THE TREE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22908, 10 December 1937, Page 6

THE TREE

BT KATHERINE MERCER

A month ago 1 bought a tree, and planted it where Luke had made readyi Now that it has taken root I can sit back and picture it, as he did, fifty or a hundred 'years hence, when there is nothing left of his cottage for its spreading branches to overshadow. Fifty—Luke' will wait peacefully, his wife beside him. A hundred —tfie years might be worse spent than under its sheltct. Luke and I made acquaintance casually, according to the rule that all fishermen are brothers. There arc very attractive spots along the quiet banks of the Patea, when one is growing past the urge to try one's luck out beyond its month. Luke must have long passed it before our first meeting, from his netted wrinkles and great stock of reserved lore. After some indefinite time, probably only a few years, we passed the stage of casual remarks across his garden fence, to invitations for mo to sit on the bench in the little verandah that caught all the sunshine, listening and watching whilo lie carved faithful copies of intricate old Maori designs. By now Mrs. Luke, handsome and stately, despite her elaborate tattooing obviously very much her husband s junior, Would pause in passing, or perhaps halt from her own fine flax work, 011 the verandah steps, to give tersely any criticism invited. Later on, when my welcome had been extended to include occasional wet afternoons _ or lengthening evenings in their livingroom, I commented on her remarkable knowledge. Luke, skilled craftsman ns lie was, would apply to her for some point of history or fable shown in a turn of the pattern. Mrs. Luke could always go further, would often illustrate' by comparisons, sometimes bringing out specimens of old work, some-» times drawing, quickly, accurately, with charcoal, on brown wrappingpaper spread on the one table. Easily she would show the symbols of forgotten gods, or perhaps trace the routes of the .first voyagings across unknown seas, or translate intricate whorls that very few students of Polynesia could recognise, legendary history as well as highly evolved artistry. "Mrs. Luke reads a pattern the way I have sometimes heard 'a scholar read an Old Testament chapter," once she surprised me into saying. Luke looked up from his work. "Why not?" he said. "The old Maoris were never in to-day's hurry. They wrote in the wood, or in the stone, not on paper. It might take a man's life, mavbe his son's and grandson's, to put down what he wanted to say, but there.it was, put, down clearly, to last. That was worth While, _an' worth an' understanding, don' yo.U'think?" »■

"It was that. Birt Mrs. Luke is one of the very few who can read it."

- /'Oh well—" He selected a chisel, measured, carefully, with his eye the proportions of a minute intricasy he :was copying. "Oh Svell —. Once some knew. Now wo are all in too much of a hurry to learn. I do not know, but mv wife, she tells me enough to see how to make out things like this." "And you carve them to sell to some stranger who won't' see as much meaning as jie would in a wayside advertisement," I objected. "Maybe. Slay be not so." He smiled at Mrs. Luke, who had drawn back. /'The man who buys this, all lie will "see is that it is something he could not get anywhere else, so he will pay me a good price, an' then we buy things comfortable for the house.':' "All very good," I agreed. "Only Mrs. Luke knows so much more than anyone else I've met, that's all." "She know how to make a very good supper," he said easily, putting by his work.' "As' for the res', she use' to hear the old people talk, when she was only a chil'- Some of them, they use' to know things nobody fin' out now, an' you know how old people talk, oyer an' over, so you can't help 'remember. That is all." It was obviously all that was to be said on the subject. Chance kept me away till the days were lengthening. Luke, busy - near the- fence as I passed, greeted me with a cordial reminder of til® interval.

"I've been thinking out new plans for taking things easy in my garden. You can't expect therest of us to go at it the way you® brisk young fellows do." ' ■; * :

He laughed at that. "I haven't been all the time in: the garden. That chair I started, is nearly finished. You come in an' see. An'my wife, she's', got some kits made touris' will think nearly as fine as ones made in the * latest machines."

