The little wonder cross of Reijerink
On the farm Reijerink in a Guelders village by the Berkel hung in the kitchen a small wooden cross of fifteen centimetres, on the same nail for over a hundred years. In 1862 it changed its direction three times of itself.
1 Three times
On 14 March 1862 the cross hung in the morning askew — horizontal instead of vertical. The farmer’s wife Anneke set it right. On 6 June it stood upside down. Anneke turned it. On 19 September the Christ side faced the wall, not the kitchen. Anneke turned it.
2 What happened each time
On 14 March the priest came and asked for prayer: a child in the village would not recover. The child recovered three days later. On 6 June a labourer was taken on who should not have been; he stole within a week. On 19 September the chimney broke; the farmer just in time took his children from the kitchen before the stones fell.
3 What Anneke decided
Anneke saw the pattern. She left the cross thereafter as she found it in the morning. Horizontal: pray for someone. Upside down: send someone away. To the wall: look up. Until Anneke’s death in 1894 the cross changed twelve more times. Every sign she understood. The cross still hangs on the same nail; since 1894 it has not changed. Whoever inherits it has learned it from Anneke. Whoever does not learn turns it to the wall and walks on — and hears the warning an hour too late.
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