Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/262

 left or downward, according to the finger-pressure of the child that he knows, that he understands, that he has grown up with.

And such friendship little Saïdyah rapidly inspired in the new guest, whilst the encouragement of Saïdyah’s child-voice seemed to give greater strength even to the powerful shoulders of the strong animal, when it tore up the heavy clay of the soil and marked its passage in deep, sharp furrows. The buffalo turned round docilely when he reached the end of the paddock, and lost not an inch-breadth of the ground in his backward course ploughing the new furrow, which ever lay alongside the old one as though the rice-field were a garden-plot raked by a giant.

Next to this field lay those of Adinda’s father, the father of the child that was to marry Saïdyah. And when Adinda’s little brothers came to the border that lay between, at exactly the same moment as Saïdyah was also there with his plough, they called out to each other merrily, and in friendly rivalry praised the strength and obedience of their respective buffaloes. But I believe that of Saïdyah was the best, perhaps because he knew better than the others how to speak to it, for buffaloes are very sensitive to a friendly way of speaking.

Saïdyah was nine, and Adinda already six, before this buffalo was taken from Saïdyah’s father by the District-Chief of Parang Koodyang.

Saïdyah’s father, who was very poor, now sold to a Chinaman two silver curtain-clasps, heirlooms from the parents of his wife, for eighteen guilders. And for this money he bought a new buffalo.

But Saïdyah was heavy-hearted, for he knew from Adinda’s little brothers that the last buffalo had been driven to the head-centre, and he had asked his father whether he had not seen the animal when he was there to sell the curtain-clasps. To which question Saïdyah’s father had not wished to reply. Therefore he feared that his buffalo had been killed, as was the case with the other buffaloes which the District-Chief took from the people.

And Saïdyah cried much when he thought of the poor buffalo