Read "Saidjah" by Multatuli online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Saidjah was about fifteen years old when his father ran away to / Buitenzorg. He did not accompany him because he had plans of his own / to carry out. He had heard that in Batavia there were rich gentlemen / who would employ slender youths like him, if they were nimble footed, / to sit on the rear seat of the two wheeled carriages. He had been told / that he could earn money in this way. In two years he could earn enough / money to buy two water buffaloes. This prospect pleased him. He walked / along proudly like a person who carries something important in his / head. He was on his way to see Adinda to tell her his plan.
"When I come back," he explained, "we shall be old enough to marry -- and / then we shall have two buffaloes to do the plowing."