So Much Water, so Little Wood

By Daniel J. Theron M.A. TH Ph.D.

To appreciate this book readers must grasp the symbolism of its title and the front page depicting the authors life story, sometimes in rough seas.
At three/four years old he was already strongly aware that he had been called into the Christian ministry, an inspiration for a long, fruitful life. He grew up helping in their South African farm life. He commuted to grammar school on horseback, accumulating enough miles to ride three times from New York to California. It was a financial struggle to become ordained as a clergyman.
His story is interestingly interspersed with several short, unbelievable biographies of classmates and what life was like. Read the The Sturdy Warrior, Chapter V and others like Albert Schweitzer of the Bushveld, and We Shall Triumph, in the book mentioned below.
With several well-earned degrees he migrated to the USA to study at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he became a professor. But then the delicate call that had driven him since childhood was smashed seemingly beyond repair. However, for him those called into Gods Kingdom can in its wideness find symbolic pulpits and lecterns in many places. Of all, he found such in Wall Street, and applied himself with the Latin sayings, strong command: age quod agis Do what you are doing!
How is it continuing? Please find out in this books sequel entitled: Faith, Hope, and Determination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491830963

Daniel J. Theron M.A. TH Ph.D.

The author is a descendant of persecuted French who had fled France between 1688 and 1714, eventually to settle in the Dutch colony around Cape Town.

Book preview

© 2014 DANIEL J. Theron M.A.,Th./Ph.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/11/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-3098-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-3097-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-3096-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013919680

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter I The Dawn Of Memory

Chapter II The School Of Playing

Chapter III Tributaries Of Knowledge

To grammar school on horseback - 9,000 miles

Chapter IV The River Of Learning

High School years

Chapter V Distant Vistas Came Into Sight

Seven years at The University of Pretoria-A.B., B.D., M.A.

Chapter VI The School Of The Prophets

Princeton, USA-School of Theology-Th./Ph.D.

Chapter VII The Sturdy Warrior

Classmate’s ministry and a most tragic accident

Chapter VII Katoxh A I (Suppression)

Classmate’s ministry and a most tragic accident

Chapter IX Katoxh I (Suppression)

Bucking an institutional administration

Chapter X Katoxh III (Suppression)

A Professor

A black martyr in communists hands - Namibia

Loosing a loved one.

* A Greek word—catch, being captivated e. g. in an order of religion.????

INTRODUCTION

Biographies, a most important genre of literature in which writers can engage, encompass real life. It is history with lessons for the reader to avoid pitfalls, and for both the writer and the reader to gain inspiration to convert their own dreams into reality. Biographies always interested me and motivated me to write my own which I thought would be informative, entertaining, and hopefully inspirational for readers of all kinds, especially since the title of this book could as well have been quite different. Recently someone in the publishing world inquired what my career was. Well, I said, A Jack of all trades, and master of several. He responded immediately, Good title for a book!" But I had already chosen the present title long ago. However, the reader will soon find that this idea would indeed cover my life story like a blanket. It was not always easy, and sometimes it was with bitter disappointments.

Life seldom remains the same, sometimes it surprises us with pleasant turns, but sometimes also with unexpected and harsh experiences, which we have no choice but to face as boldly and forcefully as possible. It struck me as life rolled along how fortunate I have been, especially considering what had befallen several of my contemporary friends since we had finished after long years at the University of Pretoria what we had planned as divine callings to serve our fellowmen in the world. My life has now (2013) exceeded some of theirs by about half a century. As the lone survivor I have deemed it an obligation to them to share with readers just briefly interspersed, for variety sake, their messages along with my own of always onward and upward.

Let me tell you about it.

DANIEL J. Theron M.A.,Th./Ph.D. SEPTEMBER 4, 2013

CHAPTER I

THE DAWN OF MEMORY

"There are those special memories we cherish through the years.

"Most of them are happy ones, but a few are touched by tears.

"They all become more beautiful, the older they grow,

And with their age they take their place as days of long ago.

James J. Metralfe

The red ball, late afternoon sun closely and ominously hugged the western horizon as if at any moment to reflect its last, farewell rays off Basuto Land’s high Malultu Mountains east of our farm, and to plunge our whole country inevitably into darkness.

In the distance a black man was galloping a horse mercilessly near top speed towards our farm house on Bankspruit as if to beat the coming darkness. He knew that he was carrying an important message. Without telephones it was the customary way to get information from farm to farm about emergencies, a serious accident, illness, death, or a funeral.

There was a crisis in our family. A pall of sadness would soon spread over all of us. I do not recall the jolt to my very young, carefree, and happy existence so customary by then.

As I later found out, it was about my maternal grandfather, Jacob Abraham Storm. He was born on June 9, l850, a son of a Dutch sea captain who had retired to the Cape Colony some time in the nineteenth century. As young men Jacob and two of his brothers had trekked to the Orange Free State, then still a small, free republic. He had married Magdalena Johanna de Villiers, the daughter of Dawid and Magdalena de Villiers, néé Louw, of the farm Helderfontein in the District of Ficksburg. My grandfather was her senior by more than thirteen years. She was born December 13, l863.

They had nine children. Before the last two were born, English War II, or the Second War for Freedom had broken out.

Jacob Storm was commandeered into the Orange Free State army. But on the very cold winter morning of July 30, l900, he was taken prisoner of war near Golden Gate north of Ficksburg. Together with thousands of Boers he was shipped to Ceylon at Diyatalowa (ironically meaning Happy Valley), to spend years in a prisoner of war camp. War ended in May l902, but he was not reunited with his family until almost a year later in l903.

