The Story of an African Farm

  Chapter 1.XI. He Snaps.

  "I have found something in the loft," said Em to Waldo, who waslistlessly piling cakes of fuel on the kraal wall, a week after. "It isa box of books that belonged to my father. We thought Tant Sannie hadburnt them."

  The boy put down the cake he was raising and looked at her.

  "I don't think they are very nice, not stories," she added, "but you cango and take any you like."

  So saying, she took up the plate in which she had brought his breakfast,and walked off to the house.

  After that the boy worked quickly. The pile of fuel Bonaparte hadordered him to pack was on the wall in half an hour. He then went tothrow salt on the skins laid out to dry. Finding the pot empty, he wentto the loft to refill it.

  Bonaparte Blenkins, whose door opened at the foot of the ladder, saw theboy go up, and stood in the doorway waiting for his return. He wantedhis boots blacked. Doss, finding he could not follow his master up theround bars, sat patiently at the foot of the ladder. Presently he lookedup longingly, but no one appeared. Then Bonaparte looked up also, andbegan to call; but there was no answer. What could the boy be doing? Theloft was an unknown land to Bonaparte. He had often wondered what wasup there; he liked to know what was in all locked-up places andout-of-the-way corners, but he was afraid to climb the ladder. SoBonaparte looked up, and in the name of all that was tantalizing,questioned what the boy did up there. The loft was used only as alumber-room. What could the fellow find up there to keep him so long?

  Could the Boer-woman have beheld Waldo at that instant, any lingeringdoubt which might have remained in her mind as to the boy's insanitywould instantly have vanished. For, having filled the salt-pot, heproceeded to look for the box of books among the rubbish that filled theloft. Under a pile of sacks he found it--a rough packing-case, nailedup, but with one loose plank. He lifted that, and saw the even backs ofa row of books. He knelt down before the box, and ran his hand along itsrough edges, as if to assure himself of its existence. He stuck his handin among the books, and pulled out two. He felt them, thrust his fingersin among the leaves, and crumpled them a little, as a lover feels thehair of his mistress. The fellow gloated over his treasure. He had hada dozen books in the course of his life; now here was a mine of themopened at his feet. After a while he began to read the titles, and nowand again opened a book and read a sentence; but he was too excited tocatch the meanings distinctly. At last he came to a dull, brown volume.He read the name, opened it in the centre, and where he opened beganto read. It was a chapter on property that he fell upon--Communism,Fourierism, St. Simonism, in a work on Political Economy. He read downone page and turned over to the next; he read down that without changinghis posture by an inch; he read the next, and the next, kneeling up allthe while with the book in his hand, and his lips parted.

  All he read he did not fully understand; the thoughts were new to him;but this was the fellow's startled joy in the book--the thoughts werehis, they belonged to him. He had never thought them before, but theywere his.

  He laughed silently and internally, with the still intensity oftriumphant joy.

  So, then, all thinking creatures did not send up the one cry--"As thou,dear Lord, has created things in the beginning, so are they now, soought they to be, so will they be, world without end; and it doesn'tconcern us what they are. Amen." There were men to whom not only kopjesand stones were calling out imperatively, "What are we, and how camewe here? Understand us, and know us;" but to whom even the old, oldrelations between man and man, and the customs of the ages called, andcould not be made still and forgotten.

  The boy's heavy body quivered with excitement. So he was not alone, notalone. He could not quite have told any one why he was so glad, andthis warmth had come to him. His cheeks were burning. No wonder thatBonaparte called in vain, and Doss put his paws on the ladder, andwhined till three-quarters of an hour had passed. At last the boy putthe book in his breast and buttoned it tightly to him. He took up thesalt pot, and went to the top of the ladder. Bonaparte, with his handsfolded under his coat-tails, looked up when he appeared, and accostedhim.

  "You've been rather a long time up there, my lad," he said, as theboy descended with a tremulous haste, most unlike his ordinary slowmovements. "You didn't hear me calling, I suppose?"

  Bonaparte whisked the tails of his coat up and down as he looked at him.He, Bonaparte Blenkins, had eyes which were very far-seeing. He lookedat the pot. It was rather a small pot to have taken three-quarters ofan hour in the filling. He looked at the face. It was flushed. And yet,Tant Sannie kept no wine--he had not been drinking; his eyes werewide open and bright--he had not been sleeping; there was no girl upthere--he had not been making love. Bonaparte looked at him sagaciously.What would account for the marvellous change in the boy coming down theladder from the boy going up the ladder? One thing there was. Did notTant Sannie keep in the loft bultongs, and nice smoked sausages? Theremust be something nice to eat up there! Aha! that was it!

