THE JUMPING KANGAROO.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4, 5 January 1903, Page 3

THE JUMPING KANGAROO.

By Miss Ellen Saunders (Burnham)

(This story was awarded fourth prize of £1 iv the Graphic Christmas story competition.)

Desolate and dreary are the plains that surround the Burnham station, in spring time a few bright patches of gorse and broom add a touch of vivid colouring to the monotonous greyness, but the fierce nor'-westers sweeping over the stony ground soon steal from even these their early glory. Powerful, you would think, must be the arms, and untiring the patience, that could transform into anything like beauty these sunparched wastes. Yet there is one spot, even here, where this has been not altogether unsuccessfully attempted. For, within the shelter of the dark gum trees that skirt for some distance the railway line that runs through the district, are patches of artificially formed soil where vegetables grow aud orchard trees flourish, and even blooming rose bushes during the first flush of summer shed their fragrance all around. These are scattered about an enclosure from which rises a tall, while building with red roof and narrow windows and doors. Within it is sparsely furnished, with floors scrubbed white as snow by hands not willing but often kept busily employed in the hope of preventing their owners occupying them in serious mischief. F*r this is the- reformatory of New Zealand, and within its narrow walls rage all the fierce passions that preaching and watching and discipline cannot eradicate from the hearts of its criminal inhabitants.

A bright summer sun was shining down on a group of boys playing cricket in the broad recreation ground that stretches in front of the institution. Their faces were cheerful, their voices rang out in merry and continuous chatter. Yet, watching them, my heart ached, for theirs was hardly the innocent, light-heart-ed mirth of childhood; whilst many of the weak and vacant countenances and feeble, diseased bodies bore evidence that the sins of the fathers had but too surely been visited upon their children. Bounding lightly across the grass came a lad, whose free and graceful carriage seemed to indicate perfect bodily health and vigour. I stopped him with some ignorant inquiry about the progress of the game they were playing. To be unacquainted with the rules of such an everyday affair as cricket evidently struck him as amusingly stupid, for he turned to answer me with a mischievous smile on his lips. Yet his dark eyes still retained an expression altogether unnatural in a child of his years—the look as of one unable to 'blot out from his continual remembrance a whole, long life time of crime and shame and misery. Many tales of sin and sorrow reach the ears of those who live in the neighbourhood of these wild and turbulent spirits, but the haunting power of that mournful look has made this boy's history linger on persistently in my memory, although it is now some years since the name of James Mortimer was struck off the roll call of the reformatory. In the cricket field, as in the dimly lighted dormitory at night, surrounded by his slumbering companions in their narrow stretcher beds, one scene out of the mournful past is never, sleeping or waking, entirely obliterated from his consciousness.

The twilight is fast gathering on a winter's afternoon; he is at home in his father's house, pacing his own hedroom with hasty steps. He is to remain there until he is willing to beg his step-mother's pardon, for his father has beaten him for wilfully disobeying her, and fierce, passionate anger is raging in his breast. She is only trying to transform her rough", unruly, little step-son into a model child; but the boy regards her with unreasonable, jealous hatred, and his heart is full of the memory of another mother, gentle, loving and indulgent. He will never, so he says fiercely to himself, allow this woman to domineer over him. And suddenly a way occurs to him by which he may escape the hated necessity of yielding to her .authority. He will run away. With this one idea in his mind he unfastens with trembling eagerness the door of his room. It opens into the long, dimly lighted kitchen. The kettle sings cheerily on the stove, the firelight shines on the figure of his little brother Dick building castles of bricks by its blaze, on the table, neatly laid for tea, the white cloth and brightly polished knives and forks. Near the window, at the other end of the room, his father sits reading the paper by the fading light, his wife standing close behind him, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder. But now she moves across the room and speaks to the boy in her calm, clear tones, "So you are sorry for your misconduct, James. Take good care that you obey me in future and then it will not be necessary to punish you so severely again." And stooping, she offers him the ki3S of reconciliation. Her well-meant words raised to madness the passion in the boy's breast, and he struck fiercely at her with one of the glittering knives snatched from the table beside him. There was a woman's sharp startled cry of pain—warm red blood running over his fingers—a man's strong hand grasping his arm— and sounding mournfully through it all the frigntened sobbing of a little child. The following week James Mortimer was committed to Burnham for attempted murder. A. long array of boys are being marched in pairs down a strong uninteresting country road. Two or three weary - looking attendants tramp along at regular intervals beside them, and their feet move in time to the music of a drum and hall a dozen wind instruments that are carried and played by a few of the boys in the front rank. About halfway down the line, James is walking by the side of a lad with a sharp, slylooking face, who is talking to him in an indistinct mumble, meant to he perfectly unintelligible to an attendant, if by chance one should come within hearing.

