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Gentlemen, I am anxiously groping for the light; but what, in the face of this, am I to advise my people? Mr. JAN DE BEER endeavoured to refute Messrs. Jeppe's and Loveday's statements, when they said a man could not become a full member until he was forty. They were out of their reckoning, because a man did not live until he was sixteen. He was out of the country.
"I know well enough that I'm a clown compared with you," he said good- naturedly, "but you needn't be so angry on that account. By the way, do you still remember Peter, who was at Jeppe's with your brother Jens and me? He's here, too I I came across him a little while ago. He's always looking into things too, but he can't find any foundation to anything, as you can.
Manna blinked her eyes triumphantly, while Dolores and Aina stood behind her and put out their tongues. Pelle felt strongly inclined to jump over the garden wall and beat them; but just then Jeppe's old woman began scolding from the kitchen, and he went on with his work. Now, after Christmas, there was nothing at all to do.
This exposure took place at the end of the Session of 1894, and, inured as the Uitlanders had become to jobs, this was an eyeopener even for them, and the startled community tax-payers who had to bear the brunt of it all. The figures for the period from 1871 to the end of 1887 are taken from Jeppe's Transvaal Almanac for 1889.
Manna blinked her eyes triumphantly, while Dolores and Aina stood behind her and put out their tongues. Pelle felt strongly inclined to jump over the garden wall and beat them; but just then Jeppe's old woman began scolding from the kitchen, and he went on with his work. Now, after Christmas, there was nothing at all to do.
He heard Jeppe's squeaky voice, and looked at the young master, who sat there submissively, without having the courage to express his opinion, and all at once he felt terribly sorry for himself. "That was right," buzzed old Jeppe, "a shoemaker mustn't be afraid to wax his hide a little. What? I believe it has actually brought the water to his eyes!
No, when I was apprentice we had a real ordeal; we had to pass the waxed-end twice round our necks before we were allowed to pull. Our heads used to hang by a thread and dangle when we were done. Yes, those were times!" Pelle stood there shuffling, in order to fight down his tears; but he had to snigger with mischievous delight at the idea of Jeppe's dangling head.
Her last remark was perhaps evoked by a man who had quietly entered the hall, and was now crouching on a bench in the background; for he was not an honorable man. He had lived on a convict's bread and water; he was "Thieving Jacob," who about ten years earlier had smashed in the window of Master Jeppe's best room and had stolen a pair of patent-leather shoes for his wife.
His limbs longed for strenuous work with pick and shovel, but his thoughts took another direction. If he walked along the street the industrious townsfolk would turn to look after him, exchanging remarks which were loud enough to reach his ear. "There goes Master Jeppe's apprentice, loafing along," they would tell one another; "young and strong he is, but he doesn't like work.
Baker Jorgen was the only one of them who had anything to do. Things would have to be bad indeed before the people stopped buying his black bread. He even had more to do than usual; the more people abstained from meat and cheese, the more bread they ate. He often hired Jeppe's apprentices so that they might help him in the kneading. But he was not in a happy frame of mind.
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