Brown Bread from a Colonial Oven/Chapter 2

by Blanche Edith Baughan

II

GRANDMOTHER SPEAKS

“And so you’ve pretty nearly all got telephones now, down in the Bay, an’ can hear folks talk in Town? Well, well! An’ Doubleday’s buildin’ another side on to his store—is he, now? little Johnny Doubleday, with his pants made out of a sack, that used to come a-tormentin’ me for to give him a bite o’ cold porridge, or a spud, in the days when provisions was run short, an’ the whaleboats weather-stayed. . . . Johnny, eh? Times change, so they do! What’s that about the wharf? A new one already? Nonsense, girl! What, further out, you say, so bigger boats can come? Well, my word! I call that clear extravagance. Why, in them days all the wharf we had was the men’s shoulders, an’ they waist-deep in the sea. . . .

“You like to hear tell o’ them days? Do you, now? Well, an’ I’m sure I like to talk of ’em. Get the kettle, an’ put it on to boil, against your mother comes back; an’ lay the tea-things too—then we can talk uninterrupted. . . . Them days, eh! when the country an’ me was young together, nigh on sixty years agone. Eh, dear me, them days! Only to think of ’em’s like goin’ out into the paddock right early when the sunshine’s on the dew. . . . Got the table all fixed? That’s right. Then now we can begin.

“Well, father an’ mother an’ me come out together, as you know, early in the fifties, when I was but seven year old; an’ nearly five months we was in comin’, by the way; like everythin’ else, ships was slower then. Soon almost as we’d a-landed here in port (that was pretty nigh nothin’ else then, only tents, mind you), father, he got word for to go down to sawpit work, down along the coast. An’ so, down along the coast we went, in a little bit of a cutter; an’ all day long it took us, the men sayin’ it was a good trip, too; an’ by the time we got there, in the evenin’, it was a-rainin’, an’ a-blowin’ very cold; an’ never will I forget the look upon my poor dear mother’s face as she sat in that boat a-gazin’ an’ a-gazin’ on the land, an’ a-seein’ what she’d left London town for!

“It was just a little bit of a beach, at the top of a long narrow bay, that looked for all the world like a finger o’ water, two or three miles long, stuck up in between the hills, an’ a-dintin’ of ’em down—but there! you know the Bay. It looked a bit different though in them days; for the hills, that’s grass all over now, an’ cocksfoot, was covered then with standin’ Bush—there was Bush, and nothin’ but Bush, for what looked like miles above the sand, as well as miles on either side of it; an’ the only other thing to be glimpsed, strain your sight how you would, was three or four funny-lookin’ huts, thatched with tussock-grass, an’ a-standin’ nigh on to the water’s edge.

“‘Cowsheds, I see,’ says mother, as they carried us out o’ the boat, ‘but where do the poor things feed?’ Poor mother! when they told her all the cows there was in Rakau could go through her weddin’-ring, an’ the furthest house was ours, she just up an’ dropped herself down upon a lump o’ wet seaweed, an’ burst out a-cryin’.

“It was hard on mother, mind you! In them days it was just about as bad as dyin’, in one way, to come out to the Colonies. For you left all your friends behind you, an’ you knew you could never get back no more for to see ’em; leastways, people like mother couldn’t. That was why it was best all to come in a family, when you could, fathers an’ mothers, an’ brothers an’ sisters, an’ the little children—all together, an’ all a-lookin’ the same way. But mother, there she’d a-left her own dear mother behind her, an’ she’d been livin’ in a nice three-storied house down Bermondsey way, with butcher and baker just round the corner, an’ chimney-sweeps, an’ newsboys an’ all, up an’ down the street—haven’t she ’minded me about it, often and often? An’ now here she was, come out to live in a one-roomed hut at this God-forsaken last end o’ nowhere, right the other side the world; an’ no way out o’ the mess but to go straight through with it. Yes, there she sat an’ cried, nor I don’t wonder at it—no more I don’t; an’ couldn’t be got even to look towards our hut, much less to go into it, whatever poor father could do; an’ I sat there with her, while they got the chests and things out of the boat, an’ cried too, for company, at first; only presently there was a two-three children come a-runnin’ out o’ one o’ the other huts, an’ them an’ me stood a-lookin’ at each other.

