low-cave Dutch, and I wasn't born yesterday. No by the Lord, no. You can't take me in? My mother didn't wean me on Monday. One wink of my eye, and I see the whole thing. I'll have no tramp sleeping on my farm! cried Tunt Sunny Blowing. No by the devil! No! Not though he had sixty times six red noses! There the German overseer mildly interposed that the man was not a tramp, but a highly respectable individual whose horse had died by an accident three days before. Don't tell me! cried the boar woman. The man isn't born that can take me in. If he'd had money, wouldn't he have bought a horse? Men who walk are thieves, liars, murderers, roams, priests, seducers. I see the devil in his nose! cried Tunt Sunny, shaking her fist at him. And to come walking into the house of this worse child, and shaking hands as though he came on horseback. No, no, oh, no, no!  What does she remark, my friend? he inquired, turning his crosswise-looking eyes on the old German. Ah, well, the Dutch, you know, do not like people who walk in this country. My dear friend, said the stranger, laying his hand on the German's arm. I should have brought myself another horse. But crossing five days ago a full river, I lost my purse, a purse with five hundred pounds in it. I spent five days on the bank of the river trying to find it. Couldn't. Paid a calf of nine pounds to go in and look for it at the risk of his life. Couldn't find it. The German would have translated this information, but the boar woman gave no ear. No, no, he goes to-night. See how he looks at me! A poor, unprotected female. If he wrongs me, who's to do me right? cried Tunt Sunny. I think, said the German in an undertone, if you didn't look at her quite so much, it might be advisable. She, erm, she might imagine that you liked her too well. In fact, er, certainly, my dear friend, certainly, said the stranger, I shall not look at her.  That small son of him became instantly so terrified, that he fled to his mother's blanket for protection, howling horribly. Upon this the newcomer fixed his eyes pensively on the stamp-block, folding his hands on the head of his cane. His boots were broken, but he still had the cane of a gentleman. You vagabond, sir Englishman! said Tunt Sunny, looking straight at him. This was a near approach to plain English, but the man contemplated the block abstractedly, wholly unconscious that any antagonism was being displayed towards him. You might not be a Scotchman or anything of that kind, might you? suggested the German. It is the English that she hates. My dear friend, said the stranger, I am Irish every inch of me, father Irish, mother Irish. I am not a drop of English blood in my veins. And you might not be married, might you? persist to the German. If you had a wife and children now, Dutch people do not like those who are not married. Ah! said the stranger, looking tenderly at the block. I have a dear wife and three sweet little children, two lovely girls, and a noble boy. This information, having been conveyed to the poor woman, she, after some further conversation, appeared slightly mollified, but remained firm to her conviction that the man's designs were evil. For dear Lord! she cried. All Englishmen are ugly! But was there ever such a red rag-nosed thing with broken boots and crooked eyes before? Take him to your room! she cried to the German. But all the sonny does, I lay at your door. The German, having told him how matters were arranged, the stranger made a profound bow to Tantzani and followed his host, who led the way to his own little room. I thought she would come to her better self soon, the German said joyously. Tantzani is not wholly bad, far from it, far. Then seeing his companion caused a furtive glance at him, which he took for one of surprise, he added quickly, Oh yes, yes, we are all a primitive people here, not very lofty. We deal not in titles. Everyone is Tantzani and Urm, aunt and uncle. This may be my room, he said, opening the door. It is rough, the room is rough, not a palace, not quite, but it may be better than the fields a little better, he said, glancing round at his companion. Come in, come in. There is something to eat, a mouthful, not the fare of emperors or kings, but we do not starve here, not yet, he said, rubbing his hands together, and looking round at the pleased, half-nervous smile on his old face. My friend, my dear friend, said the stranger, seizing him by the hand, may the Lord bless you, the Lord bless you and reward you, the God of the fatherless and the stranger. But for you I would this night have slipped in the fields with the dews of heaven upon my head. Late that evening Lundl came down to the cabin with the Germans' rations. Through the tiny square window the light streamed forth, and without knocking she raised the latch and entered.  Next to the fire was a great toolbox. Beyond that the little bookshelf with its well-worn books. Beyond that in the corner a heap of filled and empty grain-bags, from the rafters hung down straps, rims, old boots, bits of harness, and a string of onions. The bed was in another corner covered by a patchwork quilt of faded red lines, and divided from the rest of the room by a blue curtain, now drawn back. On the mantel shelf was an endless assortment of little bags and stones, and on the wall hung a map of South Germany with a red line drawn through it to show where the Germans had wandered. This place was the one home the girls had known for many a year. The housework Tansani lived and ruled was a place to sleep in, to eat in, not to be happy in. It was in vain she told them they were grown too old to go there. Every morning and evening found them there. Were there not too many golden memories hanging about the old place for them to leave it? Long winter nights when they had sapped round the fire and roasted potatoes and astriddles, and the old man had told of the little German village where fifty years before a little German boy had played at snowballs, and had carried home the knitted stockings of a little girl who afterwards became Waldo's mother. Did they not seem to see the German peasant girls walking about with their wooden shoes and yellow braided hair, and the little children eating their suppers out of little wooden bowls when the good mothers called them in to have their milk and potatoes? And were there not yet bitter times than these? Moonlight nights when they romped about the door with the old man, yet more a child than any of them, and laughed till the old roof of the wagon-house rang. Or best of all, were there not warm dark starlet nights when they sat together on the doorstep, holding each other's hands, singing German hymns, their voices rising clear in the still night air, till the German would draw away his hand suddenly to whack quickly a tear the children must not see? Would they not sit looking up at the stars and talking of them, of the dear Southern Cross, red fiery Mars, a Ryan with its belt, and the seven mysterious sisters, and falters speculating over them? And how old are they? Who dwelt in them? And the old German would say that perhaps the souls we loved lived in them.  Then they would fall to deeper speculations, of the times and seasons wherein the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and the stars shall fall as a fig tree cast of her untimely figs, and there shall be time no longer, when the Son of Man shall come in all his glory and all his holy angels with him. In lower and lower tones they would talk, till at last they fell into whispers, then they would wish good night softly, and walk home, asht and quiet.  His father sat at the table, buried in the columns of a three-weeks old newspaper, and the stranger lay stretched on the bed in the corner, fast asleep, his mouth open, his great limbs stretched out loosely, but tokening much weariness. The girl put the rations down upon the table, snuffed the candle, and stood looking at the figure on the bed. Uncle Otto? She said presently laying her hand down on the newspaper, and causing the old German to look up over his glasses. How long did that man say he had been walking? Since this morning, poor fellow, a gentleman not accustomed to walking, horse-dyed poor fellow, said the German pushing out his lip and glancing commiseratingly over his spectacles, in the direction of the bed where the stranger lay with his flabby double chin and broken boots through which the flesh shone. And do you believe him, Uncle Otto? Believe him? Why, of course I do. He himself told me the story three times, distinctly. If, said the girl slowly, he had walked for only one day, his boots would not have looked so, and if, if, said the German, starting up in his chair, irritated that anyone should dart such irrefragable evidence, if, why, he told me himself. Look how he lies there, added the German pathetically. War not, poor fellow! We have something for him there, pointing with his forefinger over his shoulder to the saucepan that stood on the fire. We are not cooks, not French cooks, not quite, but it's drinkable. Drinkable, I think. Better than nothing, I think, he added nodding his head in a jockeined manner, that evinced his high estimation of the contents of the saucepan, and his profound satisfaction therein. Bish, bish, machican! he said as Lindel tapped her little foot up and down on the floor. Bish, bish, machican! You're waking! He moved the candle so that his own head might intervene between it and the sleeper's face, and smoothing his newspaper, he adjusted his spectacles to read. The child's gray black eyes rested on the figure on the bed, then turned to the German, then rested on the figure again.  Good night, Uncle Otto, she said slowly, turning to the door. Long after she had gone, the German folded his paper up methodically, and put it in his pocket. The stranger had not awakened to partake of the soup, and his son had fallen asleep on the ground. Taking two white sheepskins from the heap of sacks in the corner, the old man doubled them up, and lifting the boy's head gently from the slate on which it rested, placed the skins beneath it. Poor Lambie! Poor Lambie! he said tenderly, patting the great rough bear-like head. Tired, is he? He threw an overcoat across the boy's feet, and lifted the saucepan from the fire. There was no place where the old man could comfortably lie down himself, so he resumed his seat. Opening a much-worn Bible, he began to read, and as he read, pleasant thoughts and visions thronged on him. I was a stranger, and ye took me in, he read. He turned again to the bed for the sleeper-lead. I was a stranger. Very tenderly the old man looked at him. He saw not the bloated body nor the evil face of the man, but, as it were, under deep disguise and fleshly concealment, the form that long years of dreaming had made very real to him. Jesus! Lava! And it is given to us, weak and sinful, frail and earring, to serve thee, to take thee in. He said softly as he rose from his seat. Full of joy he began to pace the little room. Now and again, as he walked, he sang the lines of a German hymn, or muttered broken words of prayer.  It appeared to the German that Christ was very near him, and that at almost any moment the thin mist of earthly darkness that crowded his human eyes might be withdrawn, and that made manifest of which the frames at him must, beholding it said, it is the Lord. Again and yet again through the long hours of that night, as the old man walked, he looked up to the roof of his little room with its blackened rafters, and yet saw them not. His rough bearded face was illuminated with a radiant gladness, and the night was not shorter to the dreaming sleepers than to him whose waking dreams bought heaven near. So quickly the night fled, that he looked up was surprised when at four o'clock the first gray streaks of summer dawn showed themselves through the little window. Then the old man turned to wreck together the few coals that lay under the ashes, and his son turning on the sheepskins muttered sleepily to know if it were time to rise. Lie still, lie still, I would only make a fire, said the old man. Have you been up all night? asked the boy. Yes, but it has been short, very short. Sleep again, my chicken, it is yet early. And he went out to pitch more fuel. End of part one, chapter three. Chapter one, part four, of the story of an African farm by Olaf Schreiner. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Sally McConnell. Blessed is he that believeth. Burnapot Blinken sat on the side of the bed. He had wonderfully revived since the day before, held his head high, talked in a full sonorous voice, and ate greedily of all the veins offered him. At his side was a basin of soup from which he took a deep draft now and again, as he watched the fingers of the German who sat on the mud-floor before him, mending the bottom of a chair. Presently he looked out, where in the afternoon sunshine a few half-grown ostriches might be seen, wandering listlessly about. And then he looked in again at the little white-washed room, and at Lindl who sat in the doorway looking at a book. Then he raised his chin and tried to adjust an imaginary shirt collar.  