"Oh, sis, ma! I hate those old boots, they hurt me—" expostulated Alice.
"Nonsense, how can they hurt you? You keep your new ones for Pretoria, anything'll do on the veldt. Now you all see where I'm putting the comb—and this beaker we'll keep up in your corner, Minnie, so we don't have to go to the locker every time we're thirsty. I hope that boy will hang the fykie where we can reach it. Begin to take your boots off, Johnny. I'm not going to have you in here treading on my quilt with those boots; no one is to get in until they're carl-foot."
"I'll get deviljies (thorns) in my feet if I take them off out here," says Johnny. "Can't I sit on the edge of the bed?"
"All right then, but keep your feet out. Minnie, take off that good ribbon and tie your hair with this piece of tape," etc.
Eventually they were all in the tent, lying in a row crossways, the mother by the opening as a sort of barricade. They did not undress—only loosened their clothes.
Everyone wanted to lie across the opening. They couldn't see anything at the back of the tent, they complained; only had to lie and stare at the things bobbing overhead.
"You never mind that," said the mother, arguing. "You've got three or four weeks to see the veldt and the oxen in. I'm going to lie here so that I can keep you children from falling out while we're trekking. Why I knew a woman once who let her baby lie on the outside, and in the middle of the night she woke up and heard an awful crunching under the wheels, and when she felt for the baby it wasn't there!" This story caused a great sensation, but presently Johnny asked how the baby's bones could crunch under the wheels "if it fell out behind the wagon!"
The mother considered for a moment, then said:
"It was the wheels of the wagon behind, of course, dom-kop."
But Johnny pointed out that a whole span of oxen would come before the wheels of the next wagon, and that the baby would be all trodden to bits before the wheels reached it.