He came back to nothing but his family. Their house had been burned down in Lord Frederick Sleigh Roberts and General Horatio Herbert Kitchener’s scorched earth policy; his livestock either killed or stolen. But Jacob and Lenie were tough people, and in due time they recovered.

The messenger pulled the horse up short of our yard fence. He came from the farm Spitskop, about an hour’s hard ride away. He jumped off, and immediately pulled a note from a pocket.

As I later found out, the urgency was about my maternal grandfather, Jacob Storm. He had suffered a severe stroke, and was not expected to survive.

Soon we were on our way in our horse cart. My sister, Magdalena sat between my parents and I was on my mother’s lap. She was crying all the time. It must have upset me no end. Underneath the cart two paraffin lanterns swayed rhythmically as the wheels negotiated the uneven, dirt road while the horses trotted along slowly in the eerie lantern light.

Nearing Spitskop, the road was so eroded and dangerous that my dad had to stop and take the horses by the inside reins and led them slowly along the hazardous road while my mother held the reins one in each hand, with me in the middle.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, grandfather was still alive when we arrived, but he was badly paralyzed and unable to talk.

The shock that had gripped the family, the unusual trip at night, and my mother’s crying, no doubt, had rudely awakened me out of my sleepy, happy, everyday, young childhood routine, so much so as to make something stick in my memory forever. I began to realize the anguish of change.

Strangely enough, it was none of the above that I remembered. Other family members had later told me about the foregoing. All I do remember is something of my grandfather. One morning, presumed the next morning, I strolled across the farmhouse yard with my uncle, Japie. Grandfather’s bedroom had a door to the outside. A rather high bed came slowly into view as we walked by. A white bed cover was draped over a body on the bed. It was my grandfather, Jacob Abraham Storm. And that was all. (My mother later confirmed that the bedroom in which he died several days later, indeed had a door to the outside.) He died February 23, l922, one day before my second birthday. So this pioneer, warrior, good husband, excellent father, and grandfather was laid to rest in Spitskop’s small farm cemetery, where I later saw the grave stone.

Of the funeral, I have no recollection at all, but seeing him stricken on that bed that morning would remain with me forever. He remained a fallen hero of our family.

Then followed a hiatus of memory. On the grass near our farm house a burlap bag had been lying for too long. I began what I later used to do many times as a child-turn over stones and other objects like a primeval as if hunting for bugs to eat. I raised one end of the bag, and a host of bugs of all sizes and descriptions suddenly sprang to life, scurrying for cover. This was more than I had bargained for. Scared out of my wits, I dropped the burlap twice as fast as I had lifted it up, and scampered away for the cover of distance myself.

The next recollection that stands out came with a change of our family situation which must have unsettled me greatly. We would move to a farm some distance way that my dad had bought. We arrived quite late in the afternoon. Approaching over a rise from the west, the lowering sun reflected like a bright star off a window of our new home. When we arrived, I noticed a piece of equipment made of steel, painted blue and several feet tall, next to the reflecting window. We could not get into the house. Some misunderstanding about the key—we had to go through the window.

As I found out later, it was August, 1922, the traditional time when farmers would move in that part of the country, because it still gave them sufficient time to plow their cornfields before planting time.

For the next two years on this farm many recollections were clearly engraved in my mind. Life became more coherent and events seemed more continuous as far as piecing them together.

Not far off was Cornelia, a small, rural village. The Reverend Nicolaas Johannes Louw, a cousin or second cousin of mother, was minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, the only church for many miles around.

We visited his family occasionally, and I played with his son, Hansie. Of course, trouble is the name of the game for little boys. We were fooling with a yard water faucet. We got it going full blast, got scared and tried to stop it. We pressed our hands against the opening, squirting each other liberally as we took turns dancing around the faucet. Then we tried to turn it off, but never went far enough in one direction before frantically turning it the other way, hopelessly attempting to undo our mischief. Then back to the hand pressure technique again with the same unintentional, cold showers. Our commotion brought our mothers rushing out, getting their shoes thoroughly soaked in the puddles we had created. Fortunately, they succeeded. We got duly scolded, of course. I blamed Hansie and he blamed me. We both felt better, like lawyers for creating some doubt in our mothers’ jury minds as to who was really to be blamed.

Our farm house had a corrugated iron exterior lined inside with raw brick which was plastered over. It was a cheap type of construction to erect a building in a hurry.

Next to the road, west of our house, from where I saw the sun reflecting off a window when we moved there, was a large field stone enclosure, or kraal, for livestock. Inside this enclosure was a smaller one in a far corner, where the calves were kept, separate from their mothers. Here the cows were milked and the calves let out one by one as their mothers’ turns came to be milked. The cows remained in the kraal at night and the calves were let out to water and learn to graze. (Kraal doubtless came from the word corral.) In the morning, the process was reversed. Calves were let in one by one from outside as each cow’s turn came to be milked. Then the cows were let out to pasture and the calves remained in.

The gates to these enclosures had horizontal bars, widely enough spaced so that a person could climb through without the chore of opening the gate itself. I soon mastered this art, and would sneak away, get in with the calves, and entertain myself immensely by driving the captives around and around at a frantic pace inside the enclosure using a stick or something to scare the daylight out of them. It was not the best exercise to engage in for my clothes, but who cared, except my mother and, once, my father, too, when inadvertently I had unlatched the gate and let the calves out.

