Plot+-+The+Second+Hut


 * Plot**

At the beginning Major Carruthers decides to hire an european worker because he wants to "plant a bigger acreage of maize this year". Furthermore Carruthers wife, who "had broken down through heartbreak" (p.81) is not able to work. Carruthers is anxious about falling into poverty. A week after Carruthers had sent a messenger to his neighbour, with the ask for help, a perhaps thirty years old "young" and "sturdily built" man arrives. Although Carruthers supposes him to be a boer, he likes his "honest and straightforward face". Carruthers needs help and the boer Van Heerden needs money. Van Heerden is been employed (//passiv?)// and gets a small hut to live in. One day while Carruthers is "walking along the farm road", he sees a "flaxen-haired boy". Following the dissolving kid through the bush, he finds the hut, where he "had not been since" Van Heerdens arrival, with "half a dozen" children living there. The family of Van Heerden lives there in poverty. Carruthers who is anxious about his future, sees in the poverty of the Van Heerdens his own fate. He decides to (let) build a further hut for the family. Van Heerden is pleased about this offer. Now the natives, who hate the racist Van Heerden, have to erect the hut on their normally free sundays. With the decision to build the hut, Carruthers destroys the fragile peace of the farm. After Van Heerden had slaped the native workers, they dont complain to Carruthers anymore. When the hut is built and the family had moved in, the hut catches fire. A baby dies of burns. In the end the Van Heerdens get a further child and Carruthers writes a letter to his brother in england and wants him to search a job for him.

Johannes S. ; Paul S.