The Voice.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 151, 27 June 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

The Voice.

By BATHIA H. R. LUTTRELL

DAYiD lIEATH stood in the silence and heard voices, lie had come to the lonely hilltop to escape the babble of humanity, to drown some unquestionable, painful emotion in the vastnees of it all. His old dappled horse cropped the lush grass at his feet, and a chestnut fillv whose rein he held stood with her sensitive cars pricked, starting at every fresh noise. He was conscious of the spring of life awakening around him, stirrings of bush and bird. Below, the valley like a bowl held the alluvial quality of a fine day's sunshine, along the horizon were rugged hills etched against the pale sky. "I've found it, daddy —the darling!" A young voice hailed him from a thicket, and the filly began to stamp the ground and direct inquiring eyes in that direction. "Poor little thing," said the girl, holding out a woolly lamb. "Mother cast down —dead. It's been all night in the cold. I'm going to adopt it —I'll call it Billy, such a warm, comfortable thing." She made cooing sounds over its head. "And, having completed the adoption, you'll have to leave your mother and I to do the rearing." "Oh, are you still thinking of that. Remember, it's a whole week before I go." Those who have lived side by side for years learn easily to interpret a mere expression in the other's face. The girl saw his downward look and put one hand on his in unspoken sympathy. "It isn't as if— I could love anywhere better than —this." She threw out an arm in a gesture that seemed to embrace the sunny upland slopes, the valley, its green floor wide and long, till the hills stretched their arms right round it. "It's only—" They had thought it would be so easy to discuss this matter up on the hillside. Conversation came easily between them, but this time a difficulty persisted. "It's only daddy. It would be nice to go when Uncle Peter so 'specially asked me. It isn't far to Auckland, and Uncle Peter is such an important person. I'd have lots of lovely chances. It's only that I haven't been anywhere much, and I want to explore a bit, discover things for myself. I'll try not to stay away long."

Their eves followed the road that led from the foothills through the valley, dwindling to a mere track in the distance toward the entrance where the hills came together, "joined their hands," Girlie said — and shut them in. It occurred to the man watching the young, vital face that this was like shutting a door in the face of youth or putting the light out in some young thing's eyes. They mounted and rode together again. Mrs. Heath accepted their decision with genuine good nature. She was a sunny soul, always enveloped in the folds of a great white apron, which retained its bleached colour however circumstances or conditions were against it, masses of white hair coming down over her tired grey eyes. "You'll need a new dress," she said simply. "New dress," laughed her father. "Two, three new dresses, mother, and a bonnet for each. Let's be extravagant for once! We don't want to shame our girl in the eyes of her city cousias." So, as it had been arranged, the day came about and Girlie, in a new frock, bade all the loved things farewell, hugging the wee lamb rapturously, going round the kennels where the dogs raised a joyous pantomime, barking, huffing, squealing in a wild paroxysm of delight, trying to jump all over her. "Not to-day, Sandy Mac—not in this outfit. Be quiet, Fan! Poor old hundred-years-old Tip! Don't die before your mother comes back." Slipping her arms around a thin, white-limbed tree that watched her young reflection in the water, "Darling, I'll always hear you in my dreams saying, 'I wish. I wish.' " Lastly, her mother on the doorstep. Both of them shed a few tears. Then the drive in the buggy with her father to the train over the bumpy track they knew so well, seeing new delights in old scenery, because they were not going to share this again for so long. "That old pine by the creek, daddy —it must be over a lifetime old."

