“Tchirk? Tchirk?” Dube answered, snuggling beside her. The warmth of his body next to her shoulder soothed Nomusa into a sleep from which she did not waken until she heard loud calls of “Come! Come! Time to go back to our kraals. Hurry, we are going!”
The sun was just rising above the horizon. The sky was lined with rose and deep blue, but the early morning air was cool, and the waiting children jumped about to keep warm. Pink and red flowers dotted the fields a short distance away, and a few birds were beginning to twitter.
The older boys straggled back into their groups exhausted and irritable because they had not slept all night. But they were aroused into curiosity by cries of “Did you hear? Don’t you know?”
“What? What? Tell us,” they demanded eagerly.
“Nomusa and her wild boar. She hit it with a spear. You can see it over there—behind the cattle kraal.”
Those who had not yet seen the dead boar ran off at once, to return full of astonishment. They all agreed Nomusa was as good as any boy. Sisiwe had to admit that it was lucky for all of them that Nomusa liked shooting and hunting.
Nomusa was surrounded by the girls in her group, who gazed upon her with pride and envy. What a lot she would have to tell Themba! She could hardly wait to see his face when she showed him the monkey. She knew he would ask her to tell him the story of the boar over and over again.
There was a loud whistle. The children fell into lines, waving good-by to Damasi and his brothers and sisters and cousins. Tired and bedraggled, the children marched off. Some pushed each other ill-humoredly and quarreled on the way home, but finally they reached their kraals in time to begin their various duties—the boys going off to the pasture, the girls to their tasks. The boys hoped to make up their lack of sleep while tending the cows; but the girls knew they would have to wait until evening before they slept again. As soon as Nomusa entered her kraal with her brothers and sisters, she went directly to her hut to start her work.
In a few moments Nomusa was out of the hut again, headed for the stream with Dube perched on the empty water jar that rested on her hip. She fairly danced along the path as she looked at Dube and thought, “Never will my trips for water be tiresome again.” She tweaked his ear gently, and Dube looked up at her and said, “Tchirk, tchirk.”
