Cry of the Fish Eagle by Rimmer Peter

Author:Rimmer, Peter [Rimmer, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Peter Rimmer
Published: 1993-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

In the nine years since his marriage, Rupert Pengelly had prospered greatly and had returned all his hard-earned profit to the farm. Arthur had been conceived on their honeymoon overlooking the Zambezi Valley and Julian had followed eighteen months later, on the 11th of November. Arthur Rigby Pengelly and Julian Jacobus Pengelly. Julian had weighed eleven pounds four ounces and in the process of fighting his way into the world, had torn his mother apart. It was after his birth that the prospect of eleven children had been reduced to only two. Sasa was certain they made more noise than ten normal children and though she would have liked to have had a daughter for her later years, she was quite content.

All the virgin land on King’s Water had now been used and was converted into twenty-acre lands covering the hills and dales, but never infringing on the wetlands or vlei. Just under half the farm was feasibly arable and working on a strict five-year rotation, four hundred acres of tobacco were able to be processed through the thirty-six curing barns and the extended grading and bulk shed. Cattle cropped the fallow lands and a weir had been thrown across the Mutwa to hold back water for the dry planting bowsers, which went endlessly back and forth during the three weeks of early planting. There was also the big earth dam. Yields had increased to a thousand pounds an acre and the supplementary maize crop was enough to feed the labour force as well as send twelve thousand bags into Salisbury for sale and export. The cows were Hereford and though the price of meat was far too low and transport costs high without a railway line, Rupert maintained the herd as a sound investment. In terms of food, King’s Water was self-sufficient and no one went hungry.

Rupert worked all the hours of the day and when, at dusk, he joined Sasa on the veranda of the sprawling thatched house that had grown with their needs, it was an hour of great satisfaction. After nine years, his wife knew as much about growing tobacco as himself. They worried together about the lack of rain. They anxiously watched for disease in the seed-beds and she frequently went to the surrounding farms to borrow seedlings.

Similarly, the calving down of the Hereford cattle was her responsibility, as were the farm clinic and the weekly talks with the women on hygiene, baby care and how best to feed their families. It was she who made the women plant half an acre of vegetables, providing them, via Rupert, with both seed and fertiliser. Although the yields were small and the women refused to dig deep into the soil or take out weeds, the health of the children did seem to improve. They found a black school teacher who knew a little more than nothing and started an elementary school that gave the children more amusement than knowledge. All Rupert’s discussions with the Ministry of Education in Salisbury had failed to secure a qualified teacher.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.