[53] The spoons being generally of very soft metal, are easily destroyed by rough usage. But, quiet as is the every-day life of the unmodernized, primitive, up-country Boer homestead, it is not without its great events. At intervals of months or years the "smous"[54] arrives, often a small Polish or German Jew, with his wagon or a couple of horses heavily laden with goods--tapes, needles, men's clothing, brass jewellery, cotton goods, and hardware--all that the farmer's household requires. He asks leave to outspan, which is generally given him, though the farmer and his good wife declare they have need of nothing. He then begs leave simply to unpack and display his wares, and, permission being given, the rolls are brought into the great front room, and soon tables, chairs, and sofa are covered with piles of clothing and trinkets, which the "smous" exhibits one by one, expatiating as he does so on the heavy loss he is bound to undergo, having given more for the articles than he fears he can ever receive for them. In the end he succeeds in disposing of several items, clothing, groceries, and perhaps a brass watch or a German clock (such as one buys in Tottenham Court Road for three-and-six, but marked in large figures "Ten pounds ten," which after much haggling is reduced to seven!) in exchange for a pile of sheepskins that have been accumulating in the wagon-house, or a horse, or even some of the treasured money from the old green wagon-chest. [54] Smous = hawker. But there are even greater events: sometimes an uncle or aunt from a distance comes on a visit; and there are the regular, recurrent excitements of shearing times, when the farm wakes up for a few days, there is a noise of bleating sheep, and Kaffirs are talking in the wagon-house, and there are extra rations to be given out, and the wool has to be trodden down into the bales; and at the end the great wagon has to be laden with the bags, which are carried away to the nearest town or village, if there be one within thirty or a hundred miles, or to a little country shop. And there is the great excitement of the year, when the wagon returns with the stores and clothing for which some of the wool has been exchanged. Then there are visits to the nearest church to take the Lord's Supper, coming once in two or three months, or once in two or three years, as the church may be thirty or three hundred miles distant: but above all, on the up-country farm as elsewhere, come the three momentous events common to all human existence--birth, death, and marriage.