by Jack Lasenby
“Oh, the dog’ll look after himself. A sight better than a man in the river.”
“Did Andy fall in the river?”
“I told you we don’t know. It looks as if he might have come off his horse. Now, you just get on and eat up your tea.”
“We saw Andy and Old Drumble, this morning, Mum. They were heading out to pick up a mob of steers off Brooks’s place, out under the Kaimais.”
“Did you speak to them?”
“They were too far away to hear, but I climbed on a stump and waved till they went out of sight.”
“I’m sure he’ll be all right. Your father’ll tell us everything when he gets home. Typical man. I wish he’d had time to eat a proper meal, and look—he didn’t even take a mouthful out of his cup of tea.”
“What’s the trouble with willows, Mum?”
“Some people say they hold the banks together, but a lot of others say they cause floods. I’ve never liked them. Untidy things, the way they take over…
“Come on now, eat up your tea while it’s hot. There’s another chop, if you’ve got room for it. And plenty of potato. And I made you a golden syrup pudding because that’s your favourite. And your father’s. Although he does like a suet pudding, what he will call a plum duff. I’ll hot it up for him, when he comes home. And I’ll put his plate into the oven, though I’m afraid it’ll be dried up by the time he gets back.”
Jack had stopped chewing and was staring at his mother, as she plumped into his father’s chair, her fingers pleating her apron, smiling at him, tears spilling and running down her cheeks.
“There’s no need to worry. Everything’s going to be all right. Oh, those blessed rivers! I’ve never trusted them. And the horses. You never know when they’re going to shy at a bird flying up, or a leaf blowing across the road.”
“Old Drumble’s there,” said Jack. “He’ll look after Andy. He’ll drag him out on the floating island.”
“The floating island! What on earth is the boy talking about now?” His mother’s voice had changed because the telephone had rung again, and she was answering it.
“No, not a thing. Yes, they were just coming in the door, and the telephone rang, and it was Mr Murdoch, and the next thing he was here; that’d be when you saw him driving past. And my hubby rushed out the door, gulping at something in his hand as he went—
“Goodness only knows. Look, I’m just giving the boy his tea, but I’ll ring you the moment I hear anything. Yes. Yes. Goodbye. Goodbye.
“Trust her. Not a movement around the village, but she’s awake to it. I should have known she’d be listening in, on the party line.” His mother was talking to herself, but Jack knew by her voice whom it had been on the telephone.
“Now, what’s all this nonsense about a floating island?”
Jack stared back at his mother and remembered his father’s warning. “It’s just a story Andy told me, about a floating island in the Waihou River.”
“Yes, well he’s got stories enough to fill a book, if anyone had the energy to write them down, let alone the time to read them. Would you like some cream with your pudding? There’s plenty. Oh, there it goes ringing again. Here, help yourself.”
Much later, Jack woke, and it was dark. There were voices in the kitchen, light shining under the door. He heard his father’s voice, and his mother. And that was Mr Murdoch. But that was somebody else, another man. More noises, feet tramping. A lorry door slammed, then a second time, harder, so he knew it was Mr Murdoch’s. His bedroom door opened, and his mother appeared against the light. “Are you asleep?”
He closed his eyes, lay still, and said nothing. His mother paused. “Everything’ll be all right,” she said, but her voice was funny, and he knew as she stooped and kissed him that things were not all right, that they were never going to be the same again. Then the light went out, the door closed, and he must have slept.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Getting a Dub Home.
“WE COULD PLAY DROVERS,” said Harry Jitters to Jack Jackman one afternoon after school. They were sitting with their backs to the mouth of the tunnel into the pig-fern at the corner of Whites’ Road and Ward Street.
The week before, Mr Strap had opened the school door and rung the bell at nine o’clock, and the long holidays were over. The only time for play now was after hometime at three o’clock.
“We could play drovers,” Harry said again.
“Who wants to do that? Walking along behind smelly sheep all day.” Neither of them had heard Minnie Mitchell coming back from the shops. She stood, looking down at them.
“Playing drovers!” said Minnie, and Jack felt his mouth water, as she tore a flakey bit from the end of the loaf in her basket and licked it off her fingers with a pink tongue like a cat’s. “Some day they’re going to take the stock route around behind Waharoa, so they don’t come along the residential end of Ward Street.”
“I get a hiding if I eat the kissing bread,” said Harry.
“I’m allowed.” Minnie tore off a bit more, and Jack swallowed. “Anyway,” she said to him, “I don’t know any old drovers; you’re the one who knew him.”
“Knew who?”
“That old drover.”
“I don’t know any old drover!”
“You do so, Jack Jackman. You knew the one who got drowned with his dog, out in the river at the Gordon.”
“I know where old drovers and their dogs go when they die,” said Jack.
“They buried him down the cemetery,” said Harry. “My father went to the funeral, and he said your dad helped carry the coffin, and your mother was there, and she was crying.”
“She was not,” said Jack.
“She was so.”
“She was not!”
“You weren’t allowed to go to the funeral, so how would you know, Jack Jackman?” said Minnie.
Harry nodded. “My father said, after they filled in the grave, they’d heap up the dirt this high, and cover it with the wreaths of flowers. I wonder why they heap up the dirt so high, on top of a grave?”
“That’s because there wasn’t anything inside Andy’s coffin,” said Jack. “It was empty, so when the coffin collapses, the dirt’ll settle down.” He sounded quite certain. “That wasn’t Andy and Old Drumble, in the coffin; not really.”
“Aw! Where are they then?”
“On the floating island where old drovers and their dogs go when they die. And their horses. They don’t have to drive sheep and cattle any more; they just hunt pigs all day, and all night they sit round the campfire, singing and drinking and telling yarns.
“And when the drovers get half-cut, they do the knife and steel dance, and they jump through the flames with the tips of their skinning knives balanced on their noses. Andy told me.”
“You made that up!”
“And because they’re pissed, the flames don’t burn them.”
“Oooh! Jack Jackman, you swore.”
“And the dog that tells the best bullshit story gets a barrel of whisky, and he drinks it empty and sleeps in it for a kennel.”
“I’m telling my mother on you, Jack Jackman.”
As Minnie ran, crying and waving her basket, towards the bottom end of Ward Street, Harry asked, “What’s the knife and steel dance?” but Jack had disappeared. Harry thought he might as well go home, too, just in case.
Deep in the fern, Jack sat in his secret possie. He didn’t think Minnie’s mother would understand about the floating island, and Old Drumble and his barrel of whisky. Mrs Dainty hadn’t understood either, when he’d tried to tell her, and then she’d spun round and caught him saying, “Unga-Yunga!” and pulling a face after her.
He’d got into trouble for that, yet he’d only been trying to tell her that Andy and Old Drumble were all right.
His father understood and, after he told her, his mother understood, too. She said it was rather a lovely story, when you come to think of it. But she still said there was no need to go repeating that bit about th
e dog and the barrel of whisky. Certainly not to Mrs Dainty.
“I thought you’d have more sense by now, John Jackman,” his mother told him.
Jack stuck his head out of the pig-fern, and looked towards the bottom end of Ward Street. His father said you had to take people as you found them, but he wasn’t sure what that meant; it didn’t help much, not when they were like Mrs Dainty.
He watched Harry running towards his gate and gave a bark, not as good as Old Drumble’s bark, of course, but still not bad, a noisy huntaway bark, just to give Harry a hurry-up. He barked again and knelt out of sight in the fern in case.
When he went home, he’d tell Mum what he’d said to Minnie and Harry about Old Drumble and the knife and steel dance, and she’d say, “I thought I told you not to repeat that word.”
