REMINISCENCES OF THE ’NINETIES

Evening Star, Issue 22975, 4 June 1938, Page 9

REMINISCENCES OF THE ’NINETIES

BACK TO CENTRAL OTAGO [Written by Harrison Thomas for the ‘ Evening Star.’] No. VII. When I had finished my work in South Otago I tramped from the township of- Heriot to Lawrence through \ some beautiful fertile country, but, nevertheless, met some struggling farmers on the way. Farming in those days was not the payable proposition it became years later, apparently either to the big man or the small man, for I heard a stock and station agent say some years ago that If you saw a squatter crossing a street in Dunedin in 1893 you could say * bankrupt,’ and hit the right nail on the head every time.” From Lawrence I went to Millers Flat, where there were then two hotels, one on each side of the Molyneux, which was crossed by a punt worked by the current, one similar to that at Clydevale, but bigger. _ Here I heard a story of a matrimonial difference in the district a dozen times in the same day, so it struck me that country life had its disagreeable features as well as its homely side. From Millers Flat I coached it to Roxburgh, and went ' thence on foot to Bald Hill Flat (oyer 20 miles) sooner than lose a day waiting for the coach to Alexandra. At Bald Hill Flat there was a quartz reef being worked a wav up towards the top of the Old. Man Range, and I climbed up there for nothing, coming down with a very blistered heel which was developing on the way from Roxburgh. , I was verv glad after tea at the Bald Hill Flat Hotel to get a lift in a springcart to Alexandra, where the driver’s family ran a store and boarding house combined. I stayed wdth them and found them very fine people. Among their boarders were some young miners, two of whom, about seven years afterwards, struck it lucky on the river and became fairly wealthy men. One of them told me that the height of his ambition at that time was to get a steady £3 a week. The boarders, mostly mining men, proved an agreeable lot and our evenings passed very pleasantly. A banioist . among them kept things lively with old-fashioned “ nigger ” melodies every now and again, and. between singing, card playing, and other games, none of our evenings was at all tedious. On. account of my sore heel T found it painful to move round for about a week, so I asked mine host if I could write un his books for him. He agreed with alacrity, and I found plenty to keep me going, for which he offered to pay me, but instead of which I asked him to insure his life for a fairly substantial sum - . He did so, but later on found his proposal deferred for some years. He is still alive and kicking after 45 years. While I was working at mine host’s books, up turned a hawker who had previously been a draper’s assistant and to whom I was introduced by the storekeeper. We mav as well refer to the hawker as II trim,” ns it wasn’t long before we • had got down to Christian names and were making a free exchange of them. The storekeeper’s Christian name was -*Snm. ‘"■Jim, the "hawker/ suggested; that as I couldn’t walk about easily, T- might accompany him on a trin he was going to make round abnijt Clyde and Cromwell and some outlying stations further on. Said he, “ It will cost you nothing for fares and possibly yon might do good business.” A little later on we were crossing the Dunstan Flat and soon nassing through Clyde, a snug and comfor+nhle little place. I thought, and one which, being the county town, was more important than ; ts size would lead one +o imagine That verv readable little book, ‘ Wild Will Fnderby.’ bv Vincent Pike. MH.-R.. gives n 'graphic, description of the Dunstan in its earlv days when it was a canvas settlement. On the road from Clyde to Cromwell I was surprised to see a number of domiciles consisting of loose rocks piled against solid rocky backgrounds, crude homes occupied by Chinamen. Cages suspended from overhead wire ropes at various points along the river, to facilitate its crossing, were other novelties to me. Cromwell proved to he a bigger town than Clyde. It is'now much better than it then was. So is Clyde; but the -latter still seems- to ■••'me to be the snugger of thV two, as it was then. There is a deal more , fruit growing about both of them than in those days when mining was their mainstay. After leaving Cromwell,, where we stayed the night, we made for Tarras Station. Just near Tassas was a small