The garden was weeks ahead.of mine, but a great patch took my attention, lying raw, evidently unsown. "What are you going to put in there?" I asked idly. ''Come to think of it, what did you put in last season? Were you letting it rest?" "Jus' letting it res'*" he said quietly. We sat in the sunfilled verandah long enough for admiration of his work to be followed'by comfortable pipes. Reluctantly I -rose to leave. Going down | the path, the empty patch of upturned soil grain caught lny .eye. ' ! ' • ■

lhat part gets tile best sunshine and shelter in; the garden, you could £row 'anything 'there." "Taihoa," he remonstrated genially. "I b'lieve* .you'd like me., to.gO' an' plant it out now, an' never min' milking the cow. She'd tell me alright, if L forgot about her." All the season that big patch lav unplanted, till it.was deep in selfsown rubbish. Come to think of it, it had been neglected the same way all the years I had known Luke's garden. Quite possibly there was some private reason for his leaving it. Yet why did he trouble to dig it so religiously every year ? ' . 1 * He noticed my glance in its direction one day, after a long discussion of some passing (ivent in local history. '

"Nex' year I'm going to put that in oats, to cleanfit up," he. volunteered. "An' afterwards I think I'll try if it id ready to plant something." "It ought to grow anything." A polite generality that could not be misconstrued as curiosity.

"Mos' likely. I'll try a tree." He seemed to hesitate. "A big tree, that will go 011 growing when there is nothing else lef' of all'this." His glance included everything; of his home, "What kind do you think , of ? > I always like a pohutukawa, something lasting." "Yes, I think like that," he answered eagerly. "A big tree, maybe a hundred years after we gone, -an* fv'y-yoar going 011 growing, an' letting the red flowers drop down where we fas' asleep." . , . v His face | puckered whimsically. "Nex' year, an' maybe the nex' after that, I put in the oats. Then we plant the tree. No need to hurry'. The tree never hurry. It go on growing, fifty year, maybe a hundred, jus' the same old way." - On another visit some whim prompted me to raise the subject again. "You've settled on a pohutukawa for that patch, Luke?" He nodded, his eyes turned to his wife.

I was startled to see her sudden excitement.

"You settled?'' she .demanded eagerly, "You think it all ready, all righ' ?" I wondered, idly, why Mrs. Lnke never altered, never • seemed to change from a handsome matron" in early middle-age, and why she had chosen a husband so very "much "her .senior. The difference was emphasised as she questioned so eagerly.

A SHORT . STORY.

Luke, every wrinkle showing deepl.f in the sunshine, seemed graver than the question warranted. "I thought the.groun' nearly ready. I thought if you say a pohutukawa, well, 1 like it, too. Jus' what you say. 1 put in some oats, nex' year, then maybe the nex' year—" "When you plant that tree then 1 shall grow old. Ai, you know how 1 want —No, not even you know," Mrs. Luke broke in abruptly, and ended almost in a wail. "1 can' know like you do," he said almost humbly. "But if you say so, then 4 wo try put in that tree then."

Her whole face spoke fervent agree* nient. Then she said quietly and steadily how glad she would be. It seemed wiser to turn to an accustomed topic, so I talked of Luke's handicraft, and Mrs. Luke brought out an ancient box, grotesquely patterned. I wondered aloud who hnd been the first owner to place treasured kotuku feathers in it, and what long succession of hands must have held it. Luke looked at licr, but she smiled, much as a mother might say to a child, "No, I'm not going to tell you now."

■ He agreed as usual. "Mos' likely hundreds of years, an' plenty people take it for some time, utu, presents. The old people knew. They remembered everything about things like that, but nowadays nobody going to tell us, so when we think about it, all we can say 'Who knows?' Mos'ly we don think. The nearer we come to thinking, we jus' say, 'That wonderful,' or maybe, 'That very pretty.' That a whole lot easier." , "Some people go further than that\ I pro tested. "You make tilings as beautiful as this." "I make them." His glance turned to a solid piece of wood on the table. "I make them look airigh 1 , but I make them the easy way, with good pakcha tools, an' looking the same don' mako them feel the same. The old things, ev'ry one got his own spirit, I can' copy that." Ho went over to touch the'block of rata wood. "Now a bit like this, one of the old people find along the river, or maybe on the beach, jus' like me. But lie burn out the inside to mako it the shape lie want, shifting the little fire, like making a canoe out of the trunk of a big tree. Use a little fire here, a little there. It feels quite diffren' made by sJi machine." "Of course."