“An’ then, all of a sudden, I give a great start, an’ catched hold, hard, o’ mother’s hand; for there, stole up so silent out o’ the trees that we hadn’t heard him come, an’ a-standin’ straight up before us, was a great tall Maori man! Mother she looked up, saw him, give one screech that you’d think they could a-heard in Town, an’ was off into that there hut of ours, an’ me with her, an’ the door shut, with both our backs against it, before you could ha’ blinked. In them days, you see, a blanket was a native’s full dress, an’ they mostly didn’t trouble to dress full, an’ that man hadn’t. . . .

“Well, but you can get used to pretty much anything, bless you! an’ specially when you must. It wasn’t very long before the Bay was home to me, an’ every day a holiday. Not that I hadn’t work to do—every one in them days had to do their bit, soon as they was born, almost; but there wasn’t any school (another thing to tease poor mother, but I know it never did me, not till I was grown up), an’ all you did was done out in the open, an’ there was the sea, an’ the Bush, an’ I’d my little mates in the other whares; an’ then, everythin’, pretty near, was contrivance—an’ young ones always like that; it’s as good as a game. We’d no oven, I remember, nor no camp-oven neither, at the start; Mother used to bake in her biggest saucepan. An’ we’d no bedsteads; father, he boarded over the floor, first thing, an’ mother used to keep it strewn deep with fresh sawdust from the pits (bright reddish-brown it was to look at, an’ as sweet! for nearly all the trees was pine), and she’d a-brought out her feather-beds with her, an’ we spread ’em on the floor an’ slept soft. For all chairs an’ table, we’d our wooden chests that we brought with us; an’ mother, I remember, made curtains of a bit o’ print she had, because she couldn’t abide the sight of a naked window—it looked so mean, she said. Mother, she got more contented, after a bit, specially after your great-uncle Mat was born; but she never come to like the life as father an’ me did. See England again? Poor soul, poor soul, nay, that she never did!

“What did we do all day, an’ how did we live? I’ll tell you. The men (they was all sorts, from them that lived respectable in the huts alongside ours with their wives an’ children, to them as had built theirselves little shacks right back in the Bush, an’ was mostly Tasmanian ticket-o’-leaf men, an’ nothing’ for nobody to boast on), they used to work some of ’em at fallin’ the Bush, an’ some at sawin’ the timber in the sawpits. An’ then, when they’d got enough cut, one o’ the craft ’ud come down for it from Port, an’ some o’ the men ’ud go away in a whaleboat up to Town with it—plenty o’ the wood Town’s built of grew green once in the Bay; an’ then, with the money it fetched, they’d buy stores an’ bring down. So the men wasn’t so bad off, you see, for they did get a change, once in a while; an’ rare old sprees some of them used to have too, don’t I know it! when they found theirselves back among faces again, an’ talk, an’ news, an’ liquor! But the women, with all the cookin’ an’ cleanin’ an’ clothin’ to do an’ mostly nothin’ to do it with: an’ they a-grievin’ for them they’d left behind, an’ scarce ever a letter: an’ all the change ever they got, just to look from the Bush to the sea an’ then back from the sea to the Bush: an’ the little children a-comin’ an’ a-comin’, with never no doctor to call;—well, my word! I didn’t think of it then, nor understand, but many’s the time since I’ve thought, an’ I reckon them women had pluck!

“As for us young ones, it was our part to bring in what wood we could for the cookin’ (you ever use black-pine bark nowadays? It’s the thing for bakin’—can’t be beat), an’ to gather mussels off of the rocks when the tide was low; aye, an’ many an’ many’s the fish I’ve a-caught an’ brought home for dinner from the Point there. There was two winter mornin’s I remember, us children found a frost-fish an’ brought home. Just a-layin’ there on the sand one was, all as quiet! for all the world like a long silver sash-ribbon. . . . Eh, I remember I did wish it was a sash . . . wouldn’t I ha’ got it round me quick if it had been! though a rare sight it would ha’ made, to be sure, a-tyin’ in a dungaree over-all. But that other fish, we saw that a-comin’ in; an’ it come in a-leapin’, an a-loopin’, and all in a flurry (nobody knows, you know, what fetches ’em ashore; only they comes of a frosty mornin’; nor there ain’t nobody as ever catched one with a hook or net, far as I’ve heard say); an’ that one, when we got it home, it was long enough to hang right from the top of our door to the bottom, six foot.