  Bonaparte was so interested in carrying out this chain of inductivereasoning that he quite forgot to have his boots blacked.

  He watched the boy shuffle off with the salt-pot under his arm; thenhe stood in his doorway and raised his eyes to the quiet blue sky, andaudibly propounded this riddle to himself:

  "What is the connection between the naked back of a certain boy with agreatcoat on and a salt-pot under his arm, and the tip of a horsewhip?Answer: No connection at present, but there will be soon."

  Bonaparte was so pleased with this sally of his wit that he chuckled alittle and went to lie down on his bed.

  There was bread-baking that afternoon, and there was a fire lightedin the brick oven behind the house, and Tant Sannie had left the greatwooden-elbowed chair in which she passed her life, and waddled out tolook at it. Not far off was Waldo, who, having thrown a pail of foodinto the pigsty, now leaned over the sod wall looking at the pigs. Halfof the sty was dry, but the lower half was a pool of mud, on the edge ofwhich the mother sow lay with closed eyes, her ten little ones sucking;the father pig, knee-deep in the mud, stood running his snout into arotten pumpkin and wriggling his curled tail.

  Waldo wondered dreamily as he stared why they were pleasant to look at.Taken singly they were not beautiful; taken together they were. Wasit not because there was a certain harmony about them? The old sow wassuited to the little pigs, and the little pigs to their mother, theold boar to the rotten pumpkin, and all to the mud. They suggested thethought of nothing that should be added, of nothing that should betaken away. And, he wondered on vaguely, was not that the secret of allbeauty, that you who look on-- So he stood dreaming, and leaned furtherand further over the sod wall, and looked at the pigs.

  All this time Bonaparte Blenkins was sloping down from the house in anaimless sort of way; but he kept one eye fixed on the pigsty, and eachgyration brought him nearer to it. Waldo stood like a thing asleep whenBonaparte came close up to him.

  In old days, when a small boy, playing in an Irish street-gutter, he,Bonaparte, had been familiarly known among his comrades under the titleof Tripping Ben; this, from the rare ease and dexterity with which,by merely projecting his foot, he could precipitate any unfortunatecompanion on to the crown of his head. Years had elapsed, and TrippingBen had become Bonaparte; but the old gift was in him still. He cameclose to the pigsty. All the defunct memories of his boyhood returned onhim in a flood, as, with an adroit movement, he inserted his leg betweenWaldo and the wall and sent him over into the pigsty.

  The little pigs were startled at the strange intruder, and ran behindtheir mother, who sniffed at him. Tant Sannie smote her hands togetherand laughed; but Bonaparte was far from joining her. Lost in reverie, hegazed at the distant horizon.

  The sudden reversal of head and feet had thrown out the volume thatWaldo carried in his breast. Bonaparte picked it up and began to inspectit, as the boy climbed slowly over the wall. He would have walked offsullenly, but he wanted his book, and he waited until it should be givenhim.

  "H
a!" said Bonaparte, raising his eyes from the leaves of the book whichhe was examining, "I hope your coat has not been injured; it is of anelegant cut. An heirloom, I presume, from your paternal grandfather? Itlooks nice now."

  "Oh, Lord! oh! Lord!" cried Tant Sannie, laughing and holding her sides;"how the child looks--as though he thought the mud would never wash off.Oh, Lord, I shall die! You, Bonaparte, are the funniest man I ever saw."

  Bonaparte Blenkins was now carefully inspecting the volume he had pickedup. Among the subjects on which the darkness of his understanding hadbeen enlightened during his youth, Political Economy had not been one.He was not, therefore, very clear as to what the nature of the bookmight be; and as the name of the writer, J.S. Mill, might, for anythinghe knew to the contrary, have belonged to a venerable member of theBritish and Foreign Bible Society, it by no means threw light upon thequestion. He was not in any way sure that Political Economy had nothingto do with the cheapest way of procuring clothing for the army and navy,which would be certainly both a political and economical subject.

  But Bonaparte soon came to a conclusion as to the nature of the bookand its contents, by the application of a simple rule now largelyacted upon, but which, becoming universal, would save much thought andvaluable time. It is of marvellous simplicity, of infinite utility, ofuniversal applicability. It may easily be committed to memory and runsthus:

  Whenever you come into contact with any book, person, or opinion ofwhich you absolutely comprehend nothing, declare that book, person oropinion to be immoral. Bespatter it, vituperate against it, stronglyinsist that any man or woman harbouring it is a fool or a knave, orboth. Carefully abstain from studying it. Do all that in you lies toannihilate that book, person, or opinion.