He is telling him of various escapes that have been made at different times from the institution. Why! There was Nosey Pete; the police had nabbed him now, and he was shut up in chokey, but he had one time and another Helped off half a dozen boys at least. And then followed a detailed account of the exploits these escapees had performed under his directions. Of how they had stolen a loaded revolver from the manager's own bedroom, and of how the attendants had been that scared to hunt after them when they found that it was gone. Of how they had cut the throat of Steve Grant's pet lamb, and pushed it down the well after helping 1 themselves to a few grills from its carcase. And of how, one wild, dark night, they had broken a pane of glass in old Polly Birdling-'s cottage, who lived away out on the Dunsandel plains with her daughter. Of how the two women had started to scream when they heard the runaways in the kitchen, but Nosey Pete soon put a stop to that, and made them come out and boil the kettle and fry chops for their supper. Of how the old woman's hand had shaken as she poured out the tea, and of how Pete had said'that they would on no account leave the house until they had had a kiss from the daughter and a song from the old girl herself. Listening to all this, James thought he shouldn't care much for Nosey Pete's assistance, but he too meant to run away; for more intolerable than the monotonous life, the strict order or severe discipline, was the daily, hourly companionship of those who, with passions strong- as his own, came from such surroundings of vice and impurity as he had hitherto never known. Amongst the subterfuge and deceit by which many of the boys endeavoured to gain some portion of their own will, amongst the cringing servility of speech and manners, he longed wearily for Dick's sweet, pure face and the gentle admiring glance aud ready applause with which his little brother had once greeted his every exploit. " .

it is impossible for the limited number of attendants at the Reformatory to keep a close individual watch over the hundred or so lads in their charge, and, as it is not customary for the inmates to wear uniforms, aud no high walls or barred gateo guard its precincts, it is not a very dixhcult matter for an active and determined lad to escape. This James succeeded in. doing several times, only to be brought back again after a short absence by the police or a seeking attendant, hungry, footsore and exhausted, but more than ever determined to gain his liberty at last. So one day he disappeared under the very nose of the head farm hand. Thompson was stout and red in the face, not very agile, and dullwitted enough to be often hoodwinked by the boys, although not an attendant on the place watched them more suspiciously.

Just the other side of the gorse fence near which they were employed was a deep and muddy hole, in which the race water was retained for purposes of irrigation. James took a llying leap across gorse and pool, and Thompson, blundering in hot pursuit over the fence, fell headforemost into the water beyond. The loud and angry oaths that broke from big lips were scarcely calculated to raise the moral standard of the lads who assisted him out. The escapee, looking back as he sped away across the plains, saw them, with faces that expressed nothing but the gravest concern, officiously wringing out his dripping coat-tails, rubbing mud into his trousers, and generally doing their best in a friendly way to delay him as much as possible. But James ran no farther than the nearest plantation. He bad not lived months at Burnham, during the course of which he had run away half a dozen times, without understanding pretty thoroughly the mode of procedure the officials would adopt to secure a truant. The police would be telegraphed to, the bridges watched, and an attempt to leave the neighbourhood before his escape was an affair of the past would probably lead to his instant detection. So here, under cover of the trees, he manufactured a rude hut of broom, and made nightly expeditions to the various outhouses in the neighbourhood, from which he brought back supplies of peas,- chickwheat and potatoes. Hunger and cold have made even the conscientious unscrupulous, and these were not the only things he purloined. On one occasion he carried off a kit containing a bottle of cold tea and a neat packet of sandwiches a lineman's wife had left in readiness for her husband's lunch. One wild wet night a disconsolate little figure crept shivering into a cowshed belonging to the- Reformatory itself. Here amongst the warm straw he found a luxurious bed, creeping off undetected before daylight appeared, carrying with him a warm old horse cover that negligent hands had left lying there. Thus he existed for three long weeks, and then, travelling by night and hiding during the daylight hours, in any convenient cover that might offer, managed to gradually place long miles between himself and the institution. In a sequestered spot, where James thought that there would be little danger of his being discovered, he worked for a few days for a farmer, who employed him about his cowshed and stable. The people here were very good to him, and the boy would gladly have stayed longer; but the farmer's kindly wife, as she sat with her feet on the fender patching up his travel-worn garments, made so many inquisitive enquiries about the home he had come from and his antecedents generally, that he grew seriously alarmed, and slipped away one j morning before the household were astir.