“Then we’d to see, us children, to the gardens. That was easy work, bless you! All you had to do in them days was, scratch up the soil where any logs had been burnt, or that was anyways clear in the Bush, an’ put in your potatoes, or pumpkins, or maize, or wheat, or whatever it was, an’ up they’d come; there didn’t want no manurin’ or deep spadin’ in that kind soil, I can tell you; an’ next year, you could make your garden somewhere else—there was plenty o’ room. Then, when the wheat come up, us children had to grind it, in a coffee-mill as we’d brought from board-ship. The bread, it was made from the bran an’ all; but, seems to me, there’s never any now tastes half so sweet.

“What else had we to eat? Well, there was wild pig in the bush, an’ the men ’ud get one now an’ again; an’ there was plenty o’ parrots an’ pigeon—ah! them pigeons was good! Father ’ud go out a-shootin’ in the Bush sometimes of a Sunday mornin’ (they didn’t work of a Sunday, an’ of course there was no church; only once there was the Bishop, Bishop Selwyn, came—it was he as christened your great-aunt Mary Ann there, in old Martin’s barn; but that was later); well, an’ I’d go with him, an’ sometimes he’d shoot as many as twenty, bless you, or twenty-five. Some he’d give away to the neighbours, an’ some we’d stew an’ eat right hot—I wouldn’t mind havin’ some of mother’s stewed pigeon to-night for my tea, neither, that I wouldn’t! An’ as for the rest, mother, she used to put ’em in her big pot, first a layer o’ pigeon, an’ then a layer o’ pig, an’ like that, pigeon an’ pig, pigeon an’ pig, till the end of ’em; then a little water, an’ seasonin’, an’ stew ’em, stew ’em, stew ’em slow an’ slow . . . till when you come to eat ’em cold, there they was all in a jelly, an’ tender—my word! Autumn, when the black pine berries was ripe, was the best time for pigeon—but not spring, for in spring they’d feed on the “goai”^[1] bushes, an’ that made their flesh all bitter. It seems funny now, don’t it? to think that every bit o’ butter we saw in them days come from England, but so it was; an’ all the salt beef too, which was all the meat, but pig, ever we saw. Once, when supplies was pretty low, we tried porpoise—a steak of it; but there, bless you! I’d as soon eat nothin’ at all, an’ a great deal sooner; though some o’ the men said it was all right. An’ once we tried shag—an’ never no more but the once! They did look so nice too, roasted all brown, an’ a-smellin’ just as tasty; but there, the first mouthful, a’ that was the last!—don’t you never cook no shag an’ waste good bastin’!

“Tea an’ sugar an’ tobacco, an’ such things, we’d get from Town as we could, any time the men went up with the timber. When they got back depended on the weather, an’ sometimes we’d be pretty near clear out o’ everythin’, an’ it was just borrow from whoever could lend till nobody could, an’ then, to wait. We’d make tea out of all kinds of Bush things, manuka for choice; an’ for tobacco the men would grind up different kinds o’ bark; but, bless you, they never seemed to get no satisfaction out o’ ne’er a-one an’ ’twould be grumble, grumble, grumble amongst ’em until the boat got back—about as good company as a teethin’ baby is a baccy-lovin’ man without his pipe. Clothes? Well, we’d have a roll o’ dungaree down at a time, an’ everythin’ made from that, pants an’ jumpers, an’ skirts an’ bodies’, an’ all-round pinnies for us children—I can’t remember that we ever wore anythin’ else in the summer; I’m sure it was warmer then; I’m sure the climate’s changed—without I have. On our heads we’d have dungaree hoods because o’ the ‘lawyer’ a-catchin’ at us in the Bush, an’ us children always went barefoot, like the Maoris.

