The covenant - James A. Michener [193]
To sit at a table after a hard day's work and to have a mug of brandy and a huge plateful of bobotie was the kind of treat that kept a farm contented.
Occasionally Grandfather Hendrik brought out his big Bible, hoping to instruct the children in their alphabet, but they felt that if their parents and their uncles and aunts survived without reading, so could they. But once or twice the youngest boy, Lodevicus, who was now eleven, showed signs that he might be the one who would return to the earlier scholarship of the Van Doorns who had lived in Holland. He would ask his grandfather, 'How many letters must I learn if I want to read?' and Hendrik, referring to the Dutch alphabet, would reply, 'Twenty-two.' And he would show the boy that each letter had two forms, small and capital, taking unusual care in explaining that in Dutch, unlike other languages, capital IJ was not two letters but one. It was all too confusing for Lodevicus, and soon the boy was out rampaging with the others.
However, old Hendrik noticed that it was this same Lodevicus who was beginning to show impatience whenever Adriaan disappeared on one of his explorations: 'Why isn't Father here to help with the work?' And he became quite agitated if Seena accompanied her husband, as she liked to do: 'Mother ought to be home, making us bobotie.' The three other children accepted their father's strange behavior and showed no concern when he was absent for months at a time. Moreover, they enjoyed it when their parents began to say, 'People are crowding in. Too many Compagnie rules. That valley where the cattle grazed last year looks better.' But Lodevicus said, 'Why can't we stay in one place? Build us a house of stone?'
Hendrik and Johanna, always willing to move when they were younger, now sided with their grandson: 'Lodevicus is right. Let's build a house of stone.' And they argued that this piece of land was good for another twenty years, if properly managed. But Adriaan became increasingly restless, and red-headed Seena backed him up: 'Let's all get out of here!' So the wagons were loaded, the huts were abandoned, and with little Dikkop in the lead, everyone moved eastward, but along the way, Hendrik whispered to his grandson, 'Lodevicus, when you're older, you must stop wandering and build your house of stone.'
It was during one such journey that old Hendrik, now sixty-nine, collapsed and died. This was no great tragedy; his years had been full and he had lived them at the heart of a lively family whose future seemed secure. But there was the matter of burial, and this posed a difficult problem, for whereas Hendrik had been a religious man who would have wanted God's words to be read over his grave, the family no longer contained anyone who could read. Johanna brought out the old Bible and there was serious talk of burying it with the old man who had loved it, but at this moment Lodevicus happened to look away and saw a rider coming down the hills to the west.
'A man comes!' he called to the mourners, and Dikkop hurried off to ascertain who it might be. Within a short time a stranger rode up, tall and thin, wearing dark clothes and broad-brimmed hat, but no gun of any kind. When he reined his horse he looked with piercing eye at each of the Van Doorns, and said in a voice that seemed to come from deep within the earth, 'I have been searching for you, Van Doorns, and I see that my arrival is timely.' Alighting, he strode to the grave, looked down and asked, 'What sinner has been called to face the judgment of his Lord?'
'Hendrik van Doorn.'
'The same,' the tall man said. 'He alone among you was saved, is that not true?'
'He knew the book,' Johanna said, pointing to the Bible.