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Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

(By Eden Coombes, 0.5.8., East Street, Papakura, age 14.)

It was holiday time for Jan and me, at the end of spring and the beginning of summer. We work together, and always spend our holidays together. Well, this particular holiday we decided to spend on Jan's brother's farm among the rolling green hills of the Waikato. Jan's tact and broad hints brought us the delightful invitation. Having never been on a farm before, we were, naturally, very excited when the train drew up at a tiny brown station with its long name printed in great black letters on the ends. Outside the gates awaited a Ford lorry, Jan's brother and a cheery welcome.. We rattled along a grey metalled abominably bumpy road, with smooth, rising slopes on either side. A pink house, with pines at the side and an orchard at the back hove in sight. A little lady enveloped in a voluminous white apron stood at the gate. Jan's sister-in-law! Jimmy "dumped"—yes "dumped," without ceremony or care—the various articles of luggage belonging to us over the side on to the grassy bank. While he ran the lorry into the garage we followed ouf hostess up the garden path —it was not a flower garden—■into the comfortable kitchen. Two little boys, aged about nine and eleven respectively, flashed us boy-grins and informal greetings, and pounced on the toffee we had for them. That was how we arrived. The next day, a Saturday, Ave were quite settled down, and dreading the day for the homeward journey.

Jimmy, jun., his brother Rex, and Jimmy, sen., went to Hamilton on the first Saturday, and Mrs. "Jimmy, as Jan always called her, took a book to help pass her "rest-hour," so Jan and I left the house to explore our surroundings, Among the pines and through the gully, back again to the top and up through the orchard along a narrow winding track, sloping up the hill. At the top of the orchard we found a' honeysuckle hedge, with an opening broken through it—broken, probably, by Jan's nephews, probably by the inevitable boys in fruit season. We scrambled through and saw the top of the hill only a few yards higher. From there we could' see a fine panorama of- the surrounding farms. The grey road ran through the brown station and became a red clay road beyond the shops. Beyond the shops were more hills, low and green, that rolled smoothly until they became a shadow of mauve in the distance. Having been used to the angular brown hills of the King Country, wo fell in love with the wonderful hills of tho Waikato. The red road disappeared, and appeared occasionally among the green, and we guessed it led to tho mauve hills. As we watched, the sun came from behind a cloud. Immediately the landscape brightened, Jan caught my arm and pointed. "See the flash —away on the nearest purple hill?" I could see it, a white dot twinkling in the sunlight. "It's a house,'' I said. "The sunlight is playing on the windows, I can make out a row of trees below " Then a qloud crossed the face of the sun and the white dot turned black. Every day for a week after that we climbed to the top of the hill to see the "twinkling house." Jan suggested walking out to the house just for curiosity's sake. Jimmy judged the distance to be about five miles, but he had no idea who lived there. On the very last day of that wonderful holiday Jan and I set off to see the Twinkly House. ' We were very enthusiastic and interested. Immediately after breakfast we left the farm and! walked for two miles, probably more. Oh, that red road was dusty! After the first two wiles we grew a little tired, and our interest in the distant house waned a little. Motor cars flew past us, scattering the dust, leaving behind a heavy cloud, unheeding Jan's hideous grimaces. We talked of the things we would do and say. Jan said sfie would beg for a cup of water. She sincerely hoped there would bp no stream near hy. . . e "I'm thirsty, And I'd like an apple," I was saying, when a hoot heralded tho approach of another motor. Out came my handkerchief. Jan prepared to say "Boad hpg"—and the car stopped! "Care f'ra lift?" pajne a tired voice, We both squeezed into the front seat because the back seait was littered with suitcases and paper parcels. I immediately dtlbbed the driver as a commercial traveller —and a most uninteresting, bored one at that. Jan talked incessantly. My opinion of the man_ was wrong. He said the most unexpected, witty things and very original snatches of wisdom. Jan told him of the Twinkly House, and asked him to put us down before a lonely house behind a row of trees. Jan waxed eloquent about the Twinkly n,ai} listened, . 5 '•f he .said, in his tired oice, 'You know''—the tiredness made VP ™ * f «< di'a\yl—''you know, I was interested in the Auckland wjndyondt? ' theS Sy^vas e heie Maori battles fought about that

mill. The memories surrounding it lent it added charm to the twilight. . . One day I went close. I went in. It isn't wise when something interests you to look too closely. . A jar of brakce. "Here you are," he said. We said good-bye. We found ourselves outside a little white gate. Bluegums ran down the road on the right and up the road on the left, towering high above the tiny gate. Jan linked her arm in mine, and we peered over. I gave a gasp of admiration. It was the loneliest house ever, snuggled there behind the gum trees. A garden of early summer flowers, not very neat but certainly very beautiful, ran round the edge of a lawn that was in the first stages of neglect—soft ankledeep lush grass, with a single forget-mo-not plant in the centre—.a bundle of blue that should not have been there. The "lawn" lay half in the shadow of the gums, half in sunlight. The house itself was the prettiest, most . fairified place imaginable, with purply-pink roses mingled with purple wistaria clambering across the verandah, with ivy and misty blue periwinkle clambering up the chimney. Light blua curtains fluttered at the windows. A shining plate on the door bore the inscription, "House o' Happiness." We heard the soft strains of a ukelele and a rich voice chanting a quaint island song. Jan took a doubtful step forward. An inexplicable fear come over me. "Jan! Don't go in! We haven't been disillusioned yet! We will be —if we go in—l think. Jan—is it wise . . "Is' it wise?" Jan repeated, and by mutual consent we turned and almost ran the first 100 yards. We walked the dusty five miles back to the farm. When Jimmy came home. "Hullo, young ladies! Been disillusioned?" be grinned. "No," I said. "We didn't go in." "We saw the house, Jiminy. It's a dream," Jan said. • "But we didn't go in." I finished, "It wasn't wise. .