The factory whistle blew for five o’clock. Jack looked through the pig-fern towards the bottom end of Ward Street, for his father’s bike. He’d get a double home, and Dad would listen to how he’d told the story of the floating island to Minnie and Harry, and he’d understand. He’d be okay there, sitting on the bar with his father’s arms around him, stopping him from falling off. He’d hold his feet well out, so they wouldn’t get caught in the spokes.
Jack crawled out and sat and waited at the end of the tunnel.
Glossary
alky An alcoholic; somebody who can’t stop drinking.
Armed Constabulary Armed and uniformed men who kept civil order, like police, 1846—1886, and fought like soldiers in the Land Wars. In 1886, the Armed Constabulary was split into the New Zealand Police Force and the Army.
ball cock The floating ball that controls the water level in a trough.
bamboozle To fool somebody.
basic slag A fertiliser farmers used to help grass grow.
batten A light length of wood used between posts to hold fence wires apart.
beak Slang for a magistrate or judge.
beaut Excellent, very good.
belting the hops along Drinking a lot of alcohol.
bicycle clips Men wore clips on their trouser cuffs to stop them getting caught in the chain. Women’s bikes had a netting cover over the back wheel to protect their long dresses.
biddy Woman; often meant critically.
bight The bend or loop in the end of a pair of reins, or in a rope.
Bill Masseys Heavy boots got this name from the army boots issued to soldiers during the Great War, when the prime minister was William Massey.
birdcage The small paddock where horses are paraded before a race.
Blarney Stone If you kiss the Blarney Stone in Ireland, you can talk people into believing anything. And if you believe that sort of nonsense, you’ll believe anything.
blaspheme To insult religion.
Blondin A man who was famous for walking the tightrope across high places.
bob A shilling in the old money. Twelve pennies made a shilling, two shillings made a florin, and twenty shillings made a pound.
bookie Somebody who took illegal bets on the races. If the horse won, the bookie paid out; if it lost, the bookie kept the money. If the police caught him, the bookie went to prison.
border collie A breed of sheep dog, often strong-eyed, usually black and white, and used for heading sheep.
bosh Nonsense.
breaking in Clearing land for a farm.
bully, a bit of bully A dog with a bit of bull terrier in him.
bush-burn seed Cheap grass seed sown in the ashes after the bush and scrub was burnt off.
butcher’s hook To go crook. (Rhyming slang.)
carrier A man who owned a lorry for carrying cans of milk and cream to the dairy factory, and spent the rest of the day taking loads from the railway station out to the farms, and goods to the shops.
cattle beast A cow or steer; sometimes used for wild cattle. You can’t talk of two cattle, but you can say “Two or three cattle beasts.”
chain An old measurement of twenty-two yards, about twenty metres.
chary Careful, wary.
chiacking Teasing.
chivvy To chase.
chook A hen—or what we now call a chicken. chops Jaws.
clearfell To clear land by chopping down the trees and scrub.
clobber Clothes.
clucky A hen which clucks a lot, showing she’s ready to hatch eggs and bring up the chickens.
cock-and-bull story A made-up story, a lie.
cocky A farmer.
collywobbles Stomach pains, the trots or diarrhoea.
comfrey A plant that people thought was healing; now thought to be dangerous.
coot An odd, unreasonable person.
copper Maori A hangi or umu—an underground oven.
corker Good.
cough up Pay up.
cracking, to get cracking To get going. Crimson Glory A scented red rose. crook Sick.
cut down Model A An old Ford car with the body cut down to make a light truck.
dags Wool clotted with dung.
dicky seat A folding seat on the back of old cars—where the boot is today. Riding outside in the dicky seat was fun!
dog-tucker To kill something for dog food.
double, dub A ride on the bar of a bicycle.
down, to have a down on something To dislike it.
down to it Sorry for himself. Out of luck.
drain A ditch.
dry area Some districts in New Zealand didn’t have pubs, and they were called dry.
dry fly A trout hook made to look like a floating fly—and cast upstream.
dub A double on a bike.
dunny Slang for lavatory, what’s now called the toilet.