You are a student of history, I perceive, my friend, from the study of these volumes that lie scattered about this apartment. This fact has been made evident to me. Well, a little. Perhaps it may be, said the German meekly. Being a student of history, then, said Burnapot, raising himself loftily. You would doubtless have heard of my great, of my celebrated kinsman, Napoleon Burnapot. Yes, yes, said the German looking up. I, sir, said Burnapot, was born at this hour on an April afternoon three and fifty years ago. The nurse, sir, she was the same who attended when the Duke of Sutherland was born, brought me to my mother. There is only one name for this child, she said. He has the nose of his great kinsman. And Sir Burnapot Blinkins became my name. Burnapot Blinkins. Yes, sir, said Burnapot. There is a stream on my maternal side that connects me with a stream on his maternal side. The German made a sound of astonishment. The connection, said Burnapot, is one which could not be easily comprehended by one unaccustomed to the study of aristocratic pedigrees. But the connection is close. Is it possible? said the German, pausing in his work with much interest and astonishment. Napoleon an Irishman. Yes, said Burnapot, on the mother's side, and that is how we are related. There wasn't a man to beat him, said Burnapot, stretching himself. Not a man, except the Duke of Wellington. And it's a strange coincidence, added Burnapot, bending forward. But he was a connection of mine. His nephew, the Duke of Wellington's nephew, married a cousin of mine. She was a woman. See her at one of the court balls, amber satin, daisies in her hair. Worth going a hundred miles to look at her. Often see her there myself, sir. The German moved the leather thongs in an art, and thought of the strange vicitudes of human life, which might bring the kinsmen of dukes and emperors to his humble room. Burnapot appeared lost among old memories. Ah, that Duke of Wellington's nephew, he broke full suddenly. Many's the joke I've had with him. Often came to visit me at Burnapot Hall. Grand place I had then, park, conservatory, servants. He had only one fault, that Duke of Wellington's nephew. Said Burnapot, observing that the German was deeply interested in every word.  You've never been in Russia, I suppose, said Burnapot, fixing his crosswise-looking eyes on the German's face. No, no, said the old man humbly. France, England, Germany, a little in this country, it's all I've travelled. I, my friend, said Burnapot, have been in every country in the world, and speak every civilised language, excepting only Dutch and German. I wrote a book of my travels, noteworthy incidents. Publisher got it, cheated me out of it. Great rascals, those publishers! Upon one occasion the Duke of Wellington's nephew and I were travelling in Russia. All of a sudden one of the horses dropped down dead as a doornail. There we were, cold night, snow four feet thick, great forest, one horse not being able to move sledge, night coming on, wolves. Spree, says the Duke of Wellington's nephew. Spree, do you call it, says I, look out! There sticking out under a bush was nothing less than the nose of a bear. The Duke of Wellington's nephew was up a tree like a shot. I stood quietly on the ground, as cool as I am at the moment, loaded my gun, and climbed up the tree. There was only one bow. Bon, said the Duke of Wellington's nephew, you'd better sit in front. All right, said I, but keep your gun ready, there are more coming. He'd got his face buried in my back. How many are there? said he. Four, said I. How many are there now? said he. Eight, said I. How many are there now? said he. Ten, said I. Ten, ten, said he, and down goes his gun. Wally, I said, what have you done? We're dead men now. Bon, my old fellow, said he. I couldn't help it, my hands trembled so. Well, I said, turning round and seizing his hands. Wally, my dear lad, goodbye.  My legs are long, they hang down. The first bear that comes in I don't hit him, off goes my foot. When he takes it, I shall give you my gun and go. You may yet be saved. But tell, oh, tell Mary Ann that I thought of her, that I prayed for her. Could pie, old fellow, said he. God bless you, said I. By this time the bears were sitting in a circle all round the tree. Yes, said Burnapart, impressively fixing his eyes on the German. A regular, exact circle. The marks of their tails were left in the snow, and I measured it afterwards. A drawing master couldn't have done it better. It was that saved me. If they'd rushed on me at once, poor Bon would never have been there to tell the story. But they came on, sir, systematically, one by one. All the rest sat on their tails and waited. The first fellow came up and I shot him. The second fellow, I shot him. The third, I shot him. At last the tenth came. He was the biggest of all, the leader, you may say. Well, I said, give me your hand. My fingers are stiff with the cold. There's only one bullet left. I shall miss him.  And live, dear friend, live to remember the man who gave his life for you. By that time the bear was at me. I felt his paw on my trousers. Oh, Bonnie! Bonnie! said the Duke of Wellington's nephew. But I just took my gun and put the muzzle to the bear's ear. Over he fell. Dead. Burnapot Blinken's waited to observe what effect his story had made.  It always affects me to relet that adventure, he remarked, returning the handkerchief to his pocket. In gratitude, base vile in gratitude, is recalled by it. That man, that man, who but for me would have perished in the pathless wiles of Russia, that man in the hour of my adversity, forsook me. The German looked up. Yes, said Burnapot. I had money. I had lands. I said to my wife, there is Africa, a struggling country. They want capital. They want men of talent. They want men of ability to open up that land. Let us go. I bought 8,000 pounds worth of machinery. Winnowing, plowing, reaping machines. I loaded a ship with them. Next steamer, I came out. Wife, children, all got to the Cape. Where is the ship with the things? Lost. Gone to the bottom. And the box with the money? Lost. Nothing saved. My wife wrote to the Duke of Wellington's nephew. I didn't wish her to. She did it without my knowledge. What did the man whose life I saved do? Did he send me 30,000 pounds? Say, Burnapot, my brother, here is a crumb. No, he sent me nothing. My wife said, Right. I said, Marianne, no. While these hands have power to work, no. While this frame has power to endure, no. Never shall it be said that Burnapot Blinken's asked of any man. The man's noble independence touched the German. Your case is hard. Yes, that is hard, said the German, shaking his head. Burnapot took another draught of the soup, leaned back against the pillars, and sighed deeply. I think, he said after a while, rousing himself, I shall now wander in the benign air and taste the gentle cool of evening. The stiffness hovers over me yet, exercise is beneficial. So saying, he adjusted his hat carefully on the bald crown of his head and moved to the door. After he had gone, the German sighed again over his work. Ah, Lord! So it is. Ah! He thought of the ingratitude of the world.  