The covenant - James A. Michener [324]
'Why would you go north?'
'Freedom.'
'I'm staying where I am.'
'I'd expect you to. All those good stone buildings.'
'They are good,' Tjaart agreed, not catching the challenge to his worldliness.
'You might have to reach a decision sooner than you think, Tjaart.' 'Why?'
'Freedom. Boers love freedom. And ours is being stolen from us.' 'Gerrit,' Tjaart said abruptly. 'I came here to steal your schoolmaster.' 'No complaint from me. He's about done his job at these farms.' 'Do you recommend him?'
'I do. I do. Knows his numbers. Knows his Bible.' 'Have I your permission to speak with him?'
'I'd be relieved if he found a good job.' He paused. 'A man so ill-favored needs help.'
Viljoen dispatched a slave to fetch the itinerant teacher, and when Tjaart saw the man againcrookbackt, and almost fifty years oldhe shuddered: This man could never teach! But when he consulted the families, he found that all spoke of Nel with affection. One mother said, 'He's small and he has a high voice, but he's a man of God,' and the oldest Viljoen boy said, 'Any of us in class could have whipped him, but he kept order.'
'How?'
'He told us that Jesus was a teacher, too, and we listened.'
That night Tjaart offered Nel the job, and the little man wiped his watery eye and blessed him. 'But if I handle the children well, will you ask the predikant to ordain me?'
'Theunis,' Van Doorn said as if talking with a child, although the schoolmaster was older than he, 'you'll never be a dominee. I've told you that. We need you as a schoolmaster.'
'How many children?'
'Thirty, maybe.' Tjaart was afraid this might sound like too many, but Nel smiled broadly.
'It's better when there's lots. Then the school doesn't end too soon.'
'How many schools have you conducted?'
'Eleven.' Quickly he added, 'I was never discharged. The children grew up and I moved on.' He looked at the two farmers. 'I move on,' he said.
During Tjaart's absence it had been agreed that the new master, if found, would live with Balthazar Bronk and his many children, but when Jakoba heard of the arrangement she snorted: 'No charity there. Bronk wants him to help discipline the children. They're rhinoceroses.' And when Nel saw where he was to domicile, he, too, understood.
Bronk's farm lay nine miles east of De Kraal and proved quite suitable; it was central to the participating families, and had a small whitewashed storage shed that could be converted into a schoolroom. Here Theunis collected his thirty-three youngsters to teach the alphabet, the Bible and the counting tables. Nel had only the slightest knowledge of history, literature, geography and such related subjects, so he did not presume to teach them, but whatever he did attempt carried a heavy overlay of moral instruction.
'Bronk, Dieter. Stand and recite the First Psalm.' After the oafish lad had stumbled through, Nel would ask, 'Bronk, Dieter, suppose you walked in the counsel of the ungodly. What would you be doing?'
'I don't know, Master.'
'You would be breaking commandments.' And here Nel would launch into a small sermon about not lying, not stealing, not coveting another man's wife; though forbidden to deliver large sermons in church, he was free to deliver small ones in school.
All his pupils, age five to fourteen, met in one squarish room furnished only with benches, and often the school seemed more riot than rote, but patiently Nel established order, and with various groups sequestered in odd corners, he taught first the five-to-seven, then the eight-to-eleven, then the twelve-to-fourteen, but the best part came each morning at eleven and each afternoon at three, for then he assembled the students in one big group. In the morning he discussed the Bible, especially the Book of Joshua, which proved that God had chosen the Boers for some special task; in the afternoon he taught Dutch, or rather, the semi-Dutch of the frontier. He was a lively actor and would tell his children, 'I can speak English as well as anyone at Graaff-Reinet.' And here he would become a magistrate or a Scots minister, offering