“There isn’t a Maori left in the Bay now, as you know—not a full-blooded one. Some they went to the North Island; most is dead. . . well, well! But in them days there was a pretty big pa of ’em back there in the Bush, an’ in spite of all poor mother could do, it was my dear delight to get to it. Mother, she was good to ’em, though, mind you! Once she even dressed old Marama’s hair up in braids, just like her own—an’ can’t I see old Marama yet, a-pattin’ of her head so proud, an’ a-sayin’, ‘All a-same te Pakeha, all a-same te Pakeha,’ an’ never took it down, bless you, for a week.

“I remember Marama cookin’ hapuka once. She’d a great iron pot, an’ what did she put in first of all but a great heap of this here sow-thistle, an’ on top of that the fish, all washed an’ scaled, an’ then fills up the pot with more sow-thistle an’ a little water, an’ steams it; an’ when it was ready we all sat round on the ground in a circle, an’ Marama she tipped the pot right out on the ground in the middle, so that the fish lay on the sow-thistle; an’ we all took what we wanted—no forks nor plates nor nothin’—an’, my word, it was good! You’d ha’ thought the sow-thistle would ha’ ruined the taste of everythin’, nasty, bitter stuff; but it didn’t.

“How them Maoris did use to catch fish too! They was the ones, my word! I’ve a-seen a Maori man a-layin’ down on a rock over the sea with a bare hook in his hand, no bait—an’ him a-bendin’ over, an’ a shoal of fishes a-passin’ underneath, an’ him a-haulin’ of ’em out with this ’ere hook, same as I might spoon dumplin’s out of a pot. An’ the Maori women too—how I did like to see them women a-catchin’ eels! Along in the creek they’d go, with their things tucked up, or off, an’ they’d stir up the mud as they went, an’ feel along the mud for eels, with a wisp of grass in their hand. An’ whenever a woman felt a eel, down she’d stoop in the water, an’ slip her hand, with the grass in it for grip, right under the eel—for they’re slippy things, them. . . an’ my stars! next minute there’d be that eel a-squirmin’ right out there on the bank afore you could say ‘Snuff,’ an’ the Maori woman a-feelin’ with her feet for the next.

“My word, though, didn’t some of them sawpit fellows use them poor women bad! There was one of ’em, Roimata (well-named, for it means ‘Tears’) used to live with Black Joe. My! he was a bad one!—an’ there he’d knock her about, an’ lock her in so’s she couldn’t get away, an’ carry on all sorts, till the poor soul was fair desperate, an’ tried to hang herself with a flax rope. But it broke, so it did, an’ cut her throat bad in the breakin’. The tumble, an’ the sight of her own blood scared her so as to save her; for a-lookin’ up an’ around an’ all ways for somethin’ to help, there she sees the chimney; an’ lively wi’ fright, she does what she’d never ha’ thought, most-like, o’ doin’, else—she scrambles up that chimney, an’ out, an’ down the other side, an’ comes to mother, all over bruises an’ blood (my word! she was a sight), but anyway, safe from Joe. Mother she kep’ her till it was evenin’ an’ she could get away to her own people, an’ they smuggled her out o’ the Bay, an’ Joe never got her again.

“Eh dear! I remember Roimata said a thing that afternoon, though, as must ha’ made mother feel a real Christian to help her after. You see, the Maori women’s ways wasn’t just our ways, nor our men hadn’t helped ’em, mostly, to be so; an’ while Roimata an’ mother was a-talkin’ friendly together that afternoon, Roimata, she says, quite innocent, ‘An’ how many men,’ she says, ‘you had?’ ‘Me? Why, whatever does the woman take me for? Why, one, of course, an’ that my own lawful wedded husband!’ cries mother, a-bridlin’ an’ a-bristlin’ of herself till she didn’t look like the same woman—she was a meek-lookin’ woman, mother was, an’ pretty too, even to a Maori taste, it seemed; for Roimata, she puts her head on one side, an’ lookin’ at her kind of sly, ‘Too much the lie!’ says she, quite positive, as if you couldn’t hope to take her in about it—she knew better than you, if needful. ‘E! too much the lie!’ she says, an’ looked so sure, that mother she gave up bein’ angry all of a sudden an’ just burst out a-laughin’. ‘The poor heathen!’ says mother, as soon as she could speak, an’ ever after that she always spoke of Roimata as ‘that poor heathen.’