Well, not of ten, exactly, but bears do attack travellers every day. It's nothing unheard of, said the German. A man of such courage too, terrible experience that. And how do we know that the story is true, Uncle Otto? The German's eye was roused. That is what I do hate, he cried. Know what is true? How do you know that anything is true? Because you are told, sir. If we begin to question everything, proof, proof, proof, what will we have to believe left? How do you know the angel opened the prison door for Peter? Except that Peter said so. How do you know that God talked to Moses? Except that Moses wrote it. That is what I hate. The girl knit her brows. Perhaps her thoughts made a longer journey than the German dreamed of. For, Mark, you, the old dream little how their words and lives are text and studies to the generation that shall succeed them. Not what we are taught, but what we see makes us. And the child gathers the food on which the adult feeds to the end. When the German looked up next there was a look of supreme satisfaction in the little mouth and the beautiful eyes. What dost see, chicken? he asked. The child said nothing. And an agonizing shriek was born on the afternoon breeze. Oh, God! My God! I am killed! cried the voice of Burnapart, as he, with wide-open mouth and shaking flesh, fell into the room followed by a half-grown ostrich, who put its head in at the door, opened its beak at him, and went away.    Oh, my friend! he said tremulously. Eternity has looked me in the face. My life's thread hang upon a cord. The valley of the shadow of death! said Burnapart, seizing the German's arm. Dear, dear, dear! said the German, who had closed the lower half of the door and stood much concerned behind the stranger. You have had a fright. I never knew so young a bird to chase before, but they will take dislikes to certain people. I sent a boy away once because a bird would chase him. Oh, dear, dear! When I looked around, said Burnapart, the red and yawning cavity was above me and the reprehensible paw raised to strike me. My nerves! said Burnapart, suddenly growing faint. Always delicate, highly strung, or broken, broken!  The old German hurried away to the bookshelf and took from behind the books a small bottle, half of whose contents he poured into a cup. Burnapart drained it eagerly. How do you feel now? asked the German, looking at him with much sympathy. A little, slightly better. The German went out to pick up the battered chimney-pot which had fallen before the door. I am sorry you got the fright. The birds are bad things till you know them, he said sympathetically, as he put the hat down. My friend! said Burnapart, holding out his hand. I forgive you. Do not be disturbed. Whatever the consequences, I forgive you. I know. I believe it was with no ill intent you allowed me to go out. Give me your hand. I have no ill feeling. None. You are very kind, said the German, taking the extended hand and feeling suddenly convinced that he was receiving magnanimous forgiveness for some great injury. You are very kind. Don't mention it, said Burnapart. He knocked out the crown of his caved-in old hat, placed it on the table before him, leaned his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, and contemplated it. Ah! my old friend! he thus apostophised the hat. You have served me long. You have served me faithfully, but the last day has come. Nevermore shall you be born on the head of your master. Nevermore shall you protect his breath from the burning rays of summer or the cutting winds of winter. Henceforth bare-headed must go your master. Good-bye! Good-bye, old hat! At the end of this effecting appeal, the German rose, he went to the box at the foot of his bed. Out of it he took a black hat, which had evidently been seldom worn and carefully preserved. It's not exactly what you may have been accustomed to. He said nervously putting it down beside the battered chimney-pot. But it might be of some use, a protection to the head, you know. My friend! said Burnapart. You are not following my advice. You are allowing yourself to be reproached on my account. Do not make yourself unhappy. No! I shall go bare-headed. No, no, no! said the German energetically. I have no use for the hat none at all. It is shut up in the box. Then I will take it, my friend. It is a comfort to one's own mind when you have unintentionally injured any one to make reparation. I know the feeling. The hat may not be of that refined cut of which the old one was. But it will serve. Yes, it will serve. Thank you! said Burnapart, adjusting it on his head, and then replacing it on the table. I shall lie down now and take a little repose, he added. I much fear my appetite for supper will be lost. I hope not. I hope not! said the German, receding himself at his work, and looking much concerned as Burnapart stretched himself on the bed and turned the end of the patchwork quilt over his feet. You must not think to make your departure not for many days, said the German presently. Tunt Sunny gives her consent. And my friend! said Burnapart, closing his eyes sadly. You are kind. But were it not that tomorrow is the Sabbath, weak and trembling as I lie here, I would proceed on my way. I must seek work. I don't miss, but for a day is painful. Work! Labour! That is the secret of all true happiness. He doubled the pillow under his head, and watched how the German drew the leather thongs in and out. After a while, Lindel silently put her book on the shelf, and went home. And the Germans stood up, and began to mix some water and meal for roaster cakes. As he stirred them with his hands, he said, I always make a double supply on Saturday night. The hands are then free as the thoughts for Sunday. The blessed Sabbath! said Burnapart. There was a pause. Burnapart twisted his eyes without moving his head, to see if supper were already on the fire. You must surely miss the administration of the Lord's word in this desolate spot! added Burnapart. Oh, how love I thine house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth! Well, we do—yes, said the German—but we do our best. We meet together, and I—well, I say a few words, and perhaps they are not wholly lost, not quite. Strange coincidence! said Burnapart. My plan always was the same. Was in the Free State once, solitary farm, one neighbour. Every Sunday I called together friend and neighbour, child and servant, and said, Redress with me, that we may serve the Lord. And then I addressed them. Ah, those were blessed times! said Burnapart. Would they might return! The Germans stirred at the cakes, and stirred, and stirred, and stirred. He could give the stranger his bed. He could give the stranger his hat. And he could give the stranger his brandy. But his Sunday service, after a good while, he said, I might speak to Tansani. I might arrange—you might take the service in my place, if it—my friend! said Burnapart. It would give me the profoundest felicity, the most unbounded satisfaction, but in these worn-out habiliments, in these deteriorated garments, it would not be possible, it would not be fitting, that I should officiate in service of one, whom, for respect we shall not name. No, my friend, I will remain here, and