WAREPA RE-VISITED.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXV, Issue 2126, 29 January 1909, Page 2

WAREPA RE-VISITED.

THE CHANGES OF FORTY YEARS.

(By J.C. in Brace Herald.) II. ■

In my last artiole under the above beading, I think I have omitted one other building that stood pretty near the Bite of the present poßt office at Toiro, when I first remember the place in 1869. It was Young's store; Warepa then boosted three stores, and if Sommerville's mill and store at Waitapeka is included there were four stores within a short distance of each othev. There were Crawford's and Young's stores near the present school and church, and Mr Young kept a store over at his farm at the bush as well. Another structure then in existence at what is now called Toiro, wsb the late William Christie's "smiddy," After Mr James Davidson (now farming at Crookston) came to Warepa, he started a small blacksmith's shop near Warepa railway station. He started about 1877 — or 78, because I remember having been sent to bring home oalves from Doull's farm at Eaibiku in the severest snow storm that visited the distrioc to my recollection, and that was the winter of 78. I had to take shelter with Mr David son from the terrible drifting snow, and he had not then long started business, for lie had one end of the building fie had ereoted as a smithy partitioned off as a iving room, and I remember only full well how thankful I was for the meal 1 got. The snow drifts were piled up level with the hedges, and when I sought shelter there 1 had lost the run of the the calves in the blinding sleet and drifting snow. Ha made money there too did Mr Davidson, for he was an expert workman, and people horn far and near

used to come to him, Prior to his advent the late " Willie " Brown at Waitapeka was the nearest blacksmith, as Mr Christie only worked occasionally at bis trade, the farm taking up his attention more than tne original smithy—the timber for which was carted from Dunedin I think—as was all the timber for the first dwelling house on his farm at Ketlhmort, which wassituated at the foot of the bill and afterwards shifted to the top Another early inhabitant I have oven* looked was " Billy " York, the brickmaker. I am not sure he was in residence when our family settled at Warepa, but anyhow he was there soon after. He burned bricks regularly at Warepa for years, but eventually drifted to Catlins River, and 1 think died there in comparatively recent times. Billy York, or " Bricky," was not at all a bad sort, and I remember his hut and his hospitality real well. The late James Cooper soon after built a shop and dwelling on land he bought from the late Mrs Wm. Christie, and started bootmaking. I remember James M'Kinnon, who afterwards went farming in the Clinton Gorge, who used to work with him. Mr Cooper had formerly worked with Strachan as a shoemaker. He was a quiet, inoffensive little man, and when he started courting a gover ■ ness at the Manse—a Miss Douglas—we used to have many a quiet chuck'e over his wooing. After Mr Cooper died,

Mrs Cooper went back to Scotland, and maybe is still living. I had not included the Waitapeka district as part of Warepa in my last artiole, or I could have said that Mrs John Sommerville, one of the early settlers at the Warepa Bush, was still living in the district, but I only remeniN bar Mr John Sommerville at " The Mill" on the Waitapeka Creek. Mrs John Sommerville, Mrs Robert Sutherland, and Mrs Gunn, of all the original bush settlers, are still alive in the district. There are others, but they have transferred to other places. The number of women who bate survived their husbands makes one think that pioneer work and the rearing of large families in a new country was not without its compensations in regard to health. All those early impressions were vividly brought to mind when the C uthu Pioneers Association held their first picnic at the Warepa school grounds on January 13th, 1909. I was one who was invited to be present, having taken

some little interest in the formation of

the Association some three years ago. It is an interesting pursuit to recall he first settlement of a country. The youth of the present day do not realise what it meant when there is regular communication by rail, and post offices, telohones or telegraphs eyerywhere. I knew Warepa before the " buggy age," and before the "piano age"—in the days when the concertina or the fiddle wore the standard musical instruments, and the dray was the family " carryall " to a picnic or show or any other function. I was therefore with an eye to contrast the present with the past, that the gathering of January 13th at Warepa impressed me.

Before the picnic proper bad started, 1 had a look all round tho old school grounds and the old Bohoolroom-now a playing shed for the boys. The place where the form stood that I first sat on when, with my elder brother, I first entered the portals was noted. Coming from " Park's school" in Duuedin, the contrast was very great, and the peculiar dialeo of my fellow scholars struck me as strange. Then the majority were barefooted, and that too seemed strange to me —strange even after the adventure of a dray trip from Dunedin, and of that I have a vivid t collection. The impedimenta on that dray which had a tilt over it consisted of household gods. There were two horses in it " Vic " and " Di," two grey mares which mj father bought from the Provincial Government. Their full names were Yiotoria and Diana, and they had been two of a team of tour or sis greys which used to run the gold esoort from the diggings. They had the Government brand on and wem also numbered. Leaving Dunedin in the morning, my mother, with a baby in her arms, had a seat under the tilt on some bedding. There were four children, the eldest about nine and the youngest a baby. The others, there were six of ub altogether, were either on ahead or left behind. We made Spring bank, Taieri in the afternoon, and another horse was procured there. How I remember this particularly is that a man went out to the gate of a paddock— I didn't know what a paddook was then—and called " Ooop," " Coop," and a lot of horses come running up to him from the furthest away part of the paddook. I thought him a magioian to be thus obeyed. My previous experienoe of

