The Little Karoo/Chapter 2
II: The Schoolmaster
BECAUSE of a weakness of the chest which my grandmother thought that she alone could cure, I went often, as a young girl, to my grandparents' farm of Nooitgedacht in the Ghamka valley. At Nooitgedacht, where my grandparents lived together for more than forty years, my grandmother had always young people about her—young boys and girls, and little children who clung to her skirts or were tossed up into the air and caught again by my grandfather. There was not one of their children or their grandchildren that did not love grandfather and grandmother Delport, and when aunt Betje died it seemed but right to us all that her orphans, little Neeltje and Frikkie and Hans, Koos and Martinus and Piet, should come to Nooitgedacht to live. My grandmother was then about sixty years old. She was a big stout woman, but as is sometimes the way with women who are stout, she moved very easily and lightly upon her feet. I had seen once a ship come sailing into Zandtbaai harbour, and grandmother walking, in her full wide skirts with aunt Betje's children bobbing like little boats around her, would make me often think of it. This big, wise, and gentle woman, with love in her heart for all the world, saw in everything that befell us the will of the Lord. And when, three weeks after aunt Betje's children had come to us, there came one night, from God knows where, a stranger asking for shelter out of the storm, my grandmother knew that the Lord had sent him.
The stranger, who, when my grandmother brought him into the living-room, gave the name of Jan Boetje, was a small dark man with a little pointed beard that looked as if it did not yet belong to him. His cheeks were thin and white, and so also were his hands. He seldom raised his eyes except when he spoke, and when he did so it was as if I saw before me the Widow of Nain's son, risen from the dead, out of my grandmother's Bible. Yes, as if from the dead did Jan Boetje come to us that night, and yet it was food that I thought of at once. And quickly I ran and made coffee and put it before him.
When Jan Boetje had eaten and drunk my grandparents knew all that they were ever to know about him. He was a Hollander, and had but lately come to South Africa. He had neither relative nor friend in the colony. And he was on his way up-country on foot to the goldfields.
For a little while after Jan Boetje spoke of the goldfields my grandmother sat in silence. But presently she said:
"Mijnheer! I that am old have never yet seen a happy man that went digging for gold, or a man that was happy when he had found it. Surely it is sin and sorrow that drives men to it, and sin and sorrow that comes to them from it. Look now! Stay with us here on the farm, teaching school to my grandchildren, the orphans of my daughter Lijsbeth, and it may be that so you will find peace."
Jan Boetje answered her: "If Mevrouw is right, and sin and sorrow have driven me to her country for gold, am I a man to be trusted with her grandchildren?"
My grandmother cried, in her soft clear voice that was so full of love and pity, "Is there a sin that cannot be forgiven? And a sorrow that cannot be shared?"
Jan Boetje answered: "My sorrow I cannot share. And my sin I myself can never forgive."
And again my grandmother said: “Mijnheer! What lies in a man's heart is known only to God and himself. Do now as seems right to you, but surely if you will stay with us I will trust my grandchildren to you and know that the Lord has sent you."
For a long, long time, as it seemed to me, Jan Boetje sat before us and said no word. I could not breathe, and yet it was as if all the world must hear my breathing. Aunt Betje's children were long ago in bed, and only my grandparents and I sat there beside him. Long, long, we waited. And when at last Jan Boetje said: "I will stay," it was as if he had heard how I cried to the Lord to help him.
So it was that Jan Boetje stayed with us on the farm, and taught school to aunt Betje's children. His schoolroom was the old waggon-house (grandfather had long ago built a new one) and here my grandmother and I put a table and stools for Jan Boetje and his scholars. The waggon-house had no window, and to get light Jan Boetje and the children sat close to the open half-door. From the door one looked out to the orange-grove, where all my grandmother's children, and many of her grandchildren also, had been christened. Beyond and above the orange-trees rose the peaks of the great Zwartkops mountains, so black in summer, and so white when snow lay upon them in winter. Through the mountains, far to the head of the valley, ran the Ghamka pass by which men travelled up-country when they went looking for gold. The Ghamka river came down through this pass and watered all the farms in the valley. Coming down from the mountains to Nooitgedacht men crossed it by the Rooikranz drift.
Inside the waggon-house my grandfather stored his great brandy-casks and his tobacco, his pumpkins and his mealies, his ploughs and his spades, his whips and his harness, and all such things as are needed at times about a farm. From the beams of the loft also there hung the great hides that he used for his harness and his veldschoen. Jan Boetje's schoolroom smelt always of tobacco and brandy and hides, and when the mud floor, close by the door, was freshly smeared with mist it smelt of bullock's blood and cow-dung as well.