while you are assembling yourselves together in the presence of the Lord, I, in my solitude, will think of and pray for you. No, I will remain here. It was a touching picture, the solitary man there praying for them. The German cleared his hands from the meal, and went to the chest from which he had taken the black hat. After a little careful feeling about, he produced a black cloth coat, trousers, and a waistcoat, which he laid on the table, smiling knowingly. They were of new shining cloth, worn twice a year, when he went to the town to Nakhmar. He looked with great pride at the coat, as he unfolded it and held it up. It is not the latest fashion, perhaps, nor a West End cut, not exactly, but it might do, it might serve at a push. Try it on. Try it on, he said, his old grey eyes twinkling with pride. Burnapot stood up and tried on the coat. It fitted admirably. The waistcoat could be made to button by ripping up the back, and the trousers were perfect, but below were the ragged boots. The German was not disconcerted. Going to the beam where a pair of top boots hung, he took them off, dusted them carefully, and put them down before Burnapot. The old eyes now fairly brimmed over with sparkling enjoyment. I've only worn them once. They might serve, they might be endured. Burnapot drew them on and stood upright, his head almost touching the beams. The German looked at him with profound admiration. It was wonderful what a difference feathers made in the bird. End of Chapter 1 Part 4 Chapter 1 Part 5 of the Story of an African Farm by Oliver Shreiner This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Sally McConnell. Sunday Services Service Number 1 The boy Waldo kissed the pages of his book and looked up. Far over the flat lay the copy, a mere speck. The sheep wandered quietly from bush to bush. The stillness of the early Sunday rested everywhere, and the air was fresh. He looked down at his book, on its page a black insect crit. He lifted it off with his finger. Then he leaned on his elbow, watching its quivering antenna and strange movements, smiling.  Even you, he loves. Even you, he will fold in his arms when he takes everything and makes it perfect and happy. When the thing had gone, he smoothed the leaves of his Bible somewhat caressingly. The leaves of that book had dropped blood for him once. The had taken the brightness out of his childhood. From between them had sprung the visions that had clung about him and made night horrible. Adelike thoughts had lifted their heads, had shot forked tongues at him, asking mockingly strange, trivial questions that he could not answer, miserable child. Why did the women in Marx he only one angel and the women in Luke two? Could a story be told in opposite ways and birth be true? Could it? Could it? Then again, is there nothing always right and nothing always wrong? Could Jail, the wife of Heber the Kenite, put her hand to the nail and her right hand to the workman's hammer? And could the spirit of the Lord chant peons over, loud peons, high peons, set in the book of the Lord and no voice cry out, it was a mean and dastardly sin to lie, and kill the trusting in their sleep? Could the friend of God marry his own sister?  Was there nothing always right or always wrong? Those leaves had dropped blood for him once, they had made his heart heavy and cold, they had robbed his childhood of his gladness, now his fingers moved over them caressingly. My father God knows, my father knows, he said. We cannot understand, he knows. After a while he whispered smiling, I heard your voice this morning when my eyes were not yet open. I felt you near me, my father. Why do you love me so? His face was illuminated. In the last four months the old question has gone from me. I know you are good, I know you love everything, I know, I know, I know. I could not have borne it any more, not any more. He laughed softly. And all the while I was so miserable you were looking at me and loving me and I never knew it. But I know it now, I feel it, said the boy, and he laughed low. I feel it, he laughed. After a while he began partly to sing, partly to chant the disconnected verses of hymns, those which spoke his gladness many times over.  At last he lapsed into quiet. Then as the boy lay there staring at the bush and sand, he saw a vision. He had crossed over the river of death and walked on the other bank in the Lord's land of Bula. His feet sank into the dark grass, and he walked alone. Then far over the fields he saw a figure coming across the dark green grass. At first he thought it must be one of the angels, but as it came nearer he began to feel what it was. And it came closer, closer to him. And then the boy said, come. And he knew surely who it was. He ran to the deer feet and touched them with his hands. Yes, he held them fast. He lay down beside them. When he looked up the face was over him, and the glorious eyes were loving him. And they too were there alone together. He laughed with a deep laugh, then started up like one suddenly awakened from sleep. Oh God, he cried. I cannot wait. I cannot wait. I want to die. I want to see him. I want to touch him. Let me die. He folded his hands trembling. How can I wait for so long, for long, long years perhaps? I want to die to see him.  Oh, let me come. Weeping he bowed himself and quivered from head to foot. After a long while he lifted his head. Yes, I will wait. I will wait. But not long. Do not let it be very long, Jesus King. I want you. Oh, I want you. Soon. Soon. He sat still, staring across the plane with his tearful eyes. Service number two. In the front room of the farmhouse, sat Tant Sunny in her elbow chair. In her hand was her great brass clasped hymn-book. Round her neck was a clean white handkerchief. Under her feet was a wooden stove. There, too, sat Emmon Lindel in clean pinafores and new shoes. There, too, was the spruce hotentot in a starched white cuppy. And her husband on the other side of the door, with his wool oiled and very much combed art. And staring at his new leather boots. The cather servants were not there, because Tant Sunny held they were descended from apes and needed no salvation. But the rest were gathered for the Sunday service and waited the officiator. Meanwhile, Bonaparte and the German approached arm in arm. Bonaparte resplendent in the black clothed clothes, a spotless shirt and a spotless collar, the German and the old salt and pepper, casting shy glances of admiration at his companion. At the front door, Bonaparte removed his hat with much dignity, raised his shirt collar, and entered. To the centre table he walked, put his hat solemnly down by the big Bible, and barred his head over it in silent prayer. The boar woman looked at the hotentot. And the hotentot looked at the boar woman. There was one thing on earth for which Tant Sunny had a profound reverence, which exercised a subduing influence