When I had had enough fun tormenting the calves, I would wander home, turning over a few partly dried out piles of cattle dung on my way, and dig out as many dung roller beetles from it as I could, collecting them in my pockets. As soon as touched, they would pull their legs tightly against their bellies and play possum. But they were no sooner in a pocket, or they would start crawling around and depositing whatever dung of their habitat was still clinging to them. In my innocence I never dreamt that scientifically they merit a real jawbreaker to describe them—stercoricolous, no less—otherwise, I would have had a great deal more respect for them.

(These dung roller beetles are smart, and snobbish, The ancients had even assigned a god to their habitats. Although they would mess and rummage around in cattle or any large mammal dung and freely live on it, they would not lay their eggs in it. When egg laying time comes, they had no intention to have their young being born with the hoi polio of the dung piles. Instead, a pair would create round balls of still soft dung. With perfect team work, they would roll these some distance away from the dung quarry—one pushing and the other one pulling—dig a hole, and bury the balls in the soil. The female lays her eggs in this ball of dung. The constant heat of the soil serves as an incubator for the eggs to hatch. The little ones would have a ready supply of dung food, kept moist in the soil. The parents must know by instinct, inherited memory, that if the pile of dung would be used as a nest, the eggs, let alone the young ones, would have no chance at all of surviving. They would be devoured in short order by other grown-up beetles, maggots, and other insects, leaving only a hollow shell and a few dry scraps of the original, hefty pile of dung.)

Later, when I was older, the fun with the calves continued, but on a much higher level. With the help of black boys, we would catch one or two calves and try to ride them, staging a mini-rodeo of our own. The rides never lasted too long as the young calves bucked fiercely and deposited their riders into the dung that always covered the inside of the entire kraal. Fortunately, the dung carpet was fairly dry, and did not mess us up too much in the course of a spill and so much fun. It still amazes me that no one ever got a head bashed open against the stone walls of an enclosure.

An accidental getting together of calves and cows during the day before the appointed milking time, which usually also meant a non-appointed time and place outside the kraal, was regarded by all as an unmitigated disaster, if not a hilarious sight to behold.

The calves would scamper off to the cows at neck breaking speed, tails erect in the air, letting out longing bellows when they could spare the breath. The cows would hear the summons and also start charging to meet their naughty offspring, swinging their hind legs clumsily to the outside, as milking cows do, bellowing their emotional response, picking up speed as if to meet long lost prodigals. And then the meeting. And in no time at all part of the bottom line of the farm’s milking operation for the day was gone. You might as well have kicked over a few buckets of milk, slowly.

Commotions like these were well known on the farms. The calves are out! The calves are out! sounds the alarm, instantly summoning all hands within earshot to the fray—male or female, no matter what he or she was doing in the field, in the barn, or kitchen, or even in the outhouse! You just dropped everything and sallied forth, grabbing some other object of punishment. It demanded practically one person per cow, with an indulgent calf, to restore order. Without enough hands, a cow would just stand there as if laughing at you, being drained, while you tried to chase another one, and save some milk.

Reptiles, birds, and insects always fascinated me as a child, as they tend to fascinate many children. Snakes were my worst enemy, for it was a snake that got Adam and Eve into real trouble, as my mother had told me many times. Besides, they could kill you. Cobras are common in Africa. No distinction was made between poisonous and nonpoisonous snakes, except the little garter snakes. There was usually no time to decide, anyway. The snakes moved so fast. Whatever would have happened, had I encountered a snake on one of my primitive hunting expeditions, turning over stones, a burlap bag, or metal plates, goodness only knows.

Years later, when I was about ten, I almost stepped on a cobra. We were both heading for the outhouse. What business it had in the outhouse, I had no idea. It had, no doubt, noticed me long before I had noticed it, and was trying to get there before me, but the call of nature had pushed me too fast, and I arrived barely a step ahead. When I saw it, its hood had already been spread ominously as if ready to strike, as I knew all too well. Fortunately, we both decided to flee in opposite directions, rather than fight. I was so lame of fright, I could hardly run, but I did manage to let out a bloodcurdling scream that brought both my parents out of the house.

What’s wrong with you? my mother exclaimed. There I was standing obviously in perfect shape. We thought you were being killed.

Well, I could have been killed, had I not blown such a hasty retreat. They were both mad at me, because I had scared them. Although embarrassed, I should deserve due credit for scaring a snake away from the outhouse where it might have scared the daylights out of someone else.

Near the house with the reflecting window was a brook. It would spell trouble for any three/four year old boy. There were rather deep pools and I was cautioned not to go near the brook by myself. This, of course, meant that I had to go and explore why. The banks teemed with frogs and crabs, and I wanted to catch some of them, especially a crab or two. Little did I know how painful a wound those claws could inflict. In my wanderings, I found myself on the edge of one of those pools. There was a crab at the bottom as big as day light. I was inching closer, and slipped, making an involuntary dive for the crab. I could not swim, but the pool must have been shallow enough (thank goodness). I staggered, out droopy like a wet chicken, and without the crab. Thank goodness again! I had learned the hard way why a little boy should not go down there.