E. Earle Vaile An early farmer on the pumice lands of the volcanic plateau. He wrote an interesting book, Pioneering the Pumice.
elbow grease, put some elbow grease into it Work harder!
eye dog A strong-eye dog.
F.A.C. Farmers Auctioneering Company, a cooperative company (like the Farmers’ Trading Company) that ran general stores for farmers.
fag A cigarette.
Fair Isle A Shetland Islands knitting pattern for jerseys.
fib A small lie. flatties Flounder, flatfish.
ford A shallow place where you can cross a river.
Free Lance An old New Zealand magazine.
furlong An old measurement for ten chains or about two hundred metres.
gallows A wooden frame used to hang people.
galore Lots.
gaolbird Somebody in prison.
gelding A castrated male horse.
gob Mouth.
Golden Delicious A sweet gold-green apple.
goorie Mongrel. An Anglicised (turned into English) form of the Maori word kuri—which means a dog.
Granny Smith A green-skinned apple.
Great War The First World War, 1914—1918.
grid A bicycle.
gutsful A bellyful, too much.
Gypsy Day 1 June, the day that sharemilkers who were shifting farms used to move their herds, their families, and gear.
half-cut Half-drunk.
hammer, on my hammer Pestering and bothering me.
handle A glass beer mug with a handle.
handy dog One that will work both as a huntaway and a heading dog. An all-rounder.
hangied Cooked underground in a hangi.
hard stuff Strong liquor, especially whisky.
haver To muck around, not knowing what to do, dithering.
having him on Teasing him.
hawser Heavy rope.
head To run ahead and turn back sheep or cattle. So, we say a header, or a heading dog. Heading dogs’ barks are quiet; they don’t bark much.
herring-gutted Skinny.
hinaki An eel trap; also used for prison.
hit the turps Heavy drinking of alcohol. Here it means that Tuppenny Bill turned to getting drunk every day.
hitting the bottle Drinking a lot of alcohol.
holder A dog that wil
l stop and hold a wild pig.
honk To smell badly.
hoofed it Walked.
horse paddock Country schools often had a horse paddock, because many children rode to school. The same paddock was used for playing footy.
hullabaloo Noise.
huntaway A noisy dog for driving sheep forward. A good huntaway will bark when told.
hurry-up An encouragement to hurry.
inch An old measurement of about two and a half centimetres.
Institute The New Zealand Countrywomen’s Institute. Meetings were usually on a Wednesday afternoon, in country districts, while the farmers were at the weekly stock sales.
Jeez! A slang form of Jesus as an exclamation. Gee! might be a shorter form of the same word.
Jersey A common breed of cow in New Zealand.
jumping the broomstick A sham wedding in which the partners sometimes jump over a broomstick and say they are married.
kindling Fine-split wood for lighting a fire.
kissing-bread The tasty, flakey bread where a double loaf is broken into two.
knife and steel dance A dangerous dance that used to be performed by deer cullers and high country musterers.
komaty Dead. Anglicised (turned into English) from the Maori ka mate.
larrikins Yahoos, hoodlums.
lavatory, lavvy, lav Toilet.
lawsoniana A common hedge tree on farms.
leading dog A dog that will take the lead in front of a mob of sheep, showing them the way, and stopping them from breaking and running wild.
leery Cunning, suspicious.
Lent A period when Christians remember Jesus going without food in the wilderness—by going without something themselves.
lit out Took off, ran away.
long acre The grass along the side of a road.
long in the tooth Old.
loony bin A mental hospital. Loony—from lunatic.
magistrate What we used to call a judge in a lower court in New Zealand.
Maori Wars What we now call the Land Wars.
maul A heavy wooden-headed hammer for driving wedges.
meths Methylated spirits. Drinking it can make you blind and kill you.
moe Sleep (Maori).