over her. Which made her for the time a better woman. That thing was new, shining, black cloth. It made her think of the predicant. It made her think of the elders who sat in the top pew of the church on Sundays with the hair so nicely oiled, so holy and respectable with their little swallow-tailed coats. It made her think of heaven where everything was so holy and respectable and nobody wore tan-cord, and the littlest angel had a black tailcoat. She wished she hadn't called him a thief in a Roman Catholic. She hoped the German hadn't told him. She wondered where those clothes were when he came in rags to her door. There was no doubt he was a very respectable man, a gentleman. The German began to read to him. At the end of each line, Burnaparte groaned, and twice at the end of every verse. The boar woman had often heard of persons groaning during prayers to add a certain poignancy and finish to them. Old Jan van der Linde, her mother's brother, always did it after he was converted, and she would have looked upon it as no special sign of grace in anyone. But to groan at him time, she was startled. She wondered if he remembered that she shook her fist in his face. This was a man of God. They knelt down to pray. The boar woman weighed 250 pounds and could not kneel. She sat in her chair and peeped between her crossed fingers at the stranger's back. She could not understand what he said, but he was in earnest. He shook the chair by the back rail till it made quite a little dust on the mud floor. When they rose from their knees, Burnaparte solemnly seated himself in the chair and opened the Bible. He blew his nose, pulled up his shirt collar, smoothed the leaves, stroked down his capacious waistcoat, blew his nose again, looked solemnly round the room, then began. All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Having read this portion of Scripture, Burnaparte paused impressively and looked all around the room. I shall not, my dear friends, he said, long detain you. Much of our precious time has already fled blissfully from us in the voice of thanksgiving in the tongue of praise. A few, a very few words are all I shall address to you, and may they be as a rod of iron dividing the bones from the marrow and the marrow from the bones. In the first place, what is a liar? The question was put so pointedly and followed by a pause so profound that even the hot-and-tot man left off looking at his boots and opened his eyes, though he understood not a word. I repeat, said Burnaparte, what is a liar? The sensation was intense. The attention of the audience was riveted.  There was a still longer pause. I hope not, I truly hope not, but I will tell you what a liar is. I knew a liar once, a little boy who lived in Cape Town in Short Market Street. His mother and I sat together one day, discoursing about our souls. Here, Samson, said his mother, going by sixpence of Mibos from the Malay round the corner. When he came back she said, how much have you got? Five, he said. He was afraid if he said six and a half she'd ask for some. And my friends, that was a lie.   It went to the lake of fire and brimstone. This brings me to the second point of my discourse. What is a lake of fire and brimstone? I will tell you, my friends, said Burnaport condescendingly. The imagination, unaided, cannot conceive it. But by the help of the Lord I will put it before your mind's eye. I was travelling in Italy once on a time. I came to a city called Rome, a vast city, and near it is a mountain which spits for fire. Its name is Etna. Now there was a man in that city of Rome who had not the fear of God before his eyes. And he loved a woman. The woman died and he walked up that mountain-spitting fire. And when he got to the top he threw himself in at the hole that is there. The next day I went up. I was not afraid. The Lord preserves his servants. And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou fall into a volcano. It was a dark night when I got there. But in the fear of the Lord I walked to the edge of the yawning abyss and looked in. That sight, that sight, my friends, is impressed upon my most indelible memory. I looked down into the lurid depths upon an incandescent lake, a melted fire, a seething sea. The billows rolled from side to side, and on their fiery crests tossed the white skeleton of the suicide. The heat had burnt the flesh off the bones. They lay as a light cork upon the melted fiery waves. One skeleton hand was raised upwards, the finger pointing to heaven. The other with outstretched finger pointing downwards, as though it would say, I go below, but you, Burnapot, may soar above. I gazed. I stood entranced. At that instant there was a crack in the lurid lake. It swelled, expanded, and the skeleton of the suicide disappeared, to be seen no more by mortal eye. Here again Burnapot rested, and then continued. The lake of melted stone rose in the crater. It swelled higher and higher at the side. It streamed forth at the top. I had presence of mind. Near me was a rock I stood upon it. The fiery torrent was vomited out, and streamed on either side of me. And through that long and terrible night I stood there alone upon that rock, the glowing fiery lava on every hand, a monument of the long suffering and tender providence of the Lord, who spared me that I might this day testify in your ears of him. Now, my dear friends, let us deduce the lessons that ought to be learnt from this narrative.   Here are joys innumerable, such as it hath not entered into the heart of a man to understand, my friends. Here are clothes, my friends. Here are beds, my friends. Here is delicious food, my friends. Our precious bodies were given to us to love, to cherish. Oh, let us do so. Oh, let us never hurt them, but care for them and love them, my friends. Everyone was impressed, and Bonaparte proceeded. Secondly, let us not love too much. If that young man had not loved that young woman, he would not have jumped into Mount Etna. The good men of old never did so. Was Jeremiah ever in love, or Ezekiel, or Hosea, or even any of the minor prophets? No. Then why should we be? Thousands are rolling in that lake at this moment who would say, it was love that brought us here. Oh, let us think always of our own souls first. A charge to keep I have, a God to glorify. A never-dying soul to save, and fit it for the sky. Oh, beloved friends, remember the little boy and the meaboss. Remember the young girl and the young man. Remember the lake, the fire and the brimstone. Remember the suicide skeleton on the pitchy billows of Mount Etna. Remember the voice of warning that has this day sounded in your ears.  