Timeless words served to reassure the frightened woman on that cold winter’s night.
THE OWL
Outside the kitchen window where the two tall narrow fir trees stood, she heard the
owl again. The past few nights, its low hooting had sent a tremor of fear through her
body. Pushing aside the faded blue gingham curtains, she peered out. The full moon,
pale and cold, hung there among the faint stars. Then she heard the hooting again,
as though directed to her through the glass.
“I know,” she whispered to herself. “That owl is telling something evil. It’s a curse …”
Picking up the small oil-lamp, she went into the dining-room. In the big armchair sat
the old woman wrapped in a thick black shawl. Her dim blue eyes turned towards her
daughter. “It’s too cold for me, Hennie,“ she whined. “I’m going to bed.”
She lifted herself out of the chair. Her toothless mouth had sunk back in her face,
increasing the sharpness of her chin and long thin nose. Momentarily her head cast a
large ghostly shadow in the shape of a witch on the wall.
Grunting softly, she shuffled down the passage. Her feet in their large soft slippers
made soft puffing sounds as she moved slowly to the bedroom.
The daughter went back to the kitchen window. She was drawn there. All was quiet
now. She thought of her husband, dead these many years and of Jan, their son. She
felt abandoned by both and silently cried out at how hard and difficult life was for her
coping alone on this desolate farm.
Her old mother had been living with them for nearly twenty years. She would hear
nothing about buying or renting a little place for the two of them in the village beyond
the koppie. “Hennie, my child,” she had admonished, “Koos inherited this farm from
his father, and Jan will surely, one day soon, come and carry on with the farming. He
will inherit if from you.”
“Yes, Ma,” she had replied, “but Jan is not interested in farming, so what am I to do?”
She lifted the stove-plate and pushed a piece of wood into the smouldering ashes.
Then she put the black kettle over the opening. Soon she heard the comforting
sounds of it coming to the boil and thought of the warmth of the coffee she would
drink.
She made the coffee and opened the kitchen door. The moon had risen quite high
now. The trees stood there, like two black ghouls, enshrouded in their pin-like foliage,
quietly remote, harbouring some kind of secret and giving refuge to the sinister owl. It
seemed as if a spell had been cast on the farmyard.
She finished sipping her coffee. There was a chill in the air. The old woman was
right; winter was on its way. Through the dark kitchen, where the kettle had gone
silent, she went to her bedroom. Her faith would protect her and the old woman she
thought, and Jan would come back to the farm and take over. She had to believe it.
She pulled open the top drawer of the big chest and removed the hard-covered Book,
her only consolation in her many lonely years. She turned to the Book of Proverbs,
where she knew she would find what she needed.
There it was, Verse 26 “As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the
curse, causeless, shall not come.”
And she knew that it was so.