THE COUNTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19169, 7 November 1925, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE COUNTRY.

MUSINGS AND MEMORIES.

BY WANDA

To-day 1 stayed late at school, doing odd jobs and doing nothing. It was very quiet, and as I idled there, happy voices came round the building and bare feet stamped in. I look up. Fearlessly they enter. They do not think of being unwelcome. Ostensibly they have come to see the time, but I know that really with childish importance they want to tell me of their doings. Glancing up at the clock, they ask breezily if "that" is right. Then going out they throw back the remark j that they have been to the river. I show some interest and they sidle up. !l smell anise. Yes! They have been I chewing it. They like it; but righteousj ly, they always spit it out. Bruce produces a bird's nest, a thing |of cobwebs and moss, patterned with lichen—marvellously made. "Isn't it pretty?" he says. Bruce is a little fellow, an only child. He has blue eyes and regards this world in his best moods as a serious affair. Sometimes he rides his mother's big chestnut mare, Lorna, but most times he just brings the pony. Practical Fred hastens to inform me that they "take only thrush's, and blackbird's, and starling's and you know those kinds." Then with sudden shyness, "We'll have to get, Bruce." Quick acquiescence on the part of Bruce, swift lifting of hats and they are gone. Joy of the Open Road. Of course, I know that I should very properly regard them as young rascals, I and should have inquired with due susI picion as to what else they were doing at ! the river; but the smell of dead roses is ]in my nostrils. are f ine fellows. I turn to an unmarked r6ll. It should I not be unmarked at this hour; but then it has been such a slothful day, and the honeysuckle climbing high has been filling our room with long drifts of sweetness. The roll—was Albert Hughes here to-day? I rush outside to ask the boys; j but mounting, they are gone, their horses j trotting quickly. Carelessly they ride—j reins loose. They shout to each other I and fix their bags. Quick spurts of dust ! fly from their ponies' heels, then one i breaks into a canter. Over on to the | grass they go, both cantering now, then | back on to the road, their hoofs clattering quick time. A plantation hides them. I see them again. The canter has changed to a gallop. The boys lean forJ ward; the tails of the ponies stream I behind. Leaning far over they turn the ! corner on to hard road again, and up along | the swift alleys of the air comes the quick | beat of hoofs as they disappear behind j some trees. Beauty o! Hill and Bush. Far distant hills are blue—tho deep blue of forest-clad ones. Away up the valley—all around are blue ranges beyond j the nearer green hills. All the while the | air is soft and warm. I turn to go in, ; longing to possess it all, longing to exj press it all, the beauty of careless barej footed boyhood—the beauty of hills and I bush consuming me. i I settle myself to work again, when a j well-tailored lady blackbird hops in inquiringly. She is as beautifully brown jas autumn bracken on a frosty hill. In la panic-she discovers me, dashes to the | window and falls stunned. I pick her up j and trying to soothe her, carry her outside. My eyes follow her agonised flight —to the hills again. What colour is there! The £tuahines. . . Then from across the road someone calls me to come and help to eat their first strawberries. Clearly I am not meant to work to-day. Such a day and such a night! As I ate my evening meal of gooseberries ar.n cream I wandered outside. The road and a distant bend called. I had been intending to go along that way. The best way is to do things the moment one thinks of doing them, on impulse, I think, it is called. So putting down my bow] where I stood I stepped over the 'fence. A Deserted Garden. The evening was quiet and still and beautiful. Creamy, brownv Jerseys browsed busily, scarcely noticing me. Sheep bleated from some shearing-shed. | The distant bend fulfilled its promise, and i there I found an empty house. I cannot j resist an empty house, 1 know not why. It is at once so revealing, and yet it conceals so much. There hangs around it always the dark sombre garment of mystery. One can never read more than half its story. Inside the gate was an overgrown garden—the gardens of empty houses are always overgrown. There were more roses —roses riotous everywhere, and great clumps of arum lilies. Then at the back were apple and pear trees, figs, -<md a spreading walnut, a thiclfet of plums and a mulberry tree, a very giant. With bent and bending branches il hung laden with hoary, red, unripe fruit. Parting the branches, I went near to tho trunk, and there, close to the ground, were such boughs as lovers would use. "i'was but tho second mulberry that I had ever seen; but now I know 'twas not for nought that men sung of mulberry bushes in old gardens. Where the leafy boughs most thickly interlaced, a thrush's nest was hidden. The brooding bird, thought herself unseen, so with averted eyes and hurried footsteps, I carefully stole away. At the back door were huge, muchscrubbed flags, and fixed to the lintel were frail sockets, which had held a barrier against some toddling feet. Under an old cherry tree were traces of older children's play. Branches from a nearby macrocarpa were propped up all round its trunk, making a "house" so dearly loved of children. The sight brought many a fond memory. Thinking of all ihe houses I had made, and helped to make, I passed outside. Tho Last Steps of Day. The twilight deepened, and a duck with rapid whistling flight went by o'erhe.ad. Ducks on the wing, when the shadows lengthen —and I always think of Bryant. Those old Americans wrote one or two lovely lines. Whither midst falling dew. While glow the heavens with tho last steps of day: Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue. Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong. As darklv painted "gainst the crimson sky Thy figure floats along. Someone, has painted the picture of those last two lines—darkness falling, clouds riding up for a storm, a crimson glow from the, west darkly flaming over all, and nearer that form of shining greens and browns and purples, moving along on restless wing, " lone wandering but not lost." Seekest, thou the splashy brink Of reedy lake or marge of river wide. 1 know what, this one sought. Only last night. I came on a little tarn up the hillside yonder. 1 saw her. There was the faintest fluty note of warning, and half-a-dozen tiny paddling fellows floated motionless on the merest bay. Then there might not have been any life at all on the pond for all that seemed; but I knew, and went on my way very quietly. The abyss of Heaven swallowed up its | form. Darkness fell. The blue range j faded and was lost. I love tho country, j It is all so beautiful.