We had, when Jan Boetje came to us, no books on the farm but our Bibles and such old lesson books as my aunts and uncles had thought not good enough to take away with them when they married. Aunt Betje's children had the Bible for their reading-book, and one of my grandfather's hides for a blackboard. On this hide, with blue clay from the river bed, Jan Boetje taught the little ones their letters and the bigger ones their sums. Geography also he taught them, but it was such a geography as had never before been taught in the Platkops district. Yes, surely the world could never be so wonderful and strange as Jan Boetje made it to us (for I also went to his geography class), in my grandfather's waggon-house. And always when he spoke of the cities and the wonders that he had seen I would think how bitter must be the sorrow, and how great the sin, that had driven him from them to us. And when, as it sometimes happened, he would ask me afterwards: "What shall we take for our reading-lesson, Engela?" I would choose the fourteenth chapter of Chronicles or the eighth chapter of Kings.
Jan Boetje asked me one day: "What makes you choose the Prayer in the Temple, Engela?"
And I, that did not know how close to love had come my pity, answered him: “Because, Mijnheer, King Solomon who cries, 'Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling-place, and when thou hearest forgive,' prays also for the stranger from a far country."
From that day Jan Boetje, who was kind and gentle with his scholars, was kind and gentle also with me. Many times now I found his eyes resting upon me, and when sometimes he came and sat quietly by my side as I sewed, there would come a wild beating at my heart that was joy and pain together. Except to his scholars he had spoken to no one on the farm unless he first were spoken to. But now he spoke also to me, and when I went out in the veld with little Neeltje and her brothers, looking for all such things as are so wonderful to a child, Jan Boetje would come with us. And it was now that I taught Jan Boetje which berries he might eat and which would surely kill him, which leaves and bushes would cure a man of many sicknesses, and which roots and bulbs would quench his thirst. Many such simple things I taught him in the veld, and many, many times afterwards I thanked God that I had done so. Yes, all that my love was ever to do for Jan Boetje was but to guide him so in the wilderness.
When Jan Boetje had been with us six months and more, it came to be little Neeltje's birthday. My grandmother had made it a holiday for the children, and Jan Boetje and I were to go with them, in a stump-cart drawn by two mules, up into a little ravine that lay beyond the Rooikranz drift. It was such a clear still day as often happens in our Ghamka valley in June month, and as we drove Neeltje and her brothers sang together in high sweet voices that made me think of the angels of God. Because of the weakness of my chest I myself could never sing, and yet that day, with Jan Boetje sitting quietly by my side, it was as if my heart were so full of song that he must surely hear it. Yes, I that am now so old, so old, was never again to feel such joy as swept through my soul and body then.
When we had driven about fifteen minutes from the farm we came to the Rooikranz drift. There had been but little rain and snow in the mountains that winter, and in the wide bed of the river there was then but one small stream. The banks of the river here are steep, and on the far side are the great red rocks that give the drift its name. Here the wild bees make their honey, and the white wild-geese have their home. And that day how beautiful in the still clear air were the great red rocks against the blue sky, and how beautiful against the rocks were the white wings of the wild-geese!
When we had crossed the little stream Jan Boetje stopped the cart and Neeltje and her brothers climbed out of it and ran across the river-bed shouting and clapping their hands to send the wild-geese flying out from the rocks above them. Only I was left with Jan Boetje, and now when he whipped up the mules they would not move. Jan Boetje stood up in the cart and slashed at them, and they backed towards the stream. Jan Boetje jumped from the cart, and with the stick end of his whip struck the mules over the eyes, and his face, that had grown so dear to me, was suddenly strange and terrible to see. I cried to him: "Jan Boetje! Jan Boetje!" but the weakness of my chest was upon me and I could make no sound. I rose in the cart to climb out of it, and as I rose Jan Boetje had a knife in his hand and dug it into the eyes of the mules to blind them. Sharp above the laughter of the children and the cries of the wild-geese there came a terrible scream, and I fell from the cart on to the soft grey sand of the river-bed. When I rose again the mules were far down the stream, with the cart bumping and splintering behind them, and Jan Boetje after them. And so quickly had his madness come upon him that still the children laughed and clapped their hands, and still the wild-geese flew among the great red rocks above us.
God knows how it was that I gathered the children together and, sending the bigger boys in haste back to the farm, came on myself with Neeltje and the little ones. My grandfather rode out to meet us. I told him what I could, but it was little that I could say, and he rode on down the river. When we came to the farm the children ran up to the house to my grandmother, but I myself went alone to the waggon-house. I opened the door and closed it after me again, and crept in the dark to Jan Boetje's chair. Long, long, I sat there, with my head on my arms on his table, and it was as if in all the world there were nothing but a sorrow that must break my heart, and a darkness that smelt of tobacco and brandy and hides. Long, long, I sat, and when at last my grandmother found me, "My little Engela," she said. "The light of my heart! My treasure!"
The mules that Jan Boetje had blinded were found and shot by my grandfather, and for long the splinters of the cart lay scattered down the bed of the river. Jan Boetje himself my grandfather could not find, though he sent men through all the valley looking for him. And after many days it was thought that Jan Boetje had gone up-country through the pass at night. I was now for a time so ill that my father came down from his farm in Beaufort district to see me. He would have taken me back with him but in my weakness I cried to grandmother to keep me. And my father, to whom everything that my grandmother did was right, once again left me to her.