A teacher, living by herself in a lonely little schoolhouse perched high up on one side of the green hills of Banks' Peninsula, was startled one evening to see two dark eyes watching her proceedings hungrily as she set out her evening meal. Another glance through the window-pane showed such a little childish figure that it might have belonged to one of her own small flock, and the kindhearted girl hastened to heat bread and milk for the half-famished boy, and made him warm his cold fingers by the handful of sticks that burnt on the hearth. Then, tying on her bonnet, she took his hand in hers, and said she was going to take him home

to his mother. But James made seme incoherent excuse for declining her company; so, standing in the doorway with doubt and perplexity in her face, she watched his small figure anxiously until it disappeared in the gathering- darkness.

Ac last, one afternoon, as, weary and footsore, he climbed slowly up a steep hill, in a lonely little bushclad valley far from any human habitation, he came across the dilapidated remains of a homestead built half a j century ago by one of the old French colonists. The soft liquid notes of the tui sounded from the bush beside him, whilst, far below, a glimpse of the Akaroa Harbour shone like a blue lake in the sunshine. In the rich soil of that sheltered spot giant walnut and pear trees andL even gnarled old apples, with a sparse promise of hard green fruit, still flourished; but the place seemed desolate and deserted. James was advancing to inspect it when he almost fell into the arms of a big fat Maori standing under the sheltei of a ngaio tree. He was leaning upon a hoe and muttering to himself, as he gazed up at the sky with an expression of blank weariness upon his broad countenance. At his feet were half a dozen potato plants, dimly discernible about a luxuriant growth of thistles, and fat hen, fully an acre of the .same crop. There seemed so little prospect of that indolent figure ever clearing the tangle around him that James boldly asked for the work, and the native evidently thought it a pity to discourage anyone who had a fancy for such a disgusting occupation. So, in the days that followed, the boy took charge of the establishment, whilst Tutakahinahina lay on the hillside in the sunshine smoking bad tobacco and haranguing the rocks around him on the ancient prowess of the Maori race. But the weeks that were passing away were bringing near the season of the year that had been filled with rosiest and brightest fancies for James. How longingly in days gone by the two little brothers used to look forward to the dawning of Christmas morning. How often they counted on their fingers the months or weeks or days before it would arrive, and what an altogether delightful time they would have on that happiest of days. Their mother would have lived on bread and water, or worn her shabby frocks till doomsday, sooner than disappoint those expectations, and, as she stood at the washtub, or worked busily with her needle far into the midnight hours, she was devising how, by toiling and saving and deceiving her husband, she could scrape together money enough to purchase the unwholesome dainties and few bright toys that constitute a child's idea of a joyous Christmas.

