they opened with a pocket knife.
But there was some sort of unfortunate misunderstanding about it afterwards, Gysbert van Tonder added. That was when another man wearing a blue suit and a blue cap came up and spoke to them. This man looked older than the owner and he was shorter and fatter. They took him to be the owner’s father-in-law. And he spoke about the banana peels lying on the floor and about their sitting calm as you like on a historical riempiesbank that hadn’t been in use for over a hundred and fifty years. But mostly the owner’s father-in-law spoke about the fish oil that had got splashed on the behind part of the young woman without clothes on when the pocket knife slipped that the delegates had opened the tin with.
“And although we said to the owner’s father-in-law that we were railway-line delegates from the Dwarsberge, it didn’t seem to make much difference,” Gysbert van Tonder finished up. “He said we weren’t on the railway line now. I must say that I did feel afterwards that what the Volksraad member arranged for our happiness and comfort that time was a bit too stylish.”
And Jurie Steyn said that after all that we still didn’t get a railway line, or anywhere near. All that happened, he remembered, was that the Government arranged for the weekly lorry through the Bushveld from Bekkersdal to be given a new coat of light-green paint.
Then Oupa Bekker started telling us about the first railway-line deputation from the Dwarsberge that ever went to Pretoria. He was a member of that deputation.
“The railway engine was quite different from what it’s like today, of course,” Oupa Bekker said. “It had a long thin chimney curving up from in front of it, I remember. And above the wheels it was all open and you could see right into the works and things. In the same way, I suppose, a Bushveld railway delegation in those days would have looked a lot different from the kind of deputation that will be going to Pretoria again at the end of the Volksraad session next month.”
But he said that with the years the principle of the thing hadn’t changed so you would notice.
“We had written to our Volksraad member to say we were coming, and what it was about,” Oupa Bekker continued. “And when he received us he was most sympathetic. He received us in his hotel room and he had a bottle of brandy sent up and he said it had to be the best, because only that was good enough for us. He said that in his opinion steam had come to stay and he showed us a lot of coloured pictures of engines that he had cut out of children’s papers. And he asked us would we rather have a condensing or a low-pressure engine.
“Afterwards a man with black side-whiskers and wearing a stiff collar came into the hotel room and the Volksraad member told us that he was a civil engineer and could help us a lot. The civil engineer started talking to us straight away about how important it was that we should have the right kind of printing on our railway timetables. We could see from that what a fine, full sort of mind the civil engineer had – a brain that took in everything. He also spoke about the kind of buns that we would sell in the station tea-rooms.
“Later on, with the brandy and the talk, the civil engineer got really friendly, and started calling us by our first names, and all. We saw then that, in spite of his full mind, there was a playful side to him, also. Indeed, after a while, the civil engineer got so playful that he brought out three little thimbles and a pea, that he had found in one of his pockets. And, just to sort of pass the time, he asked us to guess under which thimble the pea was hidden.”
Oupa Bekker sighed.
“All the same,” he remarked, “that Volksraad member was a real gentleman. There are not many like him today. When he saw us back to the coach station he was apologising all the way because the civil engineer had cleaned us out.”
White Ant
Jurie Steyn was rubbing vigorously along the side of his counter with a rag soaked in paraffin. He was also saying things which, afterwards, in calmer moments, he would no doubt regret. When his wife came into the voorkamer with a tin of Cooper’s dip, Jurie Steyn stopped using that sort of language and contented himself with observations of a general nature about the hardships of life in the Marico.
“All the same, they are very wonderful creatures, those little white ants,” the schoolmaster remarked. “Among the books I brought here into the Marico, to read in my spare time, is a book called The Life of the White Ant. Actually, of course, the white ant is not a true ant at all. The right name for the white ant is isoptera –”
Jurie Steyn had another, and shorter, name for the white ant right on the tip of his tongue. And he started saying it, too. Only, he remembered his wife’s presence, in time, and so he changed the word to something else.
“This isn’t the first time the white ants got in behind your counter,” At Naudé announced. “The last lot of stamps you sold me had little holes eaten all round the edges.”
“That’s just perforations,” Jurie Steyn replied. “All postage stamps are that way. Next time you have got a postage stamp in your hand, just look at it carefully, and you’ll see. There’s a law about it, or something. In the department we talk of those little holes as perforations. It is what makes it possible for us, in the department, to tear stamps off easily, without having to use a scissors. Of course, it’s not everybody that knows that.”
At Naudé looked as much hurt as surprised.
“You mustn’t think I am so ignorant, Jurie,” he said severely. “Mind you, I am not saying that, perhaps, when this post office was first opened, and you were still new to affairs, and you couldn’t be expected to know about perforations and things, coming to this job raw, from behind the plough – I’m not saying that you mightn’t have cut the stamps loose with a scissors or a No. 3 pruning shears, even. At the start, mind you. And nobody would have blamed you for it, either. I mean, nobody ever has blamed you. We’ve all, in fact, admired the way you took to this work. I spoke to Gysbert van Tonder about it, too, more than once. Indeed, we both admired you. We spoke about how you stood behind that counter, with kraal manure in your hair, and all, just like you were Postmaster-General. Bold as brass, we said, too.”
The subtle flattery in At Naudé’s speech served to mollify Jurie Steyn.
“You said all that about me?” he asked. “You did?”
“Yes,” At Naudé proceeded smoothly. “And we also admired the neat way you learnt to handle the post office rubber stamp, Gysbert and I. We said you held onto it like it was a branding iron. And we noticed how you would whistle, too, just before bringing the rubber stamp down on a parcel, and how you would step aside afterwards, quickly, just as though you half expected the parcel to jump up and poke you in the short ribs. To tell you the truth, Jurie, we were proud of you.”
Jurie Steyn was visibly touched. And so he said that he admitted he had been a bit arrogant in the way he had spoken to At Naudé about the perforations. The white ants had got amongst his postage stamps, Jurie Steyn acknowledged – once. But what they ate you could hardly notice, he said. They just chewed a little around the edges.
But Gysbert van Tonder said that, all the same, that was enough. His youngest daughter was a member of the Sunshine Children’s Club of the church magazine in Cape Town, Gysbert said. And his youngest daughter wrote to Aunt Susann, who was the woman editor, to say that it was her birthday. And when Aunt Susann mentioned his youngest daughter’s birthday in the Sunshine Club corner of the church magazine, Aunt Susann wrote that she was a little girl staying in the lonely African wilds. Gramadoelas was the word that Aunt Susann used, Gysbert van Tonder said. And all just because Aunt Susann had noticed the way that part of the springbok on the stamp on his youngest daughter’s letter had