  Acting on this rule, so wide in its comprehensiveness, so beautifullysimple in its working, Bonaparte approached Tant Sannie with the book inhis hand. Waldo came a step nearer, eyeing it like a dog whose young hasfallen into evil hands.

  "This book," said Bonaparte, "is not a fit and proper study for a youngand immature mind."

  Tant Sannie did not understand a word, and said:

  "What?"

  "This book," said Bonaparte, bringing down his finger with energy on thecover, "this book is sleg, sleg, Davel, Davel!"

  Tant Sannie perceived from the gravity of his countenance that it was nolaughing matter. From the words "sleg" and "Davel" she understood thatthe book was evil, and had some connection with the prince who pulls thewires of evil over the whole earth.

  "Where did you get this book?" she asked, turning her twinkling littleeyes on Waldo. "I wish that my legs may be as thin as an Englishman's ifit isn't one of your father's. He had more sins than all the Kaffers inKafferland, for all that he pretended to be so good all those years, andto live without a wife because he was thinking of the one that was dead!As though ten dead wives could make up for one fat one with arms andlegs!" cried Tant Sannie, snorting.

  "It was not my father's book," said the boy savagely. "I got it fromyour loft."

  "My loft! my book! How dare you?" cried Tant Sannie.

  "It was Em's father's. She gave it me," he muttered more sullenly.

  "Give it here. What is the name of it? What is it about?" she asked,putting her finger upon the title.

  Bonaparte understood.

  "Political Economy," he said slowly.

  "Dear Lord!" said Tant Sannie, "cannot one hear from the very soundwhat an ungodly book it is! One can hardly say the name. Haven't we gotcurses enough on this farm?" cried Tant Sannie, eloquently; "my bestimported Merino ram dying of nobody knows what, and the short-horn cowcasting her two calves, and the sheep eaten up with the scab and thedrought? And is this a time to bring ungodly things about the place, tocall down the vengeance of Almighty God to punish us more? Didn't theminister tell me when I was confirmed not to read any book except myBible and hymn-book, that the devil was in all the rest? And I neverhave read any other book," said Tant Sannie with virtuous energy, "and Inever will!"

  Waldo saw that the fate of his book was sealed, and turned sullenly onhis heel.

  "So you will not stay to hear what I say!" cried Tant Sannie. "There,take your Polity-gollity-gominy, your devil's book!" she cried, flingingthe book at his head with much energy.

  It merely touched his forehead on one side and fell to the ground.

  "Go on," she cried; "I know you are going to talk to yourself. Peoplewho talk to themselves always talk to the devil. Go and tell him allabout it. Go, go! run!" cried Tant Sannie.

  But the boy neither quickened nor slackened his pace, and passedsullenly round the back of the wagon-house.

  Books have been thrown at other heads before and since that summerafternoon, by hands more white and delicate than those of theBoer-woman; but whether the result of the process has been in any casewholly satisfactory, may be questioned. We love that with a peculiartenderness, we treasure it with a peculiar care, it has for us quitea fictitious value, for which we have suffered. If we may not carry itanywhere else we will carry it in our hearts, and always to the end.

  Bonaparte Blenkins went to pick up the volume, now loosened from itscover, while Tant Sannie pushed the stumps of wood further into theoven. Bonaparte came close to her, tapped the book knowingly, nodded,and looked at the fire. Tant Sannie comprehended, and, taking the volumefrom his hand, threw it into the back of the oven. It lay upon the heapof coals, smoked, flared, and blazed, and the "Political Economy" was nomore--gone out of existence, like many another poor heretic of flesh andblood.

  Bonaparte grinned, and to watch the process brought his face so nearthe oven door that the white hair on his eyebrows got singed. He theninquired if there were any more in the loft.

  Learning that there were, he made signs indicative of taking up armfulsand flinging them into the fire. But Tant Sannie was dubious. Thedeceased Englishman had left all his personal effects specially to hischild. It was all very well for Bonaparte to talk of burning the books.He had had his hair spiritually pulled, and she had no wish to repeathis experience.

  She shook her head. Bonaparte was displeased. But then a happy thoughtoccurred to him. He suggested that the key of the loft should henceforthbe put into his own safe care and keeping--no one gaining possession ofit without his permission. To this Tant Sannie readily assented, and thetwo walked lovingly to the house to look for it.