ANDY’S POINT OF VIEW

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIV, Issue LIV, 21 August 1920, Page 8

ANDY’S POINT OF VIEW

Not long ago an aeroplane flew over, the first ever seen in our pan of the country (writes Miss Ella MacMahon in the latest of a series of “Vignettes” contributed to Blackwood's Magazine;. Excitement ran high ; everyone stood gazing up to heaven at this strange and remarkable sight. For perhaps five minutes Andy left off digging and with strained, uplifted head watched the winged vehicle of the air swimming through the ether across the blue sky. Then ho stuck his spade in the earth and moistened the palms of his hands. “Would there be anyone up in that 1 ?”. His face is inscrutably composed. “Two men,” I reply. Ho moistens a little more. “Augh-a-musha, they’ve little to do with their lives, so they have, that trust themselves to that.” ; Sometimes I go a-fishing. My luck is seldom brilliant—a circumstance which Andy ascribes with ungallaut and out-of-date conviction to the accident of my sex—but on this one occasion the unbelievable nearly happened. ; To throw a fly for trout and-catch a salmon! But the battle is indeed to the strong. Bereft of gaff or help, what chance have I ? Suddenly in the midst of chagrin and defeat I catch sight of .Andy digging in an adjaceit field. Ho is within call. I calk; he heeds not. I cry, I yell, I scream. No response. And with my last breath w r ay my captive goes free victorious. The flaming vision of triumph is replaced by flaming anger with Andy. v “Well." I exclaim when I am standing over him, “that w T as a pretty trick to play me. I had a salmon”—fury lends concentration to my accents—“on the line just now.” “Musha, don’t tell me that.” He gazes at me with grief-stricken eyes and lips that tremble. “An' if I’d known it was a salmon ye had! But be the way ye w-ere screechin’ an’ cryin’, musha, bedad 1 was full sure ’tw r as only a child bad fell int’b the river. ...”