THE TRAPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20722, 15 November 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE TRAPS.

INEXORABLE TEETH.

nr anon.

It was a golden evening. The clay road ran steeply down the gully, showing here and there at tho sharp bends like the sunburnt elbows of a giant. The bush was still and the very streams seemed lulled bv the magic, brooding peace. As I climbed higher, tho fertile plains stretched into the dim distance below, looking brightly, almost unnaturally green after the spring rains, but here and there showed stretches of poor, rough land.

Upon these hills tho climate was more bleak, the land poorer. But. iicrc, thought 1, there was height, beauty, freedom. At last 1 came to the farm I wanted, and I crossed a rough, log-strewn paddock to the ugly " lean-to " dwelling. In a poor, starved little garden some ragged primroses and dwarfed bulbs struggled wanly. There was the same dim memory of beauty, the same defeated look on tho face of the woman that opened tho door; yet she was neat and tidy and the tiny place was clean enough. " Yes, lie's not far off. We've finished milking and he's going round his traps, I think. You'll find him across there. Come back when you've finished and stay the night; there's no other house for miles,"

My shout was answered from an adjoining paddock, and I saw the man bending over something in one corner. It was a rabbit, caught by one leg in a villainous trap. There was stark terror in its staring eyes, and the little soft body was trembling helplessly. But the most horrible thing was the limp hopelessness of it. The man seemed disposed to discuss my errand. " What about that poor devil?" I asked bluntly.

"Oh. he'll wait: been there all day likelv and perhaps last night." "No, I'll wait; kill it now, for heaven's sake." Grinning stupidly at my squeainishncss, he obeyed while I turned to gaze on the view that had been so full of peace and freedom. Part ol the Day's Work.

" Are you going borne now ?"• I asked curtly.

" There's another trap there got something in it; I heard a squeal—but it 11 •wait till morning." I thought of the agony of that wild creature held all night by those it on teeth; but the man needed all my persuasion to examine it. He was hospitably anxious not to keep me from the fire and my tea! This time it, was a great wild cat, with blazing yellow eyes and tiger markings, a beautiful bush creature with one hind leg mauled and shattered. The farmer was pleased. " A good skin that. Cats bring inore than rabbits. See his markings." There w,as no abject trembling this tirn?: the cat fought magnificently, scratching, snarling, biting, screaming. I turned my back upon that mocking view. _ Yet the man was not cruel; it was all part of the day's work to him. " Got to be. done or we'd be over-run with rabbits; lucky they don't breed much in these high parts." " Couldn't you shoot them ? " " That'd take time—and money. Traps is easiest." He had no idea of my disgust and talked amiably of tny errand. He was an ordinary enough type, honest, hard-work-ing, with no ideas beyond the price of butter-fat and the spread of ragwort. Ho had little feeling and no imagination. I cursed the fate that made me his guest that night. Accepting Destiny. However, I saw little of tny host. Our business completed, he stumped off to bed with the remark, " Got to be up at half after four." His wife and 1' drew our hard stools a little nearer the upsympathetic stove; curled up in a corner was a dark schoolgirl, deep buried in a book. "You milk many cows?" I asked, in the search for an agreeable topic of conversation. " Thirty-two," the woman replied, and something in the dull flatness of her voice made me feel that my choice had been unlucky. "You have machines, of course?"

" No, we milk by hand." "You "and your husband, and" — surclv that, child was not included.

" And Nora," " But isn't that very hard work ? "

" It's early work. We have to sledge the cream six miles and the lorry leaves at eight." "You must be tired; I'm keeping you

up." " No, it's a change to have someone to speak to." "You haven't manv visitors?"

" When the roads are dry sometimes v:o see a car going across the hill; but they don't like this road, it's too rough."

" And you are used to the loneliness by now ? " "I should be; I've lived fourteen years in the mud." 'I hero was no bitterness; just a hopeless acceptance of destiny. She went on quietly. " There was a time when I longed for a sight of city and streets, most of all I wanted to smell that queer mixture of asphalt, petrol and people—you know!" " Then you did once live in town ? "As a girl; I married at twenty." So sho was thirty-four, this old, tired-faced woman! " And do you often go to town ? " " I've been once. There's never any money, you sec, and he buys a cow or perhaps a pig with what's over. Tho farm swallows a lot." The tone was quite unemotional; her rough chapped hands were folded loosely on her thin knee; only in her eyes there was that trapped look- " Hard on Women Folk." Desperately I sought for cheer. " You have your daughter for a companion when she comes homo from srhool." " She's left school. It was a long ride; you passed the school about six miles back." * " So she's at home now and likes that better, I expect? " " Oh, no, she f;-ets all tho time; sho didn't want to leave. Sho mado a rare fuss and tried lo run away, but there's nowhere to run to. She loved school and books, Nora did."

" Sho seems very young." " Sho passed her standards so early. Teacher said she would get a scholarship, but where was the uso with all these cows to milk ? She's needed here, her dad says; you Sec she can milk ten cows easy; she's smart at everything, Nora is.' Unnoticed, the girl had raised her face from her book at tho sound of her name. Sho was a little thing, dark and vivid, with a pair of curious greenish-yellow eyes and a certain quickness and fineness in ' all her movements.

"llow old is she?" 1 asked, restive under that strange scrutiny. " Thirteen; it seems young. rlrWt it? But farms are hard on women folk." Glancing up, my eye again met the girl's, and there I read anger, bitterness, revolt. Her spirit was chafing, her mind was starved, her heart hot and rebellious —and at least there was youth and daring upon her side. Then I remembered with a shudder that the teeth of the trap had closed as inexorably upon the wild, fierce creature of the bush as upon the timid earth-dweller.