And now James was formulating a scheme as he wrought in the potato patch, milked the cows, or brought firewood from the bush, that made all the toil of the present bright with the prospect of happiness to come. He was going to earn such a lot of money, to return home, and creep noiselessly through one of the windows that were left open all through the hot summer nights into his father's house whilst its inmates lay slumbering on Xmas Eve; to fill his little brother's stockings with presents; and perhaps get one good looli by the moonlight at the dear old fellow's face as he lay sleeping in his bed by the wall. Tv-T-akahinahina, though he had found Ja.mjss> a fadrly self-willed servant, drew a long face at the prospect of doing his own work for a few days; but, seeing the boy certainly meant to take one in any case, he gave a grumbling consent to his request for a holiday and even, in the hope of expediting his return, added to the sniadl sum they had agreed upon for wages the price of a second class railway ticket to the city of Christchurch. So, the day before Christmas James started, in the early brightness of the summer morning, to walk the twelve, miles that lay between himself and the little River station. Every hill he climbed discovered to his view some fresh beauty in the landscape around, but the -boy was too preoccupied to notice its glories, and his eager desire to reach the goal of his hopes drove hie feet onward so- fast that he arrived more than two hours before the train started, and when at last it did move out of the station the pace at which it proceeded seemed to the impatient child scarcely greater than he could have made on his own two feet. But at last it reached its destination, and, hurrying across the Christchurch platform he heard, with a start of terror, a most familiar voice disputing with a railway official over some parcels that had gone astray, and saw, just in front of him, the hack of Thompson's burly form. James hoped fervently that he was just about to return to Bnrnham, but determined to keep an extra sharp look-out as he made all the speed he could to get out of his way. So he slipped cautiously down bystreets until he arrived at the door of the shop where he hoped to purchase for Dick his crowning surprise of all —a toy that the children had often longed for as they saw it displayed in the window —an rnigeniously madle little tin kangaroo that hopped in a surprisingly life-like manner down an inclined board. James could have jumped with delight when he found they still had it in stock, and, when at last he really held the coveted treasure in his hand, could not help stopping every now and then as he walked diown the street and shiftin its paper wrappings just enough to get a peep at its cunning little head. The child -was so ©ocuipied with imag--ining his little brother's rapture when he beheld it that he did not observe a man watching him delightedly from a pastry cook's window on fhe other side of the -street, or see him cross cautiously over and hide cuntndngly behind the dpor of . the candy store he had just entered. He was bounding happily out aigain when he felt a strong hand grasp his shoulder and heard a joyous voice exclaim right in his ear: "Well! This is what I call lucky."

The boy's heart sank like* lead, but he returned the hea-ming look with which the head farm hand, from Burnham was regarding him with one of careless indifference, saying, ad he tried to shake off the detaining hand, "There, that will do. There's plenty of feJlows aibout here spry enough on their legs wo^ild

catch note for you pretty smart if 1 did try to clear out."

But Thompson was too proud of having secured James to run the slightest risk of his escaping, and never relaxed his hold until the evening train for Burnham, in which he iiad lodged his captive, was moving away from the platform.

It is not customary for this train to stop at the intermediate stations, so then at last, with ' a sigh of ■ relief, he threw himself down in a comfortable corner, stretched his legs out on the seat before him, and drew a paper from his pocket. A long and delightful account of a trial for murder caught his eye, and he. was soon eagerly perusing it. Thompson thought politics dry hash and leading ariticles a device editors had for cheating the public out of their fair allowance of the news that they had bought and paid for; but the proceedings of the Police Court had a fresh charm all their own for him; so now he hoped to have an hour's real rest and enjoyment after all his labours. Left to his own devices, James whistled softly to himself, swung his legs backwards and forwards, and drummed with his fingers on the wall of the carriage. He even got through a bar or two of a comic song; but, finding that Thompson not noticing these manifestations of light-hearted-ness, he finally knelt upon the seat and put his face out of the open window above him, as if to amuse himself by watching the country pass before his eyes.

