“Pa,—it is Aunt Emerencia’s wagon; she is sure to be coming for some more medicine for her benaudheid.”
Aunt Emerencia descended from the wagon through the back opening of the tent by means of a short and strongly built ladder and, leaning heavily on a stick, approached the “hartebeeste” house. She was a stout woman with a very pale face, the flesh of which seemed loose and flabby. Jacomina felt the strongest animosity towards the visitor, who was a widow and was suspected of harbouring matrimonial designs upon Uncle Diederick.
After a friendly but breathless greeting Aunt Emerencia sat down on a stool and, being fatigued and warm from the exertion of walking up the slope from the wagon, pulled off her cappie and began fanning herself with it. After a few minutes Uncle Diederick came forward briskly. He sat down, asked Jacomina to go and brew some coffee, and then, in his most sprightly manner, began talking to and complimenting his visitor.
“No, no,—Uncle,” she replied, deprecatingly, to some flattering remarks on his part,—“Although I may be looking well, I am very, very sick. Being on my way to Brother Sarel’s I thought I would outspan here and get some medicine.”
“That’s right—I am glad to see you, even though you are not well.—But a cup of coffee will do you good.”
“Yes,—I will be glad to drink a cup, Uncle. I have brought you a couple of pumpkins which you will be glad to have; they are from some new seed which Jan Niekerk got from Stellenbosch last year.”
Jacomina, afraid to leave her father for long alone with the suspected siren, kept darting in and out between the stages of the coffee-making.
“Jacomina, my child,” she said in a wheezy aside, “call to the schepsel and tell him to bring in two of the biggest pumpkins.” Then she turned to Uncle Diederick:
“Uncle, I am sick, very sick. After I eat my heart goes just like an old churn—and I dream—Alle Wereld, how I dream. Last night I dreamt that Nimrod built the Tower of Babel on my chest.”
Just then a small Hottentot came staggering in with two immense pumpkins, which he laid on the floor; then he went and stood just outside the door. Uncle Diederick cast a careless eye upon them, smiled almost imperceptibly, and then began very deliberately, to light his pipe.