Part 9 (2/2)
”Not in Norway; but America is full of them, and I hate them for cheats and frauds ... for I was always listening and waiting to hear some Kaffir or Dutch word from their lips ... and they never spoke anything but mincing, drawling American, through their noses, like this, Kykie:
”'Oh say, would _you_ tell _me_ what time this _kyar_ is due to start?'
”Once I saw a boy in an elevated-railway car, who, though he was magnificently dressed in navy blue serge and wore a brimmer hat, looked so _exactly_ like Jim Basuto who ran away from the farm, that I said to him in Kaffir:
”'You had better make haste and come back to the farm, Jim, and mind the sheep!'
”He simply stared at me, and said to another _boy_, who might have been a Zulu chief except for his clothes:
”'Say, this one looks to me as if she is dippy. I think she is the new star at Hammerstein's that _ky-ant_ speak anything but French.'
”Luce was so furious, he used fearful language at the Kaffir, and made me leave the train at the next station, and wouldn't speak to me for a week.”
Having finished her tea and eaten all the bread-and-b.u.t.ter and cakes, the girl lay back on her pillow and closed her eyes.
”For gracious' sake, and so you have seen the world!” said Kykie. ”And now you have come back to the old quiet life?”
”Not at all, Kykie. I'm going to persuade Luce to go about here, and meet people, and let me do the same.”
”He'll never do it,” said Kykie vehemently. ”I can see that he is worse than ever about his mark.”
”But he knows a lot of people here. I don't see how he can keep them from coming to the house; and I heard the _boys_ saying that he had gone to the Club this afternoon. Surely that is a sign that he is not going to shut himself up again?”
”He may go to the Club, but he won't let anyone come here. He has given me strict orders that no one is to come in the front gates; they are to be locked and he will keep the key. Everything is to come by the back entrance and that, too, is to be locked.”
Poppy's face clouded.
”Oh Kykie! I wouldn't mind if we were back in the old farm with the free veldt all round us; but to be shut up in a house and garden--(and with Luce's devils,” she added to herself),--”even if it _is_ a lovely garden!”
Kykie's face expressed lugubrious sympathy, but she held out no hope.
”You'll have to amuse yourself like you did before, with your music, and your reading, and writing, and be a good child,” she said.
”But I'm not a child any longer. Can't you see how I've grown up?”
”I can see that you won't have to go and find milk-cactus to rub on your b.r.e.a.s.t.s any more,” said Kykie, eyeing her with the calm candour of the native.
Poppy coloured slightly, and made occasion to throw a corner of the quilt over her bare shoulders and arms.
”For the sake of grace you needn't mind me,” remarked Kykie. ”Haven't I watched you many a moonlight night stealing down to where it grew by the old _spruit_?”
The girl's colour deepened; she gave a wistful little side glance at the old woman.
”I _did_ so want to be beautiful. I would have dived to the bottom of the filthiest hole in that old _spruit_ a dozen times a day to make myself the tiniest atom less ugly than I was. Do you remember that deep part where the water was so clear and we could see hundreds of crabs pulling pieces of flesh off the leg of the dead horse?”
”Oh _sis_ yes! I wondered how you could go and look at the stinking thing day after day.”
”I used to be pretending to myself that it was my aunt they were eating.
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