Black people who worked for us lived on the farm with their families. They received their compensation in kind, i.e. an agreed upon number of bags, usually of corn, or each head of a household had a section of land, ploughed, tilled, and planted for him. While working, their meals were provided. During the slack time on the farm—March to May—they got time off to work elsewhere and earn a few pounds sterling of cash, should they so desire. One or two of the women usually came on Fridays to clean the house to be presentable for the weekend. On Mondays they came to do the laundry down by the pools where the crabs were. On Tuesdays they came to iron. For these chores, they were separately compensated.

We always had a good rapport with the black people on the farm. As children we were taught to respect them, and when they were in need or sick, there was always a ready hand to help.

A frequent problem was theft-petty things from the house, or sugar, or other groceries. The obvious solution was the nuisance of a lock.

A larger problem was theft and slaughter of livestock, especially sheep. My dad always kept exact count of his sheep, a flock of several hundred. They were good Merino stock, and he paid a great deal of attention to breeding to assure a good quality of wool. It always amazed me in later years how well he knew individual sheep in spite of their look-alikeness and large number. We would let them move through a gate in a thin stream as he counted. Afterwards, he would take a matchbox and pencil from a vest pocket and do his figuring. (He usually wore an old vest with a jackknife, a pencil, a box of matches, and his pipe in the pockets.)

Dad’s suspicion was aroused when he began to notice a sheep missing every two weeks or so. The sheep slept in the same place in the open every night. There were no four-legged predators in the area anymore.

Dad even stayed out nights with the sheep with a shotgun to check, but no results. One of our neighbors reported the same experience—a steady disappearance of his sheep. The major blow came when one of his stud rams, which my dad had acquired at a good price, disappeared. The thievery had been going on for about a year and between twenty and thirty sheep had disappeared without a trace. No one would talk.

Finally, the solution came from a totally unexpected source. A young black man and his wife began to quarrel. She threatened to leave him, but he would not let her take their two young children. A real fight ensued in which the children were alternately grabbed and dragged first by their father, then dragged back by their mother. I was outside and I witnessed it all at a distance of some four hundred yards where their compound was. There was a lot of screaming and hollering back and forth in Xhosa, which I could hear, but it was unintelligible for a young boy.

There was no doubt who would win in the end. Defeated, the mother rushed to our house. She told my father that Willem, her husband, had stolen and slaughtered the sheep, and that she would point out where he had buried the skin of the ram and the horns—which she did.

These items were indeed found buried in a remote part of the farm.

The police were notified quietly, and several, including two black policemen, came after dark, evidently not to arouse suspicion. Willem was home. They realized that the arrest might provoke a real encounter with the whole compound (a group of huts in an enclosure). Consequently, my father had asked a few neighbors to stand by, and they came.

Unfortunately, as feared, the culprit refused to surrender. Every man, woman, and child, totaling more than a dozen, were cloistered in a large, thatched roof hut ready to do battle. The police tried to persuade Willem to surrender and the others not to make trouble, but to no avail. This attempt to avoid violence went on until way past midnight.

The hut had low walls, about four to four and half feet high with a low door. Anyone entering had to do so in a stooped position, and consequently, would be quite vulnerable, as will appear. The police knew that once inside, their only recourse would have been firearms. The situation evidently did not warrant such drastic action.

Finally, at their wit’s end, a white policeman kicked the door in, and as he hunched inside, someone struck him on his head with a club that had a large square nut screwed on at the top. The severe blow split his helmet in two. Fortunately, it absorbed the damage or he would, no doubt, have been killed. He came back out dehelmeted, quite a comedown for any policeman.

Tempers were getting short as the morning was soon to dawn. It was evident that some force could hardly be avoided.

The police began tearing down a corner of the sod hut and thatched roof. Realizing the police now meant business, they began to give in, but not peacefully. An old woman attacked a neighbor, Hendrik Mentz, from behind with the same, nut reinforced club and sank the nut between Mentz’ shoulder blades. Armed with only a sambok (a sturdy, hippo skin whip), he heeled and let her have it. That ended her attack.

What should have been the arrest of only one, ended up in several being marched off to the clink.

In court, only the ram figured. William got one year in jail.

The long winter evenings in the kitchen by the stove with a hot, corn husk fire was a great time for story telling. Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and other children’s stories were no match for real stuff of hunting leopards, not to mention episodes from the English War of 1899-1902. Some evenings, my tell me a story plea seemed to fall on deaf ears, or Dad would just say: I have none, tonight. Then I would run my finger along the bulging veins of his arms and say: Here’s a big story. Here’s a big story. This usually aroused sympathy and a favorable response.

The most famous leopard story involved Dad’s dog, Caldo. In the district of Ceres, in the Cape Province, where he grew up, there were still many of these large cats living in the mountains. They were powerful enough to hunt sheep and sometimes did so at night right in the sheep folds close to the farm houses. A sheep would be killed and dragged away to be eaten some distance from the fold. Once a leopard had started this, it had to be destroyed.

Once, when this had happened on Grandfather Theron’s farm, they tried, as custom was, to catch the predator. The carcass was found and encircled with stakes driven into the ground with an opening in which a trap, covered over, was hidden. When the leopard returned the next night or so, it was caught. The following morning, they set out in a buggy close to the spot with several hunting dogs taken along as a safety precaution in the event that the cat might break loose, attack, or flee. The dogs, including my Dad’s dog, Caldo, got to the spot first. It was no easy task. A well placed blow with a front paw could mutilate it. But the dogs had the cat down on its back. When the men got to the scene, they could not very well shoot for fear of hitting the dogs. Dad had only the buggy whip in his hand. Why he brought it along, one wonders. One of his cousins, evidently sensed the comic situation, and dared him to hit the cat with the whip. Perhaps somewhat embarrassed, but also foolhardy, he tried. The dogs had relaxed their grip and the leopard was watching the men closely with kill in its eyes. With the first movement of his hand, the animal tore loose from the dogs, got on its feet, trap and all, and jump-charged. Dad was frozen. He saw the fiery eyes and open mouth with rows of teeth and a claw coming at him. The dogs were the only ones that responded quickly. Slowed by the weight of the trap, they could catch up and slam the charging animal to the ground. I always liked to hear that Caldo had saved him—as he evidently did.