torses wag that they vera only raxious to get away from human* of )oy genius an-yhow, That night wiH itftyea at Adam's acoommodation house, '. oan't say whereabouts the site of )lace was, but I think the name is He was to me an oldish man, veryH chid, and the house was not for from ■iver, because I remember him ib through an orchard in the ind showing us a fine newly painted H >oat be had there. I think we n Milton the next night. We boviH >ften walked long distances where tbiH roads were bad, but the real trouble waiH up B'.oney Greek hill and on the H jlay road between Lovells Flat and H Baloiutha. I remember, too, at somiH point about the Hillend district thaH ;oam got a bit of way on going down a H iteep hill and the wheel struck a tele- H ?raph post, and the wires fell, tearing a H note in the tilt and soaring my mother, H md the result was a long walk for her, H mrrying the baby and us giving her tl band turn about, Oh how tired we al|H were, and that is about all I remember, H Qxoept father digging with a spade and H clearing away earth in front of the H wheels when the dray got stuck, We 9 fed at Balclutha, but resolved to go on, H and this was the third day of out B journey. The roads were traoka any- H where after leaving "The Telegraphß Road " and the journey was so slow by ■ reason of the number of stick-ups, that I mother with four of us went on ahead, H and oh 1 the weariness of that night. It ■ had been wet spring weather.—We knew fl nothing of spring then, but we knew ill was wet, and the grass— tussock wai fl long, and in the dark the track was hard M to find. To keep the direotion fori there wub no light in sight nor fence to I guido one for miles—we boys bad to carry ■ a young sister alternately, and keep ourfl feet in the wheel rut ol some cart which ■ had passed on in the direotion we were ■ supposed to go. Even when we got in- ■ sido the top gate of the farm for the ■ farm bad been ring fenced, we had no 9 light in sight to guide us, and our little ■ feet wearily dragging along the wheel I ruts to keep in tho way is an experience H not easily forgotten, Weary, weary were I we, but there was not a grumble. We 9

had nothing to eat, it seemed for ages, and when we rested in the flax it seemed wearier than ever. It was a Saturday night too, but there was nothing (or it but to push on, and then we—after wandering often from the wheel tracki came on some cattle, including a big bull lying down. We kids got a groat scare when the bull roared. Surely we could no! be far away from a homestead. Mother cooeed several times, and away down a deep gully an answering sound came, and an unole (James Smith, lately ot Kelso, farmer, and now recently deceased) who was in charge of the farm, came with a lantern and we soon were re* lieved of our burdens, and following our guide were soon before a biasing firs and getting nourishment into us. Long after wo were sound asleep mother sat up to wait for the dray, which came, not, and in her anxiety she made Mr

Smith go back. The dray bad got hopelessly stuck at where the plantation it on the Toiro side of what is now Kakapuaka, and remained there all uight. Father was bringing the horses' home wheu Smith met bim, and reported the safe arrival of the family. Ooe thing which makes this journey clear to me was the loss of a long haired pel dog. She must have been some sort of Irish or Scotch terrier, and knew a lot of tricks. Her name was " Thrummey," and she had decided to stand by the dray all night, but she was never seen again nor heard toll of, thougii many enquiries were made regarding her, How trouble can be shaken off with a good sleep was exemplified the following morning. We boys were up early to set the wonderful farm which was to be oars, and on which we were to make untold gold. How optimistic mother had always been over this farm scheme. My brother and I had part of it "in our owo names "—mother bad bought it for ns. How we were fired to realise all her expectations ! Accordingly we arose early, —heedless of the Sunday. We had to: work hard—so mother kept telling us—and clear the ground and get wheat sown, etc., etc., so we two armed ourselves with adzes, and straightaway eet out exploring and looking for fields to clear, and after examining a creek with several holes in it as likely bathing places—but no, we must not bathe we must go to work, and so we set-to, resolutely chopping out great tusaooks, and generally making ourselves very tired. Tne worst of this, as we afterwards found, was that we had been on Borthwiok'g run adjoining, and had chopped out a lot of tunookt he didn't want chopped out—the result of our not getting our land marks before we set out. However, that is by the way. We accepted agricultural life with a good grace, but we had few spells, and in the days when we were dead tired and beat gathering after the scythe, or harrowing in the spring time, or hoeing turnips, or binding after the reaper, the glamour of farm life wore off. The cattle were eon' stantly to be herded off the orop in the spring before fenoea were ereotedi Every night after school and all Saturday this was a groat trial, though it bad its compensations. 1 read books ot all sorts, and was often so deeply engrossed in " GuyMannering," " Quentein Durward," \ or " The Hunter's Feast" that the cows | would get in the crop, and then mother ; discovering the remissness, the gauntlet of her wrath bad to be run, and many a ■ time I oan recollect keeping out of her way or doing some extraordinary duty to appease the wrath to oome. Ysb, a lot. ot the romanoe of the books I read got knocked out of me. But the years of' my life then were not many, and compensations came in the shape of some dainty dear to a school boy ot those days, and the past was forgotten and all its trials. School was a pleasure to go to. We got out of a bit of hard graft at home by getting there and lessons were easy—at least they were to me. (To be Continued),