May the Lord add his blessing. Here the Bible closed with a tremendous thud. Tant Sunny loosened the white handkerchief about her neck and wiped her eyes, and the colored girl seeing her do so sniffled. They did not understand the discourse, which made it the more affecting. There hung over it that inscrutable charm which hovers forever for the human intellect over the incomprehensible and shadowy. When the last hymn was sung, the German conducted the officiator to Tant Sunny, who graciously extended her hand and offered coffee and seat on the sofa. Leaving him there, the German hurried away to see how the little plum pudding he had left at home was advancing. And Tant Sunny remarked that it was a hot day. Burnapart gathered her meaning as she found herself with the end of her apron. He bowed low in acquiescence. A long silence followed. Tant Sunny spoke again. Burnapart gave her no ear. His eye was fixed on a small miniature on the opposite wall, which represented Tant Sunny as she had appeared on the day before her confirmation fifteen years before, attired in green muslin. Suddenly he started to his feet, walked up to the picture, and took his stand before it. Long and wistfully he gazed into its features. It was easy to see that he was deeply moved. With a sudden movement as though no longer able to restrain himself, he seized the picture, loosened it from its nail, and held it close to his eyes. At length, turning to the ball-woman, he said in a voice of deep emotion, You will, I trust, dear madam, excuse this exhibition of my feelings, but this, this little picture, recalls to me my first and best beloved, my dear departed wife, who is now a saint in heaven. Tant Sunny could not understand, but the hot-and-tot maid, who had taken her seat on the floor beside her mistress, translated the English into Dutch as far as she was able. Ah, my first beloved, he added, looking tenderly down at the picture. Oh, the beloved, the beautiful lineaments! My angel wife, this is surely a sister of yours, madam, he added, fixing his eyes on Tant Sunny. The Dutch woman blushed, shook her head, and pointed to herself. Carefully, intently, Burnapart looked from the picture in his hand to Tant Sunny's features, and from the features back to the picture. Then slowly a light broke over his countenance. He looked up, it became a smile. He looked back at the miniature. His whole countenance was effulgent. Ah, yes, I see it now! he cried, turning his delighted gaze onto the boar woman. Eyes, mouth, nose, chin, the very expression! he cried. How is it possible I did not notice it before? Take another cup of coffee! said Tant Sunny. Put some sugar in! Burnapart hung the picture tenderly up, and was turning to take the cup from her hand when the German appeared to say that the pudding was ready and the meat on the table. He's a God-fearing man and one who knows how to behave himself, said the boar woman as he went out at the door. If he is ugly, did not the Lord make him? And are we to laugh at the Lord's handiwork? It is better to be ugly and good than pretty and bad. Though, of course, it's nice when one is both, said Tant Sunny, looking complacently at the picture on the wall. In the afternoon the German and Burnapart sat before the door of the cabin. Both smoked in complete silence. Burnapart with a book in his hands and his eyes half closed, the German puffing vigorously and glancing up now and again at the serene blue sky overhead. Supposing you, in fact, made the remark to me, burst forth the German suddenly, that you were looking for a situation, Burnapart opened his mouth wide and sent a stream of smoke through his lips.  Just supposing, of course. Well, my dear friend, said Burnapart, that would depend on circumstances. Money is no consideration with me. For my wife I have made provision for the next year. My health is broken. Could I meet a place where a gentleman would be treated as a gentleman I would accept it? However small the remuneration. With me, said Burnapart, money is no consideration. Well, said the German, when he had taken a whiff or two from his pipe. I think I shall go up and see Tansani a little.  The old man put his book into his pocket, and walked up to the farmhouse with a peculiarly knowing and delighted expression of countenance. He doesn't suspect what I'm going to do, so little requires the German. Hasn't the least idea a nice surprise for him? The man whom he had lived at his doorway winked at the retreating figure with a wink that was not to be described. End of chapter one, part five. Chapter one, part six, of the story of an African farm by Olive Shreiner. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Sally McConnell. Burnapart Blinkins makes his nest. What is the matter? asked Waldo, stopping at the foot of the ladder with a load of skins on his back that he was carrying up to the loft. Through the open door in the gable little M was visible, her feet dangling from the high bench on which she sat. The room, once a storeroom, had been divided by a row of mealy bags into two parts, the back being Burnapart's bedroom, the front his schoolroom. Lundle made him angry, said the girl tearfully, and he has given me the 14th of John to learn. He says he will teach me to behave myself when Lundle troubles him. What did she do? asked the boy. You see, he said him, hopelessly turning the leaves. Whenever he talks, she looks out at the door, as though she did not hear him. Today she asked him what the signs of the zodiac were, and he said he was surprised that she should ask him. It was not a fit and proper thing for little girls to talk about. Then she asked him who Copernicus was, and he said he was one of the emperors of Rome who burned the Christians in a golden pig, and the worms ate him up while he was still alive. I don't know why, said him plaintively, but she just put her books under her arm and walked out, and she will never come to his school again, she says, and she always does what she says. And now I must sit here every day alone, said him, the great tears dropping softly. Perhaps Tunt Sonny will send him away, said the boy, in his mumbling way, trying to comfort her. No, said M, shaking her head. No. Last night, when the little hot-and-talk maid was washing her feet, he told her he liked such feet, and that fat woman was so nice to him, and she said I must always put him pure cream in his coffee now. No, he'll never go away, said M, dollarously.  He stuck it out towards her. There, take it for you, he said. This was by way of comfort. M opened it and found a small bit of gum, a commodity prized by the children, but the great tears dropped down slowly onto it. Waldo was distressed. He had cried so much in his mortal of life that tears in another seemed to burn him. If, he said, stepping in awkwardly and standing by the table, if you will not cry, I will tell you something, a secret. What is that? asked M, 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. M opened her eyes. Yes, a machine for sheep-sharing. 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 at last. He added mysteriously. Where is it? Here. I always carry it here, said the boy, putting his hand to his breast, where a bulging art was visible. This is a model.  