“Let them make their steam-wagons and their fire-carriages; let them go on as though the dear Lord didn’t know what he was about when He gave horses and oxen legs—the destruction of the Lord will follow them. I don’t know how such people read their Bibles. When do we hear of Moses or Noah riding in a railway? The Lord sent fire-carriages out of heaven in those days: there’s no chance of His sending them for us if we go on in this way,” said Tant Sannie sorrowfully, thinking of the splendid chance which this generation had lost.
Arrived at the soap-pot she looked over into it thoughtfully.
“Depend upon it you’ll get the itch, or some other disease; the blessing of the Lord’ll never rest upon it,” said the Boer-woman. Then suddenly she broke forth. “And she eighty-two, and goats, and rams, and eight thousand morgen, and the rams real angora, and two thousand sheep, and a short-horn bull,” said Tant Sannie, standing upright and planting a hand on each hip.
Em looked at her in silent wonder. Had connubial bliss and the joys of motherhood really turned the old Boer-woman’s head?
“Yes,” said Tant Sannie; “I had almost forgotten to tell you. By the Lord if I had him here! We were walking to church last Sacrament Sunday, Piet and I. Close in front of us with old Tant Trana, with dropsy and cancer, and can’t live eight months. Walking by her was something with its hands under its coat-tails, flap, flap, flap; and its chin in the air, and a stick-up collar, and the black hat on the very back of the head. I knew him! ‘Who’s that?’ I asked. ‘The rich Englishman that Tant Trana married last week.’ ‘Rich Englishman! I’ll rich Englishman him,’ I said; ‘I’ll tell Tant Trana a thing or two. My fingers were just in his little white curls. If it hadn’t been the blessed Sacrament, he wouldn’t have walked so sourka, sourka, sourka, any more. But I thought. Wait till I’ve had it, and then—. But he, sly fox, son of Satan, seed of the Amalekite, he saw me looking at him in the church.
“The blessed Sacrament wasn’t half over when he takes Tant Trana by the arm, and out they go. I clap my baby down to its father, and I go after them. But,” said Tant Sannie, regretfully, “I couldn’t get up to them; I am too fat. When I got to the corner he was pulling Tant Trana up into the cart. ‘Tant Trana,’ I said, ‘you’ve married a Kaffer’s dog, a Hottentot’s brakje.’ I hadn’t any more breath. He winked at me; he winked at ME,” said Tant Sannie, her sides shaking with indignation, “first with one eye, and then with the other, and then drove away. Child of the Amalekite!” said Tant Sannie, “if it hadn’t been the blessed Sacrament. Lord, Lord, Lord!”
Here the little Bush-girl came running to say that the horses would stand no longer, and still breathing out vengeance against her old adversary she laboured toward the cart. Shaking hands and affectionately kissing Em, she was with some difficulty drawn up. Then slowly the cart rolled away, the good Boer-woman putting her head out between the sails to smile and nod.
Em stood watching it for a time, then as the sun dazzled her eyes she turned away. There was no use in going to sit with Gregory! he liked best sitting there alone, staring across the the green karoo; and till the maid had done churning there was nothing to do; so Em walked away to the wagon-house, and climbed on to the end of Waldo’s table, and sat there, swinging one little foot slowly to and fro, while the wooden curls from the plane heaped themselves up against her black print dress.
“Waldo,” she said at last, “Gregory has given me the money he got for the wagon and oxen, and I have fifty pounds besides that once belonged to some one. I know what they would have liked to have done with it. You must take it and go to some place and study for a year or two.”
“No, little one, I will not take it,” he said, as he planed slowly away; “the time was when I would have been very grateful to any one who would have given me a little money, a little help, a little power of gaining knowledge. But now, I have gone so far alone I may go on to the end. I don’t want it, little one.”