And then to bed to dream of leopards, and Caldo.

01.jpg

My Dad.

Picture taken about 1914

When I was about four years old, the thought of a profession first came into my mind. There was not much to choose from in my universe and our circle of friends or our family. Most of them were farmers, like my father. And then there was our minister, The Reverend Nicolas J. Louw, a few storekeepers, and a few professional people. There was not even a locomotive engineer to impress me, for Cornelia did not have a train.

At my mother’s knee many a Sunday afternoon I heard her tell Bible stories to me and my sister, Delina, as her name was abbreviated, who was four years older than me. It was regular Sunday afternoon fare—Old and and New Testaments alike: Eve and her fateful listening to the snake and getting us all into trouble; Joseph and his wicked brothers; the obstinate Pharaoh who would not let the Israelites go; the miracle at the Red Sea and the perishing of the pursuing Egyptians—the king as well (serve him right); many stories about Jesus, and how he was unjustly crucified, but was raised from the dead. The story that stands out in my memory is the one of young Samuel who had heard the voice of God in the night and who had to bring bad tidings of severe judgment to Eli under whom he was serving.

My parents were very religious people, and as time went on the realization grew with me that I wanted to be a clergyman, and I said so.

In the Bible stories that my mother told us the devil came in often as the wicked instigator of evil as well as potentate of the warm place where bad people would be punish after death. (We never used the word hell. It was a swearword. We went the Bible translators and the Apostle’s Creed one better in this respect.)

02.jpg

My mother, Neëltje Johanna Elizabeth Theron néé Storm, with my sister, Magdalena (Delina) Johanna, and myself Daniel Johannes, 1922. We wore black in mourning of grandfather Jacob Storm who died that year. She made all of our clothes except shoes.

One bright day as I was at my old trick of turning over stones, I can vow that I saw a big pale red thing (at least it was really big to me). I thought that it must have been the Devil himself, although in real life I had presumed him much larger. But he surely wore his habitat under that stone. This revelation frightened me for a long time. But good is supposed to win out in the end, and, if I was going to be a clergyman, I might as well start the fight against the devil right away! I firmly believed that the hot place, of torment was somewhere under the surface of the earth. So, I got myself a couple of nails and a hammer and often drove them into the ground with real vigor, hoping to hit Satan right in his head. Then I would pull the nails out with the claw hammer and start all over again, confiding with great conviction to my parents that I was killing the devil. But, alas, I suppose, four inch nails were too short, and the old fellow is still around.

Delina and I would play church. I would be the preacher. Or I would play by myself and deliver my sermon to an imaginary multitude. Once I climbed up the old homemade, wooden ladder behind our house, turned around to face the crowd below me, and commenced my sermon rather loudly: And the Apostle Paul said… . But then the rest of my oration suddenly froze in my throat for the assembly which I was addressing had vanished and became telescoped in the single figure of my mother who, unexpectedly, and I was sure unintentionally, had appeared around the corner. All my boldness was gone. I was too old by then not to be embarrassed. My mother sure knew how to wreck a good sermon.

Some years later, I must have been in Standard I or II, we played church during recess at a culvert near the Herbstfontein school on the main highway between Greylingstad and Villiers. We would babble and chant as if singing and be very light hearted about it all. One day I stunned the congregation out of their levity. I was standing behind the low wall of the culvert—a perfect, rustic pulpit, when I pulled from my pocket my small, green, soft cloth covered Four Gospels and the Psalms about to read. My congregation were below me in the deep donga that the water had carved out, a perfect place for a congregation in the veld. But they thought I was fooling and making light of the Bible. Indeed, I was not, but some of them began to run at the sight of the little green book. Some looked at me with great surprise, and some claimed that I should not have done it. They made me feel as if I had perpetrated a sacrilege and a sin, although it was not my intent at all. If you play church why not be serious? What did they know about church anyway?

Rolled up and tucked away in a drawer we had a large picture of the broad way that leads to the hot place and the narrow path to heaven.

On the broad way was a man with a thinly rolled handlebar mustache, dressed in black tails and top hat. There was a combo of several men, probably playing at a saloon. One was pumping a huge bassoon. At the top were the red tongues of flames of the hot place licking at the people, helplessly free-falling into it. There were crossovers from the broad way to the narrow way. One hapless soul was going astray the wrong direction.

At the end of the narrow path were lovely colors in parallel bands. It was heaven. At the very top was an all-pervasive eye. It was the eye of God, my mother told me. It was fortunate that this picture was not on permanent display, but kept in the drawer, rolled up. Only once in while did I take a peak. (I have often wondered later why many streets in the world are named Broad Street or Broadway, since it has such an ill-fated connotation from the Biblical text on which this picture was based. Was it in rebellious defiance of pictures of this kind by later generations, or did people perceive those streets perhaps as places of evil, leading to damnation?)

