John Simonet and The Wooden Bowl

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 154, 26 March 1938, Page 9 (Supplement)

John Simonet and The Wooden Bowl

(Written for the Page by Mary Greig, Wanganui.)

TOIIN SIMONET had a little wooden bowl, all carved in patterns; the wood u itself was a golden colour, und-in between the carved hollows it was dark, dark brown. John Sinionet treasured the bowl for two reasons: Because it was unknown, and because it was mysterious. It was unknown because no one, not even Grandpa, whose memory "as prodigious, could remember exactly how John Simonet came to possess the wooden bowl. He said, "John Simonet has always had the bowl, I think. 1 can remember him playing with it when he was only so high. Anyway, "by worry? He lias it, and that is all that matters." You would think John Simonet would know where he got it, but he could not remember a time when be didn’t have the wooden bowl. Nothing would come but the picture of the little fat thing with its queer patterns and eleai golden colour. So that is why it was UNKNOWN. Then it happened to be mysterious also. It was like this. John Simonet took the wooden bowl down from the shelf and wandered out into the sun. Soon he came to the field of long grass and sat down amongst it to play with the bowl. When he sat down you would never think be was there, for the. grass was smooth and unbroken, and even when it bowed to the wind you could never see John Simonet sitting among it. John Simonet thought it was pleasant to see the tops of the grass waving far above him; it gave him a queer, buried feeling, and also made him sleepy. Well, be held the bowl between his bands and looked at it. He knew it all' off by heart. There was a tree and a roof, and a lot of ivy leaves, and a little platform that was called an “eave.” In the eave sat the eavesdropper, listening to someone talking inside. The eavesdropper was a small brown fellow dressed rather like a liionk. He was half hidden ill a pile Of leaves and a grapevine hung above his head. The “squiggles' on the Vine interested John Simonet the most. It was pleasant to rub your finger along them anl feel them “squiggling.” Suddenly things grew misty. The afternoon sun grew hotter, and silence fell over the air. He had been walking a long way, he thought, find elimlied up a dustv, narrow ladder of thick vines. He was scrambling into u small dirty space just like the eave was. His knees hurt where he had scraped, them against the thick board, and a handsome bearded man was hauling him up the last step. This was Bonnlce, who had met him when he had been walking. He was very strange and interesting; he had a quiet manner of speaking, and his dress was rather like a monk’s habit. Bonnlce said in a whisper.: “Hush, while I hide ye under the leaves, And I’ll hide myself, and we’ll wait in the eaves.” That, at least, was exciting, thought John Simonet, but didn’t people talk poetry only in books? Then he spied a stem banging above him, with a whole crop of the most perfect squiggles you ever saw. He wanted to stretch for them, but Bonnice had told him to lie still. He opened bis mouth and out came two lines of poetry that surprised him very much: “Please, Bonnice, mayn’t I wriggle? I want to reach me a red-green squiggle.” Just as he was about to reach it, there was a trampling below, and through the boles in the eave Bonnice and John Sinionet could see three men entering the room beneath. One was very tall, with red, curling hair; another was thin and. dark, with strong limbs and merry eyes, and the third

was short and fair, and had a friendly face. As soon as they entered they each seized a glass of wine and chanted: "Drink to our joys with a goblet of wine; I’ll drink to yours, you drink to mine." They were certainly merry fellows, thought John Simonet, whose legs were beginning to go to sleep and his arm to ache from the way he was cramped into the corner. Bonnice was watching the proceedings below very eagerly. Soon the three began to whisper and grow uneasy, and then one of them said: "Now at last we are alone, We'll talk of MYSTERIOUS and UNKNOWN.” He said those Iwo words in a kind of triumphant shout, and the others took them up and chanted them for quite a while. John Sinionet heard them with a kind of thrill that went all over him.. Now, at last, he was to hear the secret of his wooden bowl. He was sure of that. He still held it in bis bauds and gazed at it now and then. It seemed to him that the carved monk on the wood had opened Ills mouth a little wider, and was crouching a little more eagerly. Then he heard Bonnice give a gasp, when he heard these words: “Look at tlie window, look at the door, Remember the one We found there before! Lift up tlie curtains, look by the wall, No one must hear the SECRET at all. And most of all, look mi hi the eaves, I'm SURE there’s SOMEONE under the leaves.”John Simonet-Clutched the butyl tighter, and looked round in a panic. Bonnice had gone! He must have crept away, and popr John Simonet was left to face it alone. He could heal* them coming up the stairs, shouting most horribly and singing a fierce little sopg Unit had in it, "Death and cut him in QUARTERS.” He somehow wished they hadn’t shouted that "quarters" quite so loudly. The drowsiness came over him again, ami from a long wav away lie heard them talking in rhymes. He didn’t know what they were saying, and he didn’t care. He supposed they were arguing about how they would kill him. Suppose he sprang Up and sltld In a voice like Grandpa, “Stop your infernal wrangling! 1 will settle this argument myself!’ It would be fuii, but he Couldn’t be bothered. He was very drowsy, and al' he knew was that they were tying him up and carrying him a long way. He still had the wooden bowl clasped tightly in his bands. Then everything seemed to go quite black, and n long time passed. They might have killed him for all lie knew. John Simonet opened his eyes, after a long while, and saw the sky all purply-piuk with sunset. Then he saw tlie tops of the grass waving about and he thought of till that had happened. So this was where they had “dumped" him. Not so Very far from home, after all. He gazed joyously at the bowl, quite safe audjSOUtid, anil, rising up, be stretched himself He still felt cramped where they hud tied him. As he walked over the field he was saying to himself very emphatically, "MYSTERIOUS and UNKNOWN." It sounded quite effective when lie chanted it In a faint, deep voice. It was like ft warning, or a challenge, or a story. John Simonet was doubly careful of the wooden bowl from that day onwards. It. had a place of honour on his shelf and was surrounded only by the very “noblest" of bis things.