He turned the wood over. "It's a good piece. If you sent it to a turner he could shape it into a bowl, and you cold carve it with a pattern nobody else could equal. Make a dish fit for a king." I suggested. "Ob. yes. I have done that plenty of times. But this- one, I thought I trv the old way, make a present for you. Mavbe vou like it like this. He looked toward a heavy baler, _ a treasury I had long secretly enyied him. ' „ , My suggestion of a return was waved aside. , •• "It will be a gift, But some time there might be something you can do for me." '/ ' r , I volunteered eagerly. r ■He puffed reflectively at a pipe black as bag oak, strongly flavoured with the long use of tobacco of his own growing and curing. The odour youlcl have proved that, had I not knowli the part of the garden devoted to it. " There may not be any need. <( He fell unconsciously into Maori. "But so often, when a canoe seems safelv in sight of the harbour, then a wave forbids entrance, and the survivors must swim to land." Apparently Mrs. Luke s advent turned his thought. " It will take more than one day to mako it that way. Mos' likely rnos' of the winter will be gone before it is finished. You will come in plenty of nights and see how, it is done," ho added to his first offer. 1 y He walked with me to the gate ana there we smoked awhile, looking toward the mountain. (There is only one mountain to every man born in Taranaki^. "What is it I may be able to do in return?" Tasked. t ' .He answered after a distinct pause. "I did not want to talk about it in front of my wife. But if I do not live to plant >a tree there " waving toward the bare patch, " will you plant it?" - ...

"A "very little thing, if you will tell me exactly what you want done. Most likely that will be waste ; of breath, because you will do it yourself.""" .

"Very likely," he agreed. "But in case of the canoe being sunk too far out at sea for me to swim ashore, let us look at the place. Then you shall toll me what you see." r.

" A piece of good ground well dug and never used every year I've known you." " You don't see anything else?" i " No. There may have been anything here once, even another big tree, but there is not even a shadow left. I can see only the space for the tree you mean to plant." "That is as it should be. Here was no tree, only a very small plant, that ran over the ground, and fadod into it as a flower drifts before the wind. But it; grew always again, grew of its own strength. Seven years I dug that plot over, seven times every year to uproot it, and seven years burned every leaf that grew there, till there should bo left not as much as a shadow. When my wife came to look, even her eyes could not see as much left as a spider's thread, and she was glad. She "was glad," he repeated soberly. ." You purified the soil?" I hazarded. > " I hope so. Seven years I dug it and burned, seven more years I have left it lie fallow, ami dug in all that grew there. Now I shall sow a crop and dig that in, and then I shall plant a tvee, or if I cannot, you will do it for me. Surely it should grow in soil so made clean."

" Surely. But as surely you did nothing to make, it need such cleansing." , ' ' " No." He tapped his pipe, to empty it, filled it, puffed reflectively. "No, I have not. Nor, since she became one with me, has my wife. Yet I may not live to do it, nor have I any son, and hers are gone." Here perhaps was the clue. Yet Mrs. Luke was so much the younger that any previous marriage could have been only as a child—l hinted as much.

"Your wife, then, had a tirth' before she married you. She must have been little more than a child when the son was born."

"Even she does not know how old she is. Her sons are dead, and their sons have gone from our people and our ways so long agp their names are never remembered. For many years there have boen" only the two of us, living here together. I have grown old trying to purify the ground for her. She cannot grow old or die till that treo is planted and her life goes into it. We have waited. Wo shall see." "Taihoa," I substituted. He smiled, a grim expression little akin to his usual geniality. "I will tell you."

"Nobody knows how old my wife is. Slio does not know. In old times our people did not measure years or hours or cut life by the ticking of clocks. Tone's clock called at diiy-broak, that and the seasons wore the only timekeepers we knew. Boys grew from children to striplings, eager, whatever their class, to join in a war-party and establish a name, as thoy do now in a football team, .-They lived to see their children's} children full grown, often yet another generation. Your wise men'today say that it was the way we lived,

(copthight)

the food we ate. the way we worked for it. That is partly true. But there was another reason." He paused ngaiij. However freely the tala had been offered, it was not easy '"•'Youlii'ave read, you know it is true, because it is printed in wisG men 8 books, that when first the Maori came to Aotearoa he had been helped in Ins long vovage over the heaving bosom of Hine 'Moana by a root that lift could chow, to savo him from thirst when jpv long days ho saw no sign of new lands over the rim of the sky. i

I nodded agreement. " You know that as true. You know the secret of what that pjant .was has been lost. Where it grew no one can toll, now the love of the old arikis is hidden safely. In Great Hawaiki, in Lesser Hawaiki, somewhere the canocs touched in their journeyings, perhaps in some islands an earthquake crumpled up to sink under the sea. Nobody knows, liow." " Do you mean that, or that nobody can toll." " Nobody knows. I am sure, because my wife docs not. I have asked her. It had been forgotten, except perhaps by some old man who took the secret with him, even when she was a child. But such a plant there was."