So, on the undulating high veld of the Orange Free State, on a farm near the village Cornelia, came and grew my conviction of a calling to the ministry that I would cling to and follow with a passion—sometimes through excruciatingly difficult and seemingly insurmountable circumstances, as will be recalled in later pages.

Somehow, young children seem to catch the mood of a family, whether it is happy or sad. I began to detect a mood of depression in my parents although they did not say anything that I could remember.

Then, one afternoon, a man came to the house in a touring car. He was a Mr. Taljaard. We children were not to count adults’ teeth, as the saying went. So, we usually politely greeted visitors, and then left to play. What was discussed, I never knew, but many years later, I found out that the farm we were on near Cornelia was bought on time payments. It was a bad year; the crop was largely a failure. In addition, there was a depression, prices were down and the payments could not be met. The seller was to take it back. Evidently, this was the gist of the purpose of the call by the man in the touring car.

So, Dad leased a farm in the Transvaal near the town of Greylingstad. Transvaal was the name that the early pioneers had given to the territory beyond the Vaal River. The farm was named Herbstfontein. It was part of an originally much larger estate of more than six thousand acres.

We crossed the mighty Vaal River at Villiers by ford, arriving at the new farm in the early afternoon. It was August, 1924. The terrain was much different from the flat, undulating, Cornelia terrain. Hills ringed the horizon all around. Gravel, mixed with shiny quartz in the two-lane roads carved out by cart and wagon wheels fascinated me, and I collected these treasures in my pocket—much more hygienic than messy dung rollers. Delina enrolled at the two room Herbstfontein Skool. She hitched a ride with Fourie children from the east end of the original Herbstfontein. They drove a small, very low slung donkey cart with two old plough wheels. The government supplied donkeys free of charge for transportation.

At the end of 1924 our family took an exciting trip to Ficksburg, in the Orange Free State, for a short vacation to visit my mother’s family.

What made it even more exciting was the anticipation of my very first close-up sight of and ride in a train! We had to catch it at the town of Villiers on the Vaal River. That was as far as that railway spur then came.

Catching the train would also be an exciting adventure in Mr. Gert Rabi’s second hand Humber, a touring car. He was my dad’s partner farmer. The automobile was quite an upscale British make with wire wheels. But hardly any trip of some distance could be made without a blowout or two.

Returning from checking out the Herbstfontein lease, he and my dad had to walk home at night when the last spare had blown. But farmers always have a plan. They drove out to the disabled vehicle with our horse cart the next morning (a trip that I eagerly made with them) to fix the wheel. And fix it they did. They padded the inside of the blown tire with something, put a new tube in, and pumped it up. Then they secured the ripped part of tire with a long strip of cattle hide wrapped firmly around it like a bandage over a wound. So thump, thump, thump, home we went.

In addition to tire trouble, the car, upscale or not, also could conkout at the most inopportune times. Naturally, on our way to catch the train, it pulled its trick. We stood on the road in the middle of nowhere. One flap of the bonnet was customarily raised, and all eyes stared meaningfully at the dead engine without the foggiest idea of what was wrong.

The considered opinion was that the old tin lizzie had lost her breath. For a four year old it meant that the breath somehow got behind somewhere up the last hill on the bumpy road and would eventually catch up with it. After waiting around for a while, some more meaningful peering at the exposed engine with its maze of wires and smell of petrol we began to fear that we would miss the train.

Then impatiently the engine was cranked again with the crank inserted from the front of the engine—vigorously a couple of times. One could hear a sucking noise as if it was really beginning to catch its breath. By now its breath must have caught up at last. It wheezed clearly at every crank taking big gulps of its newly arrived breath, and sputtered to a start. Off we went to catch the train. Much time was allowed anyway when traveling by car, in case of a few blowouts or losing its breath going up a hill.

I was singularly unimpressed by the much vaunted train awaiting us, for I remember nothing of the thing when we arrived, probably because the locomotive was far up in front, separated from the coaches by a string of freight cars. It was a mixed passenger/ goods train. But once in motion on the never-ending plains, the impressive engine, glistening as if sweating, could clearly be seen as we went around bend after bend, unashamedly belching thick, black smoke, whistling long and loudly at every crossing, and seemed to stop at every milk can, or cow still to be milked along the way.

Every country, I suppose, had an interpretation of what the engine was saying as it hustled along. For us it was the monotonous, but rhythmic pack-a-sacky, pack-a-sacky, pack-a-sacky over and over and over. The France had some rather vulgar rhyme for an engine’s noises, not too fitting for children or religious people of French descent.

The appointments in the coach were novel and impressive. The coach was corridor style (as I later found out) with a narrow passage, or corridor on one side that extended to the middle of the car where it zigged at a right angle and then zagged so that the passage to the far end of the car was on the opposite side. I suppose it was so built for proper balance.

Off the corridors were compartments; second class seating or sleeping six passengers; first class only four passengers. Ours was second class, as I later found out, but the shiny veneer paneling throughout made it look much richer. The windows alongside the corridors had shiny brass railings across them to keep adults from falling out, if the windows were open. At each corner where the passage crosses over to the other side of the coach was a glass container with drinking water.

At the end of each corridor was also a lavatory with a shiny, metal wash basin and a commode, also with a bright metal bowl for washing hands. When the commode was flushed, the crushed rock and slippers between the tracks could be seen whizzing by. The deafening clatter of the steel wheels on the steel tracks rushed into the small, closet size lavatory as the trap opened. Naturally, without sanitary tanks, the toilets were not to be used when the train was rushing through, or had pulled into a station.

