Little Folk

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 90, 13 October 1923, Page 18

Little Folk

(All Eights Reserved.)

No. 2.

YOUNG PIONEERS

(Written for "The Post" by Edith Howes.)

CHAPTER 11.

The long voyage was over at last. There had been storms and calms and tiresome waiting, but the ship was now steadily making her way up a beautiful harbour, green and shining on either side. Land! How comforting to seaweary eyes. How sheltered and safe it looked, how fresh and lovely. The harbour waters were peaceful as a lake after the heaving swell outside, a summer sun was shining, and the air was soft yet deliciously sweet and . cool. Everybody was happy and excited ; many, like Mrs. Forsyth, were intensely relieved.

Forest clothed the hilly shores, descending to the water's edge, and here and there a narrow stream threaded its silver way down a gully to the sea. Curved bays opened out as the ship advanced, with little bush-crowned islets standing lonely and exquisite. They came to the beginnings "of a port—a few scattered wooden shanties and huts. Here the ship was anchored, and the passengers with their personal belongings might go ashore if they wished.

But this was not Otepoti, the settlement to which Mr. Forsyth and his family were bound; that lay at the very end the harbour, six miles further on. ~The water beyond the islets and the port was too shallow for their ship, they were told. "Then how are we to reach the place?" Mrs. Forsyth inquired anxiously.

'The Maoris will take us," her husband assured her; and even as he spoke several whale-boats were seen putting off from the shore. They came to the side of the ship, and at the sight of their Maori crews with their rolling eyes and brown skins and big half-naked bodies Mrs. Forsyth went white with fear and Jack and Jo clutched each other's hands.

The passengers began to go over the sideband Mr. Forayth said "Come, children,"and lifted Jo to place her in the arms of a stalwart Maori who was helping the people down. That was too much for Jo. "No, No!" she screamed, and she tore herßelf from.her astonished father's arms, fell on the deck, scrambled to her feet, and fled like a flash to her bunk below, where she lay cowering, her face hidden in her arms. Jack rushed after her, and a few minutes later their father stood in the doorway, laughing down at them. "Babies!" he jeered. "Why, little Alice isn't afraid. She's in the boat making friends with one of the Maoris at this moment; and your mother and the baby are in the boat too. Shall we go off without you, or are you coming?" "Oh, father, I can't!' wailed Jo. "Those dreadful Maoris ! I can't! I can't."

"Nonsense; the Maoris are frieiidly and jolly, and they .won't do you the least harm."

Jack pulled her by the hand. "Come on!" he said heroically, and tremblingly she allowed herself to be led on to the deck again. When the Maori lifted her she shuddered but bore it, and when she found herself seated by her mother, with lillle Alice on her knee and Jack close beside her, and father opposite with the baby in his arms, she was able to smile once more.

The boats were now full, and the Maoris pushed off, and began to row with strong easy strokes. Past the little islets they went, on and on and on, but as they rowed they sometimes talked in their strange language and sometimes smiled at the children in the jolljest way. "They are friendly !" Jo whispered to Jack, and she lost her fear of them for ever.

The end of the harbour came in sight, a pebbly beach with wooded hills rising in a great semicircle behind it, with bluff hills standing right and left and long low swamps about their feet. A lovely spot this, that had been chosen for their new home in the wilderness!

Mrs. Forsyth looked eagerly for streets and houses. She could descry only a large, long wooden, building near the shore, and higher up, a few scattered huts and little wooden houses set in clearings among scrub and flax. Her heart sank. It all looked bo wild and unpromising and unhomelike, and she had not the eye of faith to see the steepled" city that should arise here in a few short years, reared by the steadfast toil of those who sat about her, their faces turned like hers to the new land and all its unknown chances.

Her husband benl towards her, his face alight with hope. "Wo shall make a new world here," he said. But though she smiled her heart was dragging back to England and her childhood's home, and there were hidden tears behind her smile.

Near the shore, where the water was too shallow, the boats were stayed, and one by one the passengers were lifted out and carried by the Maoris to the land. Jo did not shudder this time, but gazed with bright eyes of amusement, at her father on a Maori's back immediately beforo her. She had never seen her father carried, it would never have occurred lo her as possible that her father should be carried. Yet t-hero he was, and all the other men were carried too, just as if they were children. If they had tried to walk they would have been" wet past the knees, but it was very amusing to see them carried. The large wooden building near the shoro was tho barracks, built for them by those .who had landed a year before. Hero they were all housed till their homes should be made ready, and here for a week tho Forsyth family lived. Tracks led about in many directions, usually from hut to hut, but streets there were none, nor lamp-posts, nor shops, nor any of the city signs to which they were accustomed. Toi-toi, flax, and manuka grew all about, with tussocks and great nigger-heads in the swampy parts; further back was the bush in which at first children were not allowed to wander, for fear of beinc lost. „

For a few days Mr. Forsyth was very busy, choosing his piece of land and arranging for the building of a house. One afternoon he came in smiling and elated. "I have got a splendid section, one of the finest in the town," he said. "Come up and see it."

Tho whole family wont, across the narrow flat and up a little hill into thick bush where the trees stood close together and ferns and moss and creepers twined themselves about the trunks. "This is our section," ho said, and he trod the earth with pride and parted the undergrowth with a loving hand. Jo and Jack pushed into the mossy scented shade, and found now wonders at every step, and exclaimed in shouts at their discoveries. Mrs. Forsyth stood still, silent with surprise and pleasure at tho beauty all about, her. "I did not know it was so lovely in the bush," she said at last.

fe husbfttid lfioahsd l»sppi!j», "Then you jvUl lie glAd to Tixfl JveroT-'Jw_«&&

She looked around her. "I can't sco where you are going to build the house," she said. "The trees stand so thickly. Cutting them down will take a long time, and then the beauty of the bush will be gone."

He chuckled. "I don't think so," he said. "I have a plan and the Maoris will help."

(To b8 Continued.)