David Heath didn't answer. He just said, "Seems as if the little cuckoo from Siberia is a bit earlier this year," as its long note was heard from the bushes. "You'll let Betty Fane have my pony as soon as possible, won't you, dad? Phantasy will go mad with delight in pastures like theirs. And I know Betty will be good to her. She's always longed for a pony, only her father wouldn't buy her one." "Look after all the doge, and don't forget to give the lamb warm milk for a while yet," were Girlie's last words as she left the comfortable feel of her father's coarse, warm coat, clung to the iron bars as the whistle screeched, and the train lurched on its journey forward. When Girlie had been gone one month, the farm at Happy Valley had adjusted itself to her absence. The weekly letter, much watched for, was the only link; but when she had been gone much longer and the letters became infrequent, then the days, stretching themselves to the certain length of summer, seemed much longer, and the lawyer in its crawly masses by the creek came out in white flower buds, perfuming everywhere. "It's got a smell that makes you think of lines of poetry," Girlie always said. She had used to gather great bunches of it, putting them in glass jars about the homely little room. One night, coming in late from their labour, they stood 011 the threshold of their home and looked back into the dark stars showing through. "Never mind, mother, we've got each other." David Heath took the last crumpled letter from his pocket, reading passages of it aloud while his wife cut thin slices of new bread and the kettle sang merrily 011 the stove. "Uncle Peter's so terribly nice to me," she wrote, "and the boys, too, and wee Joss, who is such a darling. I am sure you will he glad I am having such fun." She never asked about Phantasy or the dogs. "It's nice to know she's having a good time," said Mrs. Heath as though she were in another land. "Aye, we always wanted our girl to have the best." The rain and the wind together were sweeping through the valley, changing places, running races, all the earth their playground. "A wireless," said young Donald Fane, "is a great comfort in weather like this." He twisted a round thing 011 the top of the set. An earsplitting noise emitted. 'You know," he went on, "I can even get Australia on this thing." The wireless, a home-made set, was erected in a soap box with a largely-printed trade-mark 011 one side and numerous connections appearing in a disordered mass from out the back.

"Er—where's that, now?" asked David, stumping about the room .n his stockinged feet. "Oil, that's only Morse," said the boy enthusiastically. "It's a pitv it s such a beastly day to try her -out, but I usually get a clear reception 111 the afternoon." "Never mind about it • now," said Mrs. Heath, entering with a tray, "I think it disturbs dad's peace of mind, really, Don. Have a cup of tea." A cup of tea had, with her, been a lifetime's remedy for the common causes of complaint. If the boy was a little disappointed, lie did not show it. lie quietened the set down. "It was nice of you to come and cheer two old people up." "Oh, I don't mind at all," said Don, happily. "I'll just put this on a bit louder if you don't mind." He bent over the wireless and Mrs. Heath shot an anxious glance in the direction of her husband. "Never mind, dear, let the boy be happy, do," she said. Then suddenly there was a voice in the room which all of them knew. David Heath looked instantly towards the door. He had imagined his girl coining back to him that way so often. It was some time before they realised the actual source of the voice. "It's a new lady over the air from the children's hour, didn't you hear the announcer say," said Donald. "Mother! My boy, that's our girl —it's Girlie, mother!" Mrs. Heath sat with her hands clasped and nodded her head. "And here's a little girl, Joan Marsh, of Mount Eden, who is going to say a piece of poetry about rabbits." David Heath was not at all interested in the poetry about rabbits. It seemed an eternity before the voice came back, and when it did everything in the room seemed to take back the personality which somehow it had lost. "Now I want to introduce all von children who are listening in to Happy Valley Farm, which stands on the Road to Never-Ending." With mingled feelings David Heath heard the clear voice repeat old names and stories which had made a real life fairy tale out of their common existence and helped to shut the loneliness out. The Road to Never-Ending, which was the track through the valley . . . "Because it just disappears, daddy, yet you know it must go on for ever. . "Another time I must tell you the brave story of Sandy Mac, who saved his master's life, or about the Wishing Tree which says 'I wish. I wish.' " Then she hadn't forgotten. There were tears in the old people's eyes. David Heath stumbled out into the night and stood looking at the early stars in the great black dome above him. Clearly a childish voice came back to him: "Some day I'd like to go along the Road to Never-End-ing, daddy, and just find out what's further on. . ." In that moment David Heath overcame his loneliness and a great peace settled over the valley as the morcporks called through the dusk and the niglit changed places with the day.