My father had not been many days gone when old Franz Langermann came to my grandparents with news of Jan Boetje. Franz Langermann lived at the toll-house at the entrance to the pass through the mountains, and here Jan Boetje had come to him asking if he would sell him an old hand-cart that stood by the toll-gate. The hand-cart was a heavy clumsy one that the road-men repairing the road through the pass had left behind them. Franz Langermann had asked Jan Boetje what he would do with such a cart? And Jan Boetje had answered: "I that have killed mules must now work like a mule if I would live." And he had said to Franz Langermann: "Go to the farm of Nooitgedacht and say to Mevrouw Delport that all that is in the little tin box in my room is now hers in payment of the mules. But there is enough also to pay for the hand-cart if Mevrouw will but give you what is just."
My grandmother asked Franz Langermann: "But what is it then that Jan Boetje can do with a hand-cart?"
And Franz Langermann answered: "Look now, Mevrouw! Through the country dragging the hand-cart like a mule he will go, gathering such things as he can find and afterwards selling them again that he may live. Look! Already out of a strap that I gave him Jan Boetje has made for himself his harness."
My grandmother went to Jan Boetje's room and found the box as Franz Langermann had said. There was money in it enough to pay for the mules and the hand-cart, but there was nothing else. My grandmother took the box out to Franz Langermann and said:
"Take now the box as it is, and let Mijnheer give you himself what is just, but surely I will not take payment for the mules. Is it not seven months now that Jan Boetje has taught school to my grandchildren? God help Jan Boetje, and may he go in peace."
But Franz Langermann would not take the box. "Look now, Mevrouw," he said, "I swore to Jan Boetje that only for the handcart would I take the money, and all the rest would I leave."
My grandmother put the box back in Jan Boetje's room, and gave to Franz Langermann instead such things as a man takes on a journey—biltong, and rusks and meal, and a little kid-skin full of dried fruits. As much as Franz Langermann could carry she gave him. But I, that would have given Jan Boetje all the world, in all the world had nothing that I might give. Only when Franz Langermann had left the house and crossed the yard did I run after him with my little Bible and cry:
"Franz Langermann! Franz Langermann! Say to Jan Boetje to come again to Nooitgedacht! Say to him that so long as I live I will wait!"
Yes, I said that. God knows what meaning my message had for me, or what meaning it ever had for Jan Boetje, but it was as if I must die if I could not send it.
That night my grandmother came, late in the night, to the room where I lay awake. She drew me into her arms and held me there, and out of the darkness I cried:
"Grandmother! Grandmother! Is love then such sorrow?"
And still I can hear the low clear voice that answered so strangely: "A joy and a sorrow—a help and a hindrance—love comes at the last to be but what one makes it."
It was the next day that my grandmother asked me to teach school for her in Jan Boetje's place. At first, because always the weakness of my chest had kept me timid, I did not think she could mean it. But she did mean it. And suddenly I knew that for Jan Boetje's sake I had strength to do it. And I called the children together and went down to the waggon-house and taught them.
All through the spring and summer months that year, getting books from the pastor in Platkops dorp to help me, I taught school for my grandmother. And because it was easy for me to love little children and to be patient with them, and because it was for Jan Boetje's sake that I did it, I came at last to forget the weakness of my chest and to make a good teacher. And day after day as I sat in his chair in the waggon-house I would think of Jan Boetje dragging his hand-cart across the veld. And day after day I would thank God that I had taught him which berries he might eat, and which bulbs would quench his thirst. Yes, in such poor and simple things as this had my love to find its comfort.
That year winter came early in the Ghamka valley, and there came a day in May month when the first fall of snow brought the river down in flood from the mountains. My grandfather took the children down to the drift to see it. I did not go, but sat working alone with my books in the waggon-house. And always on that day when I looked up through the open half-door, and saw, far above the orange-grove, the peaks of the Zwartkops mountains so pure and white against the blue sky, there came a strange sad happiness about my heart, and it was as if I knew that Jan Boetje had at last found peace and were on his way to tell me so. Long, long, I thought of him that day in the waggon-house, and when there came a heavy tramping of feet and a murmur of voices across the yard I paid no heed. And presently the voices died down, and my grandmother stood alone before me, with her eyes full of tears and in her hand a little damp and swollen book that I knew for the Bible I had sent to Jan Boetje. . . . Down in the drift they had found his body—his harness still across his chest, the pole of his cart still in his hand.
That night I went alone to the room where Jan Boetje lay and drew back the sheet that covered him. Across his chest, where the strap of his harness had rubbed it, the skin was hard and rough as leather. I knelt down by his side, and pressed my head against his breast. And through my heart there ran in farewell such foolish, tender words as my grandmother used to me—"My joy and my sorrow. . . . The light of my heart, and my treasure."