Privacy was assured in the compartments for the doors could not be opened from the outside except by authorized personnel with specially designed keys, of shiny metal, with square sockets, fitting into all doors to be opened. The conductor—there was only one to a train—would rattle his key in the hole as if knocking and would usually wait politely until someone would say, Kom in, or Come in, before entering and asking in Afrikaans and English "kaartjies, asseblief," Tickets please.

Without a dining car on this train, my mother had packed us a lunch in a basket. When lunch time came, Dad pulled down a shiny polished, narrow table, clipped to the wall between the two windows and between the two bench seats. It was obvious to me that he knew how to ride a train. And there we had our picnic in the train while pack-a-sacking through green pastures, corn fields, sheep and cattle. (Fenced off tracks kept the animals away from the train.)

At last we got to Bethlehem in the afternoon where we had a long wait for a connection to Ficksburg. (It must have brought many memories back to my mother, for here, after the war, she and her sister, Anna, had studied at a normal school, to become teachers.) Finally, it came. It was an all passenger train and the engine did indeed steam into the station with impressive authority, as steam locomotives do.

At dusk we arrived in Ficksburg, a prosperous town clinging to the banks of the Caledon River. It took a whole day to travel about one hundred and twenty five miles, and no doubt, just as many, or more milk cans. Uncle Henry Storm, my mother’s brother-in-law, and also her cousin met us.

I was born in the District of Ficksburg on the farm Bankspruit near a little town called Rosendal. Although I must have been in Ficksburg often during the first few years of my life, there was nothing familiar to me.

I relished the attention and affection showered upon me. It was not until later that I discovered why I got such special attention. Evidently, I almost did not make it when I first set foot into this world. No food seemed to agree with me. I was colicky, had a hernia, and cried my heart out. I must have longed for eternity more than for this vale of tears. At six months, I weighed less that when I was born! The doctors were at a loss. Then a friend, a nurse, came along and tried a simple formula of sugar-sweetened, diluted, ordinary cow milk. It evidently worked wonders, for I gave up my fight against the world and lived.

We stayed with Grandmother Lenie Storm. She lived in a humble home, which was evidently my great-grandfather Dawid de Villiers’ townhouse, where he let her stay for several years after the war so her children could go to school in Ficksburg.

My eye caught what I thought to be a good size dog house in the back yard, but there was no dog. Well, it was explained to me that it was not a dog house, but a bread oven. It was no longer used, but after the war, to earn money Grandmother used it a lot for baking bread that she sold to the British garrison stationed there. She had six children to support.

Uncle Henry and Aunt Lenie were building a new house in town. He had a job in town with the farmers’ co-op. We went to see the house. A mason had left a little pointed trowel at the front door. It could have been added to my collection of things found, but I was advised to leave it alone.

There were heavy rains and the Caledon River, the boundary between Bazutuland (now Lesotho) and the Orange Free State, was in one of its unusual floods, fed by torrents from the nine thousand feet high Red Mountains and the even higher Malultus Mountains in Bazutuland. Dad and few other men went to see the spectacle, but I stayed home.

We spent a few days with my Aunt Lettie and her husband, Andries Swanepoel, on their farm, Spitskop. It was the farm on which Grandfather Jacob Storm had died and where he was buried.

My cousin, Jacob, about my age, and I palled around, but one day we were up to no good. His older brother, Doon, had a small stand of corn next to their house of which he was, of course, very proud. Jacob was evidently not happy that he did not have some corn of his own. It was the old Cain and Abel story. So it was decided to harvest Doon’s corn for him when it was not even in bloom. We started at one end with sharp knives and cut the young stalks off flush with the ground, and then cut them up some more as if making silo fill. Why can’t you be in mischief without being caught? Of course, at the most inopportune time, my mother and Aunt Lettie had to come out of the house! Did the two of us ever say up our lesson, as the expression went! No, indeed, of course, we would never cut corn again.

But there were serious and somber moments, too. We went to visit Grandfather Storm’s grave to pay our respects. He was buried in a small cemetery on the farm behind a stand of eucalyptus trees. A marker had been put on his grave. It was an upright stone of appropriate simplicity, as I later thought, in the shape of a Gothic church window.

We took the train back north. On our way, we visited Aunt Anna and her husband, Jan de Lange, near Bethlehem, on a farm. They had no children. She had a beautiful flower garden. A little further north, we also spent time with Aunt Kitty and her husband, Jan Taljaard, and their children. He was also a farmer, a jovial man with a hearty laugh. What stands out here for me was how my cousin, about my age, stole a glazed apricot—the only one left of our dessert—during the closing prayer after the meal. (It was custom to ask for a blessing at the beginning of a meal and to end with a prayer of thanksgiving when it was over, which seems the proper place and time to give thanks, especially when the meal had merited it.)

The Humber met us at the station in Villiers on our return. We crossed the Vaal River by ford. The water was low. When in flood, a loaded open ferry looped to a strong cable, anchored to each bank, pulled across by a team of rhythmically singing black men. The current was swift and dangerous, and there were wild stories of a loaded ferry breaking loose and whirling downstream in the rapid current with no return.

The car seemed to have gotten over its malady of losing its breath and we had no blowouts.

Mr. Rabi, who had a key to our house, told us that one day he saw a big bulge under a linoleum floor cover. It was nothing else but a brown cobra that had entered when a door was left open. He had killed it on the spot.