• He saw as in a dream the fences fly by, a woman at a cottage door wave her hand to someone on the train; whilst a little child, with fair hair like Dick's, clung to her gown; cows scattered about a field of white clover, Islington workmen trooping back to their homes; a man in a grey suit driving a flock of sheep along a dusty road; little red schoolhouses, bare plains and long plantations. He scarcely felt the breath of the hot nor'-west wind on his forehead or heard the rustle of Thompson's paper, or the loud shriek of the engine as it shot past the various crossings, for his thoughts are wandering back to the, days now so long past that he spent at home in his father's house.- Just odd scraps of memories they were that made the child's face lighten with smiles or darken well nigh into tears. Recollections of games of hide-and-seek in the sunny garden at home, games in which his mother had sometimes joined as merrily as any child. James could hear the echo of her light laughter now as she stood with outstretched arms guarding the tall cabbage tree which the children had to reach without being captured or pay the penalty of taking her place themselves; of shopping expeditions on which th* boys hindered their busy mother by gazing in long and interestedly at half the shop windows they came to until she used to laughingly threaten to go away and leave them altogether; and of how little Dick would always have something very heavy to carry home and almost invariably ended up by. having to be carried himself; of a sick room in which a red fire was smouldernig and a night light dimly burning; of a broad bed and. a woman's face, with closed eyelids, lying motionless on the pillow, a face so white and drawn with pain the little nightgowned form in the doorway was sure it couldn't be.mother; of a woman half dozing by the bedside turning sharply round and motioning him angrily away; of dark eyes wide open, of thin hands stretched out towards him; of sitting half frightenedly on the bed beside this strangely altered mother, whilst a feeble arm crept around his neck and a tremulous voice called him her precious little son. Of lonely, dark days that had followed when Dick had watched at the doors and windows, and had wanted to know every few minutes when mother was coming back, and cried himself to sleep at night because she did stay away such a long while; of a charwoman who came and went, and washed dishes and floors, and made attempts to Straighten up the confusion all around them- of his father standing in the smoky kitchen in his shirt sleeves among? 4 ; an array of dirty pots and dishes trying to cook something for dinner. And then his thoughts wandered back again to a Christmas morning three years ago. The bright summer sun was shining in. through a white curtained window on the brilliant flowers of a scarlet geranium blossoming beside it, on a wide oldfashioned bed, and bare pine boards, on which wereseatedtwo little nightgowned figures, each with a long grey stocking in his hands. Surely none but a fairy could so cleverly divined every wish of theis childish hearts. Here was the picture book and gaudy top James had lono- been pining for, and there the object of Dick's eager desire—-aj trumpet, from which sounds could be .produced hideous enough to drive to distraction anyone but a loving mother.' A woman is peeping slyly round the door; a woman in a crimson bed gown, with long dark hair falling round a face from which for the time being all the weary lines of helpless self-distrust and hopeless disappointment have disappeared. There is the light of laughter in her eyes, and soft, roguish dimples come and o-o about a mouth that is striving to express nothing but innocent surprise. But now the children have discovered her, and she is standing beside them, holding up her hands in wonderment at the sight of all their treasurers and trying, not very successfully, to parry the many suspicious enquiries of the elder boy as to where they came from. And now he has drawn her down on the floor beside him and has made her confess, not without a whispered injunction 1 not to tell Dick, that she was the fairy who had placed them there. Poor little Dick! Christmas will be here in a few hours now, but to-mor-row morning will.bring him no bright presents, unless, indeed, James can carry him the toy he still holds clasped in his hand. He will; he must do so. He will take it to him now, or perish in the attempt.

The carriage door flies violently open, a rush of hot wind sends Thompson's paper fluttering to the floor, and, looking sharply round, he misses the small figure that h.a<3 occupied the opposite seat.

A group of people have gathered round the form of a lad lying still and lifeless amongst the stones and tussocks of the Eolleston Plains. "Poor little motherless child," a Woman's musical voice is saying, and tears are falling on the broad eran-

burnt brow from which she is tender* ly lifting the soft dark ring's of hate, "Poor little beggar," a man's voies responds. "He must have been killed instantly without one struggle o*l touch of pain. Not, perhaps, such ai bad way to die after all, Lucy. Lookfi His lips axe still half smiling- as though he didn't need our pity oil all." Flustered, annoyed, but still watchful and suspicious, Thompson in guarding the spot. Oh! it was all very well for these people to talk sefl» timent and fancy themselves so mighty tender-hearted. Their nights had not been disturbed, their days made a burden, or their lives put in peril, by the freaks and pranks of thai hardened young scoundrel. Let them call things by their proper names; the runaway lad was nothing; more or less than a convicted murderer; in short, he was capable of anything, and he himself should not be surprised to see at any moment that now apparently lifeless form shoot past him and disappear with a whoop of triumph in the plantation. beyond. Thus he thinks, and, thinking, stoops down to discover what aggressive weapon the boy's clenched hand still retains, so firmly held in" its grasp.

Awkwardly he unfastens the work roughened fingers, already beginning to stiffen over this their last earthly treasure, and slowly there rolls out on the tussocks at his feet, still partially covered with its tissue paper wrappings, the grotesque little figurd of the jumping kangaroo.