Poppy dried her basin out with the fadook, wiped the table dry, and put the bowl upside down upon it. Then she went into the yard again and approached an old pail which stood in the forage-house. It was full of an atrocious mess, slimy and thick, giving out a pungent odour that made her nose wrinkle in disgust. Nevertheless she took it up and carried it down to old Sara to get some soapy water. The old Basuto in her red kop-dook, rolled the whites of her eyes sympathetically and muttered in her native tongue as she watched Poppy stir the green slime with a stick. She was sorry for the child. She knew it was Kaffir's work to smear floors. Black hands are hard, and the little thorns and stones to be found in the wet cow-dung do not hurt them; neither does the pungent smell disgust black noses.
"But the old missis had strange ways! Clk! It seemed she liked the klein-missis to do Kaffir's work!" Old Sara shrugged her fat, wobbly shoulders, and flopped over her wash-tub once more.
Poppy went back to the kitchen. She had swept it just before dinner, now she sprinkled it heavily with water, then kneeling down on a folded sack beside the bucket, she rolled up her sleeves, closed her eyes, and plunged her hands into the sickening mess. Quickly she withdrew them, flinging two handfuls on to the floor and began to smear it with the flat of her right hand.
Kitchens and verandahs (or stoeps) in old-fashioned South African houses always have what are called "mud floors," which means that they are just mother-earth with all the stones picked out and the surface kept smooth and level by constant smearing in or pasting on of wet cow-dung once or twice a week. Smearing is a disgusting business, but joy comes after. When freshly dry the floor looks cool and green and fresh, and no longer does the mis smell vilely; rather, there is a soft odour of grasses and flowers, as though some stray veldt wind had blown through the room.
But Poppy had no time to enjoy the result of her labour. After she had spread sacks upon the floor to prevent feet from marking her work until it was dry, she stopped for a moment to dig out a thorn from her thumb with a needle, but immediately her aunt's menacing voice could be heard from the front stoep, where now she sat drinking her after-dinner cup of coffee with her husband, admonishing the slowness of Poppy's proceedings, and demanding that she should "makaste."
Poppy ran into the bedroom which she shared with her two elder cousins, and cleaned herself of all traces of her recent occupation. Later she appeared on the front stoep, in a print pinafore over her grey linsey dress, and an old straw hat much bitten at the edges shading her pale fierce little face.
"My word, that child looks more like an Irish Fenian every day!" was her aunt's agreeable greeting.
Weak, good-looking "Uncle Bob," who was really no more than a second cousin of Poppy's, laughed in a deprecating kind of way. He was cutting a twist of tobacco from a great roll that hung drying from the stoep roof.
"Och, you're always going on at the girl, Lena!"
"And good cause I have," retorted Mrs. Kennedy. "Stand still, Ina, while I tie your cappie."