Show it to me! the boy shook his head. No, not till it is done. I cannot let any human being see it till then. It is a beautiful secret, said M, and the boy shuffled out to pick up his skins. That evening, father and son sat in the cabin, eating their supper. The father sighed deeply sometimes. Perhaps he thought how long a time it was since Burnapart had visited the cabin. But his son was in that land in which sighs had no part. It is a question whether it were not bitter to be the shabbiest of fools, and know the way up the little stair of imagination to the land of dreams. Then the wisest of men, who see nothing that the eyes do not show, and feel nothing that the hands do not touch. The boy chewed his brown bread and drank his coffee, but in truth he saw only his machine finished. That last something found out and added. He saw it as it worked with beautiful smoothness, and over and above, as he chewed his bread and drank his coffee, there was that delightful consciousness of something bending over him and loving him. It would not have been better in one of the courts of heaven, where all the walls are set with rows of the King of Glory's amethyst and milk-white pearls than there eating his supper in that little room. As they sat in silence there was a knock at the door.  She was a messenger from Tant Sunny. The German was wanted at once at the homestead. Putting on his hat with both hands he hurried off. The kitchen was in darkness, but in the pantry beyond, Tant Sunny and her maids were assembled. A cafe girl who had been grinding pepper between two stones knelt on the floor, the lean hotentot stood with a brass candlestick in her hand, and Tant Sunny near the shelf with a hand on each hip was evidently listening intently, as were her companions. What may it be? cried the old German in astonishment. The room beyond the pantry was the storeroom. Through the thin wooden partition there arose at that instant, evidently from some creature ensconced there, a prolonged and prodigious howl, followed by a succession of violent blows against the partition wall. The German seized the churnstick, and was about to rush round the house when the borewoman impressively laid her hand upon his arm. That is his head! said Tant Sunny. That is his head! But what might it be? asked the German, looking from one to the other, churnstick in hand. A low, hollow, bellow, prevented reply, and the voice of Burnapart lifted itself on high. Angel! my wife! Isn't it dreadful? said Tant Sunny, as the blows were repeated fiercely. He has got a letter. His wife is dead. She must go and comfort him, said Tant Sunny at last. And I will go with you. It would not be the thing for me to go alone. Me, who am only thirty-three, and he is an unmarried man now, said Tant Sunny, blushing and smoothing out her apron. Upon this they all trudged round the house in company. The hot and taut maid carrying the light, Tant Sunny and the German following, and the calf-a-girl bringing up the rare. Oh! said Tant Sunny. I see now it wasn't wickedness made him do without his wife so long. Only necessity! At the door she motioned to the German to enter and followed him closely. On the stretcher behind the sack's Burnapart lay on his face. His head pressed into her pillow, his legs kicking gently. The boar-woman sat on a box at the foot of the bed. The German stood with folded hands, looking on. We must all die, said Tant Sunny at last. It is the dear Lord's will. Hearing her voice Burnapart turned himself onto his back. It is very hard, said Tant Sunny. I know, for I have lost two husbands. Burnapart looked up into the German's face. Oh! what does she say? Spit to me words of comfort. The German repeated Tant Sunny's remark. Oh! I, I also, two dear wives whom I shall never see any more, cried Burnapart, flinging himself back upon the bed. He howled till the tarantulas who lived between the rafters and the zinc roof felt the unusual vibration and looked out with their wicked bright eyes to see what was going on. Tant Sunny sighed. The hot-and-tot made sighed. The cat-a-girl who looked in at the door put her hand over her mouth and said, Mo! You must thrust in the Lord, said Tant Sunny. He can give you more than you have lost. I do, I do, he cried. But oh! I have no wife! I have no wife! Tant Sunny was much affected and came and stood near the bed. Ask him if he won't have a little pup, nice fine flower pup. There is some boiling on the kitchen fire. The German made the proposal, but the widow awaved his hand. No, nothing shall pass my lips. I should be suffocated. No, no, speak not of food to me. Pup and a little brandy in! said Tant Sunny coaxingly. Burnapot caught the word. Perhaps, perhaps if I struggled with myself for the sake of my duties, I might imbibe a few drops, he said, looking with quivering lip into the German's face. I must do my duty, must I not? Tant Sunny gave the order and the girl went for the pup. I know how it was when my first husband died. They could do nothing with me, the boar woman said, till I had eaten a sheep's trotter and honey and a little rooster cake. I know.  Oh! she was a woman! You are very kind to try and comfort me, but she was my wife. For a woman that is my wife I could live. For the woman that is my wife I could die. For a woman that is my wife I could— Oh! that sweet-word wife! When will it rest upon my lips again? When his feelings had subsided a little, he raised the corners of his turned-down mouth, and spoke to the German with flabby lips. Do you think she understands me? Oh! tell her every word that she may know I thank her. At that instant the girl reappeared with a basin of steaming gruel and a black bottle. Tant Sunny 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 Burnapot, putting his hands to his side. Come! just a little! said Tant Sunny coaxingly. Just a drop! It's too thick! It's too thick! I should choke! Tant Sunny added from the contents of the bottle, and held out a spoonful.  Ah! this will do your heart good! said Tant Sunny, in whose mind the relative 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 Sunny with gentle tears. Tell him, said the boar woman, that I hope he will sleep well, and that the Lord will comfort him as the Lord only care.  When the door was safely shut on the German, the Hottentot and the Dutch woman, he got off the bed and washed away the soap he had rubbed on his eyelids. Bon! he said, slapping his head. You're the cutest lad I ever came across. If you don't turn out the old hymns and prayers, and pummel the ragged coat, and get your arms round the fat one's waist and a wedding ring on her finger, then you are not Burnapot. But you are Burnapot. Bon! you're a fine boy! Making with pleasing reflection, he pulled off his trousers and got into bed, cheerfully.