“Yes, that Joe, an’ some o’ the others, was proper bad lots, so they was! Poor mother, she went in terror of her life of ’em, at one time; for they’d get them liquor down from Town, an’ there they’d take an’ drink it till it was done (an’ they done too, pretty nigh), in a little rotten shanty near to ours on the shore, that they called ‘the Old House at Home.’ I used to think it wasn’t any wonder they’d a-left Home, if their old houses was really like that; an’ mother, she used to wish more than enough they’d a-stayed there; for the noise they’d make at night in that quiet place, where mostly there was nothin’ but the lappin’ o’ the sea, and the morepork callin’, you couldn’t ha’ believed,—an’ o’ course there was fights as well. The Maoris used to say when they heard them noises, that it was Taipo (that’s the devil, you know), an’ I reckon they was about right.

“Well, but at last, one night after they’d all cleared out, that there ‘Old House at Home,’ it got burnt down; an’ nobody ever rightly knew how, only them as done it. The men was no-ways daunted, though; soon as ever they could, they gets down more liquor an’ puts up another shanty, an’ that they christened in raw rum, ‘The New House at Home.’ But the very first night of their carousin’ in it, there’s a note gets thrown in at the door a-tellin’ em, how, if it didn’t behave itself no better than the Old, the New House at Home was a-goin’ to be burnt down too—an’, my word, if it wasn’t! no more than a couple o’ nights later. My! the men was mad. Why, they even got the constable down from Town, for to see into it—an’ a new novelty it must ha’ been to most of ’em, I’ll warrant, to be playin’ hounds with the constable, ’stead o’ hare. But, bless you! he never found out nothin’ no more than they, an’ pretty soon he went back.

“Morris, he’d a-lent them his barn for to house the liquor as had come down from Town with the constable, an’ to drink it in too; only you may be sure the drinkin’ was quite polite so long as the constable stayed. They was a-reckonin’ on a real good spree, though, the night he left, an’ there! I declare I could almost feel sorry for them men, it’s so hard to ’a counted on a thing as didn’t never mean to be there, like that there spree. For no sooner was the constable’s boat safe round the Head, than I’m blessed if Morris’s barn wasn’t found to be on fire, too—just too late to save it—an’ the kegs inside of it! Well, that just about settled them men. They begun for to think, like the natives, that Taipo was in it; an’ they didn’t trouble to build ’em no more Houses at Home; ’stead o’ that, they begun to drop away out o’ the Bay theirselves. By that time, for one thing, you see, the most o’ the big timber was down, an’ the settlers was beginnin’ for to settle straight. We didn’t begrudge ’em their journey, you may be sure. . . . An’ who did burn down them places really? H’m . . . Well . . . whoever it was knew better than to let a secret like that out in front of their teeth; but between you an’ me an’ that there doorpost, I’ve always had a taste of a suspicion that there peace-lovin’ Taipo was very much the same shape as my dear good mother!

“After them men was gone, the Bay was another place. We’d begun to get on a bit, things was more comfortable, the land was getting clear, an’ everyone was friends. It was like one big family. We’d all the same aims an’ purposes, you see; an’ we all had only each other to look to for help, an’ sympathy, an’ amusement, an’ everythin’. Martin, he had a medicine chest, so he was doctor; an’ Burns, he used to read us the Bible of a Sunday, an’ do the buryin’—there was a baby or two died. Seems to me, lookin’ back, that there wasn’t half the spite nor the gossip among us that there is among folk now; maybe it was so much fresh air, as well as so few folk; or else maybe there was the gossip, only that I overlook an’ disremember it; an’ a good thing if I do!

