Who Was Under Her Bed?

            Uncle Fred and Aunty Sally Martin lived on “Redhill”, a farm on a hill about four miles away on the road to Viljoenskroon.   They seemed to have more luck than other farmers as they often had rain on that hill and their veld and mealies looked much better than ours.   Their crops were also much bigger and they became wealthy farmers.   But despite this, my mother felt very sorry for her sister who was childless, whereas she had a brood of five.   They had nice furniture and in her bedroom there was a tall wardrobe with a long mirror in the door.   Aunty Sally would always have a rest on her bed every afternoon.   She had a crocheted bedspread on her bed which used to hang quite far down. 

As she lay on her bed one afternoon she could see in the mirror that someone was hiding under her bed.   So she got up, lifted the bedspread and asked the black man what he wanted.   He got the fright of his life and said that he was looking for tobacco.   She told him to come out and called Uncle Fred who, I am sure, would have taken the young farm labourer to the police where he would have been given a hiding.   That was how people dealt with situations like that in those days.   We used to like those high beds and played under them, camping or just hide and seek.   Suddenly, after this, we were scared of what we might discover there.   This incident had an effect on us children and for years after that we always looked to see if someone wasn’t perhaps hiding under our beds.