"Wo know that." " There was another plant, so tnpu the secret was handed down even more closely, too closely for any but a very few to know there was such a thing. Did you never wonder why if our ways of living meant old age, age beyond as many generations as they cared to see, to some, it was to only a few. Not to the many who lived alike.' " I never thought about it," I answered truthfully.

" No, that was "why the secret was safe. Only the few, the very few, know there was a reason, and What it was. My wife knew. When she was a young woman, before you and I, or our fathers, were thought of, she took the juice of that forgotten plant that made men live on till they tired even of learning." 1 had wondered at Mrs. Luke's store of old knowledge. Could there be this reason? How much then would Luke tell a pakeha, however trusted their friendship ?

He answered the thought. "I will'tell you, now, all I know. It is not much. Not nearly all there was to know, of how the juice was prepared, of how its effect was ended when the ending was desired. Such a plant there was, brought over maybe from the great rice plains below the hills whence first Ave followed the sun. It was brought here, a very little thing. To the few who knew its insignificance was esteemed as a strong fence around the secret. Generation after generation it was guarded, a very small thing that never spread far, even in this laind where everything multiplies. But it held its own where Kupa had said to plant it, in the soil he had carried and dug in with old karakias on the bank of the river opening to the west. It was because of that work that Turi came here, all that march along the coast, and settled beside it. You linve heard of the karaka seed he planted? You do not know that that was a sign, that grove that sprang up, of a tinv plant less noticeable than any of a hundred weeds." " How could I Know? Who else knows? Does anyone?"

" Only my wife and I. We only know." " Does it still live?" " I hope not."

He spoke so solemnly that protest would have been futile. Yet such a plant—— "I hope not. I cannot be sure. It had a strength in its own lasting like the strength it gave, and it went on living though I tried for many years to kill it." " Here?"

" Here. In this patch. Many yeara before you came. My wife and I lived here beside it. She, because she could not die, or even grow old. I, because I had promised her to kill it, if a man could."

"But why?" I asked involuntarily

" She would not become my wife until I promised. I was much younger then. I thought that if a young, strong man set his mind to the work he could kill any evil." "Were you sure it was evil?" " She could not grow old. She had seen the husband and friends of her youth, her children, their children, all pass. All the ways she had known were forgotten. The land and the river and the sea were changed by the white men coming. Even the mountain, robbed of its bush and its other children, could wot look down on her as it used in the times only she remembered- Was it not evil?"

I could not answer, trying to picture what ho had lived with.

"So I promised her. She has grown to feel great effection for me, watching me try to keep that promise, all these years.

"i have grown old, but she could not do even that. But wo felt that when the land where it had grown was cleansed, we could plant a tree, and her life would grow into that."

Another long pause. " So it will be. It may be not for me to plant it, I grow too old a man, now. If I die I cannot leave her alone again, as she has been left before, like she is now. It would be worse for her than it was when I was young and strong and cared for her. So you wiil plant the tree, if I do not?" It was a little thing to promise. I did it willingly. In the winter evenings that followed he hollowed out the baler aoording to ritual, carved the heavy old pattern meticulously, though it was easy to see his strength was failing. We never again referred to the unnamed plant, though he spoke of the tree that was to grow in its place. In due season I planted it, and told him. •

That was a month ago. It took a considerable amount of trouble to get leave for his burial beside it a few days later. Mrs. Luke, suddenly grown old and shrivelled looking, thanked me, and had another request beyond being laid beside him.

" Will you burn this old pipe and put the ashes under my hanclP" It was a queerly fashioned object, to delight a collector's heart, both funnel and" stem hollowed out with fire. She told me that, as I eyed it. " You will never see another like it. It was through this the juice was given. He told you how I took those drops?"

" Not how you did it. Only that there was a plant—"

" There was. Now it is gone, and when I am gone it will be forgoten. The drops Were squeezed out, a very few, but I was young and too reckless to heed the warning given me, so I took too many. See, here the drops were laid, and fire held above them, while 1 drew their virtue into my life itself. I asked Luke to kill thq plant, I never told him I had kept tlio pipe. But you will burn it for mo when I die ?"

So that was clone too. And the tree that 1 planted should grow well over a good lover.