“As the Bush got felled, we sowed grass; till by an’ by, all the place begun to get a lighter green, an’ stock was bein’ brought. Well I remember that first cow—Blackbird was her name—an’ Punch, the first bullock—father bought him; an’ mother an’ me we used to have a sledge an’ put him in to bring down firewood—though do you suppose we could get him to go? Not we! He’d go all right when he felt like it, an’ when he didn’t we just had to wait till he did. It wouldn’t do to have Punch an’ the sledge with mother an’ me for drivers, these days that you want to catch the steamer so quickly. An’ the first horse . . . an’ sheep . . . An’ the first lamb! my word, it was a great day for us children when that first little lamb was born. Just you try an’ imagine what all them animals meant to youngsters that had been pinned in all their lives, there between them two great spurs of Bush, an’ the open sea. Wild pig an’ porpoise was about the only big live things, besides men an’ women, as we’d ever see; and who could be friends with either o’ them? Dogs, indeed, the men had had from the start; but don’t I remember my first pussy? Tortoise, she was, with a yellow face. . . .

“Soon, too, we begun to build us better houses; an’ pedlars started to come from inland by the new roads cut everywhere through the Bush. By an’ by Silas Doubleday (that’s Johnny’s uncle), he set up a store. My! how mother did use to grumble at his molasses. Next thing was, there come a schoolmaster, an’ then, ’stead o’ swimmin’, an’ fishin’, an’ gardenin’ all day long, as we’d a’ used to do, the children had to sit still an’ learn—an’ a very good thing too. I was a young woman by that time, an’ a silly I felt, I can tell you, a-settin’ there among the little ones, an’ a-learnin’, at last, how to cipher an’ write—read I always could; mother she’d took care o’ that. There was some others my own size, though, that was one comfort; an’ well I remember your grandfather (as was to be) a-settin’ beside me an’ a-helpin’ me with ‘seven times,’ which I never could remember . . . eh, them days! . . .

“Then they built a church. Before that, the parson used to come over from Port, every few months, for to marry, an’ christen, and preach us a sermon in Martin’s big barn. An’ then we started a choir—I used to like that fine! All our organ, to be sure, was for years Tim Rafferty’s fiddle, the same as was our brass band on the nights when the moon was our ’lectric light, an’ the hard sand of the beach our ball-room floor; but our singin’-hall was big enough, anyway, for it was the whole Bay, an’ our benches was the boats—we was always great hands for singin’ on the water. Water seems a natural soundin’-glass for song, like it’s a lookin’-glass for light. Sounded nice it did, an’ felt nice, too, I can tell you! An’ often as not, we’d make a picnic of it, as far as the Head rocks there; boil the billy, an’ have our tea, an’ sing ourselves home by moonlight. I used to like them trips.

“An’ then at last there came the first steamer! That made more difference to the Bay than anythin’, I do believe; for it hook-an’-eyed the Bay folk an’ the world. My word, though, how them natives did holler when that first steamer—the little Jane Seymour she were—come into the Bay of a windy mornin’! They’d a-seen ’em go past the Bay’s mouth often enough, to be sure; we all had; but they’d never seen one a-comin’ straight as a string for the head of the Bay in the teeth of a southerly wind. Made sure, they did, as it was Taipo a-comin’ for to carry ’em all away; an’ they let loose one yell out o’ thirty throats, an’ then up an’ away an’ back in the Bush, the quickest things on God’s round earth. They always thought as everythin’ they didn’t understand was Taipo; but, mind you, once finish their fright, an’ they’d tumble to an’ understand pretty quick. . . .

“Ever I tell you that there tale about the pigs? No? Well, it was after I was grown up, but afore I was married, an’ it was one year when we had a good lot o’ fine big pigs. We had a neighbour, too; Larry O’Neill was his name, an’ you can guess his nation; and father an’ he was partners that year in pig. Well, Larry, he wanted some pork one day, but what he didn’t want was to kill any o’ his an’ ours; so what does he do, but he hollers out a pum’kin, one o’ them long yeller kind, an’ cuts slits in the rind, two for eyes, one straight down for nose, an’ another for mouth straight across; an’ then, at night, he puts a candle inside of this here pum’kin, lights it, an’ goes, very soft, up close to the fence of the Maori pa; an’ there he begins to groan, an’ to whine, an’ to whimper, an’ to screech, an’ to make in general the most ungodly noises you ever did hear; an’ then, when the natives peep out, scared to death almost already—for you know they didn’t dare out ever after dusk for fear of Taipo—there was this here horrible face in the pum’kin, all a-lit up, an’ a-grinnin’ at ’em!

