PROJECT ASHABI
African Stories. Limitless Worlds.
PROJECT ASHABI
African Stories. Limitless Worlds.
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When the time drew near for Samuel the Beadle to let his son begin his term of military service, he betook himself to the market, purchased a regulation shirt, a knapsack, and a few other things needed by a soldier--and he did not forget the main item: he ran and fetched a bottle of liquor. Then he went home.
And there, in the presence of his neighbors, of whom I had the privilege of being one, he drank a glassful to "long life," and offered another to Rebekah, his good wife.
"Drink, madam," said he, merrily. At this Rebekah turned up her nose, as if ready to blurt out with "How often have you seen me drink liquor?"
Indeed, it was an affront which she would not have passed over in silence at any other time, but she had no heart for an open quarrel just then, when about to part with her son, and was satisfied with a silent refusal.
"Woman," said Samuel, angrily, "take it, and do as you are told!" But Rebekah was not impressed by his angry tone, for in fact Samuel was an easy "lord and master." As to his loudness, it was but part of an old habit of his, dating from the days of his own military service, to bully his inferiors and to let those above him in authority bully him.
"So are they all of his kind," she would often explain to her neighbors. "They just fuss, to blow off their tempers, and then--one may sit on them."
Rebekah persisted in her refusal, and Samuel began in a softer tone:
"But why does it worry you so much? Woman, woman, it is not to Shemad, God forbid, that he is going!"
Arthur Conan Doyle