There was plenty of rain and Mr. Rabi who was to look after the cultivation of the cornfields, either could not get the equipment in the fields, or he did not pay attention. The weeds were as high as the corn. It made Dad remark about our vacation, Never again in the summer! A vow which he always kept as far as he himself was concerned.

In the winter of 1926 Grandmother Lenie Storm came to visit us. It was always exciting when we had visitors, for my mother usually prepared special dishes and the guests were always nice to me, especially Grandmother, who brought candy, and talked and joked and teased a lot.

Then late one afternoon as I was around the yard, my dad came out in a hurry and got ready to go into town, I was told. This was strange. He never went to town late in the afternoon, except the day when a circus came to town and we all went for the evening performance to see the elephants, tigers, and funny clowns. He did not explain why he had to go into town in such a hurry, and I did not question it, because in my mind he always knew what he was doing. Delina and I were sent to our neighbors to play with their children. When I thought we had to go home, we were invited for supper. This was rather strange too. Quite late we finally were told that we could go home. It was dark and we never had walked in the dark alone.

Compounding the already unusual course of events, there was a completely strange woman in our house. And further, I had to sleep in another bed and room from where I customarily did. Exhaustion must have limited objecting to such a further disruption of my daily routine. I obliged. I was just about to go to sleep when the strange lady—not funny strange, but not-known-to-me strange—came in carrying a bundle in her arms wrapped up in a blanket. She bent over to me: Look what I have got! At that stage, I could hardly arouse my curiosity, I was so tired, but I tried, and there right in front of my eyes was the smallest, little red face that I had ever seen. Rather solicitous she said, You have a little baby sister!

That was the birth of my sister Maria on July 7th, 1926. Afterwards, the events of the day fell neatly into place: Dad went to town late that afternoon to get the local midwife. Grandmother’s visit was to help mother with the new baby. We were at the neighbors for obvious reasons.

Most babies on the farms came into the world via natural birth only with the help of a midwife or family. They were seldom aware of possible impending complications, and if complications would develop during labor or birth, the local doctor was hastily summoned on the advice of the midwife. Sometimes, the doctor was many miles away and had to be reached by messenger on horseback, if no automobile was available. This was true for black and white people alike. Yet, as far as I can remember until I was in my early teens, I knew of only two women who had died in child birth.

As to where babies came from, an inquisitive child should not really ask. My mother got Maria near a little pond. I suppose she thought of the Egyptian princess who had found Moses among the bulrushes, a story that was well known to me by then. So, Maria was some little female Moses. Others resorted to the stork that was indeed large enough to carry a baby in a diaper. On farms, bees, birds, and animals explained it much better.

A few days after the surprise of Maria’s arrival, we had one of the very rare occurrences on the high veld in the winter. It snowed! When I got up and looked out, the world was already white as far as the eye could see. The hills in the distance were white like huge piles of corn cobs on a threshing floor. The house was cold and we all huddled in the kitchen where the stove kept it comfortable. But, after a few days, the snow was almost all gone, except in the shady places. The hills were spotted with white patches where the weak winter sun could not reach, and the wind was cold.

I assumed the big brother role with pride and almost never, I repeat, almost never, resented too much the intrusion of a new, baby sister. I played and baby-sat with her many times and pushed her in a little dilapidated stroller, which I am sure had served both Delina and me. It had a brown cloth covering that tried to look like leather, and one of its rear wheels was about to collapse.

How vivid the memory of the Sunday morning when Maria was baptized. I assumed that babies did not have names until they were baptized. I felt left out, and managed to stage a royal objection before our departure for church. We were in a hurry to get to church on that bright and clear Sunday morning of a budding spring. She was customarily named after my paternal grandmother, Maria Johanna Theron.

The baptismal procedure was quite familiar to me. I had witnessed it many times in church. The babies’ parents would sit in the congregation while the babies were kept in a room at the rear of the sanctuary, attended to by an adult together with a young girl who would bring the child into the sanctuary just before the rite was performed. This was always an honor for a young girl and a coveted experience not to forget the excitement of a new, fancy baby dress for the occasion. Early in the course of the service, the parents of the infants would line up in front of the pulpit and take their baptismal vows. Then the babies were brought in, as the expression went, while the organ always played the hymn: When Mothers Brought Their Children… . based on the New Testament account.

Here all of us were bustling around that Sunday morning, getting ready for Maria’s baptism. Mother and Dad would be up front in the church, Delina would bring Maria in, Maria would be baptized, and where was I? I would have to sit alone in the family pew while all of them would be in the limelight and the center of attention and activity.

Suddenly, I found a beef. My socks, rolled up neatly in a bundle, had not been ironed! And I promptly protested the gross injustice and neglect which I had to endure of not being properly dressed. No matter how tactfully my poor, harried mother tried to explain to me that socks are never ironed, I kept insisting that it had to be done before I would wear them that morning. Did they not know that I liked perfection? I washed my hands and face. I always wanted a washcloth at hand when eating, and I never sat on the floor, just on my pants, but I always folded one leg under me to keep my pants clean. And what’s more, did they not appreciate that for years I was always impeccably dressed in clothes that my mother had made herself—especially when going to church, sometimes in a cute little sailor’s suit complete with broad collar, brocaded with shiny braid and a little snap on neckerchief with its own braiding; wearing a little navy blue cap with a bill over my eyes? (Truthfully, I was never