school conducted by a pretty, fairhaired young lady, who looked like a picture of a fairy princess taken from a child’s picture book. “ What a place,” thought I, “ to condemn a young woman like her to live in—nothing but tussock and mountain to look at, and the nearest neighbour of her own sex at least a couple of mites away, and not many neghbours all told around about the locality.” I met her many years afterwards at a seaside resort. She was then a mother of five and still good-looking. She told me that she had often climbed the barren, lonely hillside behind the school and shed tears, she was so lonely, although she had a younger sister staying with her, and thus was better off than some other sole teachers. \Ve continued onr journey thence, and arrived at Tarras Station late on a Saturday afternoon and put in the Sunday there/ The station bookkeeper was a fine stamp of man, worthy of a much more important job, I thought. The usual salary for men like him in outback Otago, I was told, was 30s a week. I knew one afterwards who got a place of his own, then later a country store, and subsequently became an M.P.; and there was another who became manager of a station on a profitsharing basis, and later owner of one of his ow r n. Jim, the hawker, always slept in his wagon. The bookkeeper at Tarras supplied me with plenty of blankets, and I slept with the men up in a loft reached by a rustic ladder made of native birch. On Sunday morning the men did their washing and read the ‘ Otao-o Witness,’ only one or two going off the station. The hawker, besides plying his trade, played cards with them for sticks of tobacco, winning a pound of it which he sold later on to a farmer for is 6d. • . T From the little I saw of station life 1 did not conceive any great liking for it up that wav. There were few rewards ahead of the wage earners in those days, as there was yet no breaking up of the big estates and sections being balloted for. , , . We left Tarras after breakfast on Monday and were soon looking down on Hawea Flat, a- beautiful green oasis below a desert of mountain and tussock, and Lake Hawea, a blue ribbon on the edfe of it. The mists were rising high up° the mountains as we drove along, enipurpling the mountain sides as they -ose and giving them an attractive aspect which gradually vanished as the sun came up. Arriving at Hawea Flat on Monday evening, we put up at the nearest hotel, which was kept by a W ”°Don’t take that silver-mounted ba <r of yours into the hotel, said the hawker, “ or you will be charged 2s a meal. Come in as you are ? and she 11 only charge you half that, the same as she* charges me. Leave the bag in the wagon.” . Next day we were working the hat together when Jim looked back and saw a man in the distance on horseback. “ By Jove,” said he, .that s the policeman, and 1 haven’t renewed my license for this district. If he catches up on us it will cost me a fiver. We 11 go hell for leather.” So we did, and were soon crossing the punt near Albertown, which was then a lively little hamlet whose “ glory ” departed long ago. We stayed at the hotel there that night, and next night were at Mount Pisa station, where we were treated with the usual hospitality. A couple of days afterwards I was back iii Alexandra, where Jim, the hawker, and I parted company. xle was a smart man, and a good pianist, which helped him at times with the “ boys,” but he told me that despite this'he had lost a couple of hundreds since he began hawking. >.either of us did pinch good on the trip, though Jftn got a decent order occasionally. One, I remember, was a set of gold horseshoe-shaped shirt studs to be made to order and to cost not more than a fiver. What was surprising about it was that it was given by an old rouseabout well past middle age. On from Alexandra I went alone to Matakanui and Ophir to do the two together. Matakanui (known also as Tinkers) was a busv little mininp centre with an hotel and store combined. The store was a miners’ rendezvous at nisrht. when the miners sat around and talked while the proprietor worked behind the counter, occasionally chipning into the conversation. He never took a in his own hotel, and bad a time-talple for some of his cusromers. a few old men who lived on the rents of their water races. He onlv allowed these men a few drinks a day at certain hours, and if anv of them came along too early he would pull out his and say’, “ Not your time yet/ This man was one of the finest men in the district, and kept a number of families going when their luck was bad. Ophir (also called Blacks) was a bigger town, built mostly of country rock, which remains solid looking to this day. , .. , I had a number of apparently good ft prospects ” between Matakanui and Ophir that week, two of whom I got in an unusual way. I had to cross a creek between the two townships, and was off the road. I took off my boots and socks, but found when I got in the

middle of the crook that the water was over my knees and part of my nether garments were soon wet through ; so 1 took them off and walked up and down a line of fence in my mackintosh till they dried a bit. 1 was feeling hungry also, and not too well pleased either, as 1 had had several disappointments during the last day or two. Suddenly I spotted two young fellows in a field nearby, and went over and talked to them like a high-power salesman. They both agreed to sign up next day, but when I got back 1 found an older man had seen them in the meantime and had put them clean off. Ho told them also that all insurance agents were (adjective) rogues. I gave him a piece of my mind afterwards and wont out of my way to do it.

It was just then getting into spring, a'nd, much to my surprise, 1 found the weather worse than in winter, sleet and snow being common. Unlike Australia, instead of getting brighter and warmer every day, it seemed to be more unsettled, and nearly as cold at times as mid-winter. . . While I was at Matakanui Jim the hawker turned up one night. Ho asked me how, I was getting on and now .1 was off for money, t told him that so far I hadn’t done much good and had less than a pound in my pocket, but that there must be a couple of small cheques following me np. Judge or my surprise next day to get a wire from Sam the Alexandra storekeeper with whom I bad stayed when there, which read: “Wiring you 30s, remit when yon receive cheques now posted on. I think that was one of the decentest and most thoughtful actions I had experienced anywhere. Jim had just arrived back there and had told Inin what I had said. At the end of the week my work at Matakanui and Ophir was finished. It proved fruitless and very disappointins;, and T felt disgusted with the whole business. 1 got little satisfaction out of the four months I had spent at life insurance other than that of seeing the country I had traversed, though I have realised that there are many less satisfactory occupations. When I look back at it, however, remembering that times were so bad and that it was winter, and I was new to the work and the country, T often wonder now that I came out as well as I did. The last night I was there 1 was talking to the hotel and storekeeper at Matakanui, who said: “Tin’s job isn t much good to you, is it? ” “ No.” I said, “ do you know of any other? ” . “Yes, there is one open at Vinegar Hill, about 14 miles away. There is a firm there operating a claim here and with another at Roxburgh. One of the partners has a store up that way. The other man has several claims and a farm of his own. They employ about 60 men and must be wanting a secretary, as their last man has just left. I think you would be just the man to suit them. I’d lend you a horse to get there,” said he, “ but I’d have to send a man to get it back.” Oh, don’t bother,” said I, “ I can walk it.” Next afternoon I was interviewing the managing partner, and after he made some demur to the effect that being an insurance agent was no recommendation, I showed him my testimonials. He perused them and said, “ Oh, you are just the man I am looking for. Come along and have tea and we will talk it .over.”. Next morning I was seated at a table in a well-lit and well-fitted office, built of sun-dried brick, and beginning my now duties. I was never so pleased to get into something like permanent employment again, nor ever so eager for office work. My new employer proved to be one of the ablest men T had so far cor.io in contact with. He could have been a first class engineer, lawyer, ironmaster, hut certainly not a musician, as he “ had no ear for music,” but a wonderful memory for poetry (or anything else, in fact). He was the Pooli-bah of the district and one of the biggest mining men in Otago. He virtually ruled the roost for miles around. But he was as much like the typical miner as chalk is like cheese, and not the easiest man in the world to get on with. (To be continued.)