The Story of an African Farm. Olive Schreiner
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forest—one horse not being able to move the sledge—night coming on—wolves.
“‘Spree!’ says the Duke of Wellington’s nephew.
“‘Spree, do you call it? says I. ‘Look out.’
“There, sticking out under a bush, was nothing less than the nose of a bear. The Duke of Wellington’s nephew was up a tree like a shot; I stood quietly on the ground, as cool as I am at this moment, loaded my gun, and climbed up the tree. There was only one bough.
“‘Bon,’ said the Duke of Wellington’s nephew, ‘you’d better sit in front.’
“‘All right,’ said I; ‘but keep your gun ready. There are more coming.’ He’d got his face buried in my back.
“‘How many are there?’ said he.
“‘Four,’ said I.
“‘How many are there now?’ said he.
“‘Eight,’ said I.
“‘How many are there now?’ said he.
“‘Ten,’ said I.
“‘Ten! ten!’ said he; and down goes his gun.
“‘Wallie,’ I said, ‘what have you done? We’re dead men now.’
“‘Bon, my old fellow,’ said he, ‘I couldn’t help it; my hands trembled so!’
“‘Wall,’ I said, turning round and seizing his hand, ‘Wallie, my dear lad, good-bye. I’m not afraid to die. My legs are long—they hang down—the first bear that comes and I don’t hit him, off goes my foot. When he takes it I shall give you my gun and go. You may yet be saved; but tell, oh, tell Mary Ann that I thought of her, that I prayed for her.’
“‘Good-bye, old fellow,’ said he.
“‘God bless you,’ said I.
“By this time the bears were sitting in a circle all around the tree. Yes,” said Bonaparte impressively, fixing his eyes on the German, “a regular, exact, circle. The marks of their tails were left in the snow, and I measured it afterward; a drawing-master couldn’t have done it better. It was that saved me. If they’d rushed on me at once, poor old Bon would never have been here to tell this story. But they came on, sir, systematically, one by one. All the rest sat on their tails and waited. The first fellow came up, and I shot him; the second fellow—I shot him; the third—I shot him. At last the tenth came; he was the biggest of all—the leader, you may say.
“‘Wall,’ I said, ‘give me your hand. My fingers are stiff with the cold; there is only one bullet left. I shall miss him. While he is eating me you get down and take your gun; and live, dear friend, live to remember the man who gave his life for you!’ By that time the bear was at me. I felt his paw on my trousers.
“‘Oh, Bonnie! Bonnie!’ said the Duke of Wellington’s nephew. But I just took my gun and put the muzzle to the bear’s ear—over he fell—dead!”
Bonaparte Blenkins waited to observe what effect his story had made. Then he took out a dirty white handkerchief and stroked his forehead, and more especially his eyes.
“It always affects me to relate that adventure,” he remarked, returning the handkerchief to his pocket. “Ingratitude—base, vile ingratitude—is recalled by it! That man, that man, who but for me would have perished in the pathless wilds of Russia, that man in the hour of my adversity forsook me.” The German looked up. “Yes,” said Bonaparte, “I had money, I had lands; I said to my wife: ‘There is Africa, a struggling country; they want capital; they want men of talent; they want men of ability to open up that land. Let us go.’
“I bought eight thousand pounds’ worth of machinery—winnowing, plowing, reaping machines; I loaded a ship with them. Next steamer I came out—wife, children, all. Got to the Cape. Where is the ship with the things? Lost—gone to the bottom! And the box with the money? Lost—nothing saved!
“My wife wrote to the Duke of Wellington’s nephew; I didn’t wish her to; she did it without my knowledge.
“What did the man whose life I saved do? Did he send me thirty thousand pounds? say, ‘Bonaparte, my brother, here is a crumb?’ No; he sent me nothing.
“My wife said, ‘Write.’ I said, ‘Mary Ann, NO. While these hands have power to work, NO. While this frame has power to endure, NO. Never shall it be said that Bonaparte Blenkins asked of any man.’”
The man’s noble independence touched the German.
“Your case is hard; yes, that is hard,” said the German, shaking his head.
Bonaparte took another draught of the soup, leaned back against the pillows, and sighed deeply.
“I think,” he said after a while, rousing himself, “I shall now wander in the benign air, and taste the gentle cool of evening. The stiffness hovers over me yet; exercise is beneficial.”
So saying, he adjusted his hat carefully on the bald crown of his head, and moved to the door. After he had gone the German sighed again over his work:
“Ah, Lord! So it is! Ah!”
He thought of the ingratitude of the world.
“Uncle Otto,” said the child in the doorway, “did you ever hear of ten bears sitting on their tails in a circle?”
“Well, not of ten exactly: but bears do attack travellers every day. It is nothing unheard of,” said the German. “A man of such courage, too! Terrible experience that!”
“And how do we know that the story is true, Uncle Otto?”
The German’s ire was roused.
“That is what I do hate!” he cried. “Know that is true! How do you know that anything is true? Because you are told so. If we begin to question everything—proof, proof, proof, what will we have to believe left? How do you know the angel opened the prison door for Peter, except that Peter said so? How do you know that God talked to Moses, except that Moses wrote it? That is what I hate!”
The girl knit her brows. Perhaps her thoughts made a longer journey than the German dreamed of; for, mark you, the old dream little how their words and lives are texts and studies to the generation that shall succeed them. Not what we are taught, but what we see, makes us, and the child gathers the food on which the adult feeds to the end.
When the German looked up next there was a look of supreme satisfaction in the little mouth and the beautiful eyes.
“What dost see, chicken?” he asked.
The child said nothing, and an agonizing shriek was borne on the afternoon breeze.
“Oh, God! my God! I am killed!” cried the voice of Bonaparte, as he, with wide open mouth and shaking flesh, fell into the room, followed by a half-grown ostrich, who put its head in at the door, opened its beak at him, and went away.
“Shut the door! shut the door! As you value my life, shut the door!” cried Bonaparte, sinking into a chair, his face blue and white, with a greenishness about the mouth. “Ah, my friend,” he said tremulously, “eternity has looked me in the face! My life’s thread hung upon a cord! The valley of the shadow of death!” said Bonaparte, seizing the German’s arm.
“Dear, dear, dear!” said the German, who had closed the lower half of the door, and stood much concerned beside the stranger, “you have had a fright. I never knew so young a bird to chase before; but they will take dislikes to certain people. I sent a boy away once because a bird would chase him. Ah, dear, dear!”
“When I looked round,” said Bonaparte, “the red and yawning cavity was above me, and the reprehensible paw raised to strike me. My nerves,” said Bonaparte, suddenly growing faint, “always delicate—highly strung—are broken—broken! You could not give a little wine, a little brandy my friend?”
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