Bonaparte
stopped him as he ran past the ash-heap.
"Good morning, my dear boy. Where are you running to so fast with your
rosy cheeks?"
The boy looked up at him, glad even to see Bonaparte.
"I am going to the cabin," he said, out of breath.
"You won't find them in just now--not your good old father," said
Bonaparte.
"Where is he?" asked the lad.
"There, beyond the camps," said Bonaparte, waving his hand oratorically
toward the stone-walled ostrich-camps.
"What is he doing there?" asked the boy.
Bonaparte patted him on the cheek kindly.
"We could not keep him any more, it was too hot. We've buried him, my
boy," said Bonaparte, touching with his finger the boy's cheek. We
couldn't keep him any more. He, he, he!" laughed Bonaparte, as the boy
fled away along the low stone wall, almost furtively, as one in fear.
...
At five o'clock Bonaparte knelt before a box in the German's room. He was
busily unpacking it.
It had been agreed upon between Tant Sannie and himself, that now the
German was gone he, Bonaparte, was to be no longer schoolmaster, but
overseer of the farm. In return for his past scholastic labours he had
expressed himself willing to take possession of the dead man's goods and
room. Tant Sannie hardly liked the arrangement. She had a great deal more
respect for the German dead than the German living, and would rather his
goods had been allowed to descend peacefully to his son.
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