THE FORMER DAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18342, 7 March 1923, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE FORMER DAYS.

A PIONEER'S YARN. MEMORIES OF OLD CAMPS. GATHERING OF THE RESTLESS. "Those were the days! The King Country was then no man's land. Adventurous men. men who were tired of the cities, men who did not care so long as they got away from civilisation, gathered just naturally." The King Country pioneer had a misty, far-away look in his eyes as he spoke. "After all, it is not so long ago but it is an age so far as custom and profit and loss are concerned. Every mile from the railheads in those days represented fifty miles to-day as the chaps who had made a mistake well ! knew. But don't imagine that the early King Country was the happy hunting ground for fugitives or men who believed that distance would lend enchantment to the view of the civilised places of New Zealand. The King Country was no place for the loafer or for the man who regarded it only- as a haven. The folk who mattered just as the folk who matter now were those who were willing to do their job—and a little bit more. Tho 'stiff' as you call the breed now, didn't last. Life was too hard for him. Yes! The King Country was started by toilers and it is being built up by toilers, and I imagine the day of easy money for these who live for that s>n of thing, is at hand. "But the old days! They were wonderful days of contentment and un - No nasty worries about the morrow and the day after. We were in the thick of a real job, the sort of 'job which means far more than a wage or a little fortune. Pioneering it was and I think that all pioneeni have a fine feeling of satisfaction that is not enjoyed by those who come later and secure most of the spoil. We were in a land of big things—big mountains, big bush and big problems—and we didn't worry about the problems. What good would it have done to worry about them ? What did New Zealand then care whether there were roads and settlement? We amounted to nothing in the scheme of things in- those days. We were just a few folk in the bloomin' bush and what did we matter. We matter now however. But I don't want to ; talk about the present. Hard but Happy. " The old days were the happiest days even though they were hard and hungry. I'll never forget the sing-songs we used to have around a biasing fire that would cook a bullock and the care-free generous spirit of the time. Once the people of M— invited us to their bachelors' hall and. I have no doubt that they put a T in 'bachelor.' We all rode 30 miles to get there and what a time we had! After it was all over, and we had got home again to the little whares that served us then, we heard that the women of — were grieved because they thought wo had deliberately made their husbands drunk. Their husbands were no more drunk than we were, but of '. course these women would not believe it. They had not seen the last of the party by a long way. " Later we decided to give a ball, and, of course, invited M— to come. They came all right. They came quite early and some of them brought their wives. We thought it a good chance to avenge the insult. Our most reliable men were given charge of the whisky early in the day, and before the night was out they had succeeded by dint of stern moderation, amounting almost to sacrifice on their part, in making every man Jack of the — contingent comfortably drunk. " We heard no more of our efforts at the former ball. The wives from M— thereafter believed that their husbands were rascals and that the husbands of our settlement were fine moderate fellows. Of course, they were away before we started on the anal celebrations. "And of course we had no banks and everyone carried his cash around with him. Friends used to hand round ' fivers' as long as their money lasted, and it always was paid back—except, in my case, rust once. But he didn't remain in the Xing Country. Corpse at a .Dance. "Did you ever hear of the dance that took place in the hall ? This hall was a church whenever a sky pilot descended upon us. It was also a dance-room am* a Sunday-school and the courthouse and the morgue. One night there was to be a dance, but a difficulty arose. A corpse was lying there, and it looked as if he was going to stop the fun. However, a lot of people rolled up, so we decided that the corpse was less important than our ' hop.' We carried him out and laid him among the logs and the dance went on fine. But when the folk were catching their horses, about six in the morning, one man stumbled over the body of the poor bloke who had ' snuffed' it and who had been put out in the frost. He thought he had found a murder and he raised a great commotion. . " Never heard of the Coont ? He came down on some bushfelling job, or maybe the Public Works. At any rate, he was there among a tough crowd, and I've no doubt that he was the toughest of the crowd. But be didn't look it, and he didn't sound that way. I noticed one day that he had the marks of dozens of little pricks in his arm and knew that a ' lawyer' hadn't done it, but I said nothing. This bird seemed to gather himself up as time went on, and the camp soon found out that he was next door to a professor. And gradually they got him spouttn' to the camp after tea. He tried them with a yarn about the stars, but finally realised that most of them needed a bit of schoolin' in arithmetic and spellin' and the ordinary things, and he started a bit of a class. But the class did him more good than anyone. He took it so serious that he found he couldn't spare the time to send out his pay for liquor, and, of course, he couldn't help savin', and I heard that he went back Home and was killed at Mons. A Good Navvy. He was different from the parson bloke who shovelled muck down 0— way. He might have picked himself up if it , hadn't been for the cloth. You can't j expect a crowd to listen to a sermon from a man who had been in the habit of get'tin' tight, and, of course, he didn't try. He was one of the really lost legion, but a darned good navvy. " I could tell you tales of settlement. Yams about coons with no money who had married city girls and who went into ' the buiih. and I could tell you how they made good with a bit of luck and heaps of grit, but that is a common story There l was a chap who married a typiste, and I the pair of them built their own house I out of hand-sawn timber. All they bought ! was nails. Believe me ! They didn't jassz out there. I wonder if they breed 'em . that way now ...... ... • . «)<r=>o<==>o<=^o<==>o<=>o<=p'o<=: