Our life with the faithful-mother in the white tree.
Now we were living with the Faithful-Mother and she was taking care of us with her faithfulness, but within a week that we were living with this mother, we had forgotten all our past torments and she told us to go to the hall at any time we liked. So early in the morning, we should go to the hall and begin to eat and drink, because we were not buying anything that we wanted, so that I began to lavish all the drinks as I had been a great palm-wine drinkard in my town before I left. And within one month my wife and I became good dancers. This was rather queer. One night, when we were short of drinks at about two o’clock in the midnight, then the Chief waiter reported to the Faithful-Mother that we were short of drinks and there was none in the store, then she gave the chief waiter a small bottle which was exactly the size of injection’s bottle and it contained only a little quantity of wine. After the chief waiter brought it to the hall we began to drink it, but for three days and nights, the whole of us could not drink the wine which the bottle contained to one-fifth. So after about three months that we were inside this white tree, we became the inhabitants of the house and we were feeding on anything that we liked free of charge. There was a special room in this house to play gamble and I joined the gang, but I was not perfect enough, so that all the money for which I sold our ‘death’ was taken away from me by the expert gamblers, but I had forgotten that one day, we should leave there and need money to spend. Of course the borrower of our ‘fear’ was paying us regularly every month. Now we disliked to continue our journey to the town that we were going to before we entered inside the white tree, as a matter of fact we did not like to leave there ever. But after we had completed the period of one year and two weeks with Faithful-Mother, one night she called my wife and me and told us that it was time for us to leave there and continue our journey as usual. When she said this we begged her not to let us leave there ever, then she replied that she had no right to delay anybody more than a year and some days, she said again that if that had been in her power, she would grant our request. After that, she told us to go and pack all our loads and be ready to leave there tomorrow morning. Then we went back to our room, and began to think that we were going to start our punishments again. We did not go to the hall that night and we did not sleep till the daybreak, so early in the morning we thought within ourselves to tell her to escort us to our destination. Then we went to her and told her we were ready to leave and we wanted her to lead us to our destination because of fearful creatures in the bush. But she told us that she could not do such request, because she must not go beyond their boundary. So she gave me a gun and ammunitions and a cutlass, then she gave my wife many costly clothes etc. as gifts and gave us plenty of roasted meat with drinks and cigarettes. After that she accompanied us, but what made us very surprised was that we saw the tree opened as a large door, and we simply found ourselves inside the bush unexpectedly, and the door closed at once and the tree seemed as an ordinary tree which could not open like that. But at the same time that we found ourselves at the foot of this white tree inside the bush, both of us (my wife and I) said suddenly “We are in the bush again.” Because it was just as if a person slept in his or her room, but when he woke up, he found himself or herself inside a big bush.
Then we took our ‘fear’ back from the borrower and he paid us the last interest on it. Then we found the one who had bought our ‘death’ and told him to bring it, but he told us that he could not return it again, because he bought it from us and had paid for it already, so we left our ‘ death’ for the buyer, so we took only our ‘fear’. So when the Faithful-Mother led us to the river which we could not cross before we saw the white tree and entered it, we stopped and looked at her. After a while, she picked up a small stick like a match stick on the ground and she threw it on that river, but at the same moment, there we found a narrow bridge which crossed the river to the other edge. Then she told us to cross it to the other edge or the second side, but she stood in the same place, at the same time that we reached the end of the other edge, she stretched out her hand and touched the bridge, but it was only that stick we saw in her hand. After that she was singing and waving her hand to us and we were doing the same thing to her as well, then she disappeared at once. That was how we left the Faithful-Mother in the white tree who was faithful to every creature.
So we took our ‘fear’ back and started our journey as usual, but before an hour passed since we had left the Faithful-Mother, a heavy rain came and we were beaten by the rain for two hours before it stopped, as there was no shelter in this bush for rain or anything. My wife could not travel as quickly as we wished to, so we stopped and ate the roasted meat which the Faithful-Mother gave us, and we rested there for two hours, then we started to travel again. But as we were travelling along in this bush, we met a young lady who was coming towards us, but as we saw her, we bent to another way, but she bent to the place too, then we stopped for her to come and do anything that she wanted to do, because we had sold our ‘death’ and we could not die again, but we feared her because we did not sell our ‘fear’. When this lady approached us, we noticed that she was dressed in a long fancy gown, and there were many gold-beads around her neck and she wore high-heel shoes which resembled aluminium in colour, she was as tall as a stick of about ten feet long, she was of deep red complexion. After she had approached us, she stopped and asked where we were going to. We replied that we were going to ‘Dead’s town’, and she asked again from where were we coming. We replied that we were coming from the Faithful-Mother in the white tree. After we had told her that, then she told us to follow her, but when she said so, we feared her and my wife said – “This is not a human-being and she is not a spirit, but what is she?” Then we were following her as she told us. After we had travelled with her to a distance of about 6 miles in this bush, then we entered inside a ‘Red-Bush’ and the bush was in deep red together with all the trees, ground and all the living creatures therein. Immediately we entered this ‘Red-Bush’ my wife and myself turned deep-red as that bush, but at the same time that we entered the ‘Red-Bush’, these words came out from my wife’s mouth – “This is only fear for the heart but not dangerous to the heart.”