“What did I do? Well I jes’ sat an’ looked, an’ bymby I edged away over the randt away from the Kaffirs. Then I sot off at a run round to get to the back of the krantze where the picket had been killed.”
“You didn’t know he had been killed.”
“Well, according to all that was goin’ on he oughter bin killed, and ’t any rate I made round that way—but if you’re going to talk to me like that I’ll jes’ shut up. I’m gwine to supper now.”
Chapter Twenty Six.
End of the Scouting.
The next morning Abe was stamping mealies with a wooden pestle in a wooden mortar made from a tree trunk. It was a piece of unusual labour on his part, and I complimented him on his early industry.
“Industry be blowed—it’s my teeth! They’re worn down, and not equal to chewing hard mealies. You take pattern by me, sonny, and keep your teeth. Lor’ love yer, when I sees young boys and gals with half their teeth missin’, I’m jest thinkin’ that there’s no ignorance like that of the civilised man. Take me, or take an ord’nary raw Kaffir turned sixty, and look at his mouth. Teeth as white and soun’ as a animile’s—’cos why?—’cos he ain’t loadin’ his inside with all sorts o’ hots an’ colds, an’ sweets, and thingammies painted yeller an’ red—an’ ’cos he polishes up his grinders with a bit o’ wood and heaps o’ water. Toothache—man wasn’t born to have toothache—o’ course not; nor to have his jawbone broken with steel pincers; but there, he ain’t got sense to know when he’s well off, and so he starts undermining his teeth from the day he’s old enough to chew toffee.”
“I’ve known a Kaffir to have toothache.”