“So they knew there was a Taipo after them that time for sure, not only havin’ heard but seen him; an’ the next day some o’ the women come down to mother, an’ says, did she see that Taipo last night? an’ to take care o’ our pigs because Taipo he’d a-gone off with one o’ theirs. If they’d a-looked into Larry’s house on the way back, they’d a-seen where he’d gone off with it to; an’ mother she said she never felt so mean in all her born life, an’ not a bite o’ that pig would she demean herself for to touch, nor yet any of the others—for, after that, whenever Larry felt like fresh pork, he’d up an’ play another game o’ Taipo. Three fine fat pigs he got for nothin’ that way, an’ goodness knows how many more it might ha’ been, but that one mornin’, very early, before any of us was up, we heard a great squealin’ o’ pigs up at the pa, an’ mother, she says, ‘I doubt Larry won’t get much more Maorified pork, an’ a very good thing, too; for they seem to be killing the lot.’ An’ then, while we was a-dressin’, we saw their biggest canoe a-goin’ out the Bay, an’ ‘There goes the Maori pigs up to Town,’ says mother again.

“But, O dearie me! it wasn’t the Maori pigs as had gone to Town. When father went down for to feed ’em, he found it was ours! ours, an’ that thief of a Larry’s! It seems, the natives they’d tumbled at last to the Taipo business, an’ this here was the way they was a-settlin’ the fresh-pork bill, an’ a-havin’ their little joke all in one—they’d stole all our pigs before we was up, killed ’em in our very ears, an’ sent ’em up to town afore our very eyes, an’ that at the rate o’ ten to three. Larry he laughed fit to split his sides when he saw it all, an’ father, though he was a bit vexed—an’ I don’t wonder—he couldn’t help but laugh too. . . . Mother she didn’t. Anybody say anythin’ to the natives about it? No, how could they? But I can tell you one thing though—Taipo didn’t trouble the pa much after that.

“Well, well! the pa itself is gone now, an’ there’s the cheese-factory in its place; an’ you’ve church every week, an’ a public hall an’ library, an’ a couple o’ stores; an’ a steamer a-callin’ every other day for to bring you mails from Town, an’ the mornin’ paper, an’ baker’s bread, my word! an’ to carry you off for to see your grannies any time you’ve a mind. Civilisation on tap, as you may say. But I’m not a-goin’ to give in to it, for all that, as you’ve a-got all the meat while we had all the shell. There’s many a worse thing to be had in this world than light hearts, an’ good nature, an’ neighbourliness; besides, we’ve all of us grown up tough an’ hearty, an’ done our day’s work in the world.

“But yet I’m not a-goin’ to say as we had all the best of it either. The want o’ too much jam on your bread don’t make everythin’ else sweet, so far as I can see; an’ ours was a rough life, an’ a narrow. It’s good to think as the children can be taught. It’s good to think as the men needn’t now to drop asleep all wore out, or to stay awake fit for nothin’ but liquor, after the tough day’s work o’ sawin’ or burnin’; an’ to know that the women can have their washin’ machines an’ their sewin’ machines, an’ stoves—yes, an’ their pianos, too, an’ their time to think as there’s somethin’ else in the world besides children an’ the Bay.

“Yes, I reckon there’s a good word to be said for these days, as well as them days—an’ for them as well as these. Well! Well! but for my part I must own as I’m glad it was in them I mostly lived. It’s good to be in at the sowin’ o’ seed that’s bound to grow, be it cabbage, or a country. Look now, an’ see, does the kettle boil? For there’s your mother a-comin’ up the street.”

1. Kowhai.