SPICER'S COURTSHIP.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1261, 30 April 1896, Page 16

SPICER'S COURTSHIP.

Spicer was a selector; why he chose to be a selector rather than enjoy comparative ease and afiluenco as a corporation day labourer or a wharf hand or navvy i 3 inexplicable. Ho had taken to tho wilderness, built his smart bark hut in the centre of an apparently impenetrable forest, and was now actively engaged eating his way out again. Along the bank of tho trickling creek ho had cleared an aero or so where a few fruit trees flourished, and a methodical little vegetable garden looked green and encouraging. Dick Spicer was a methodical man; what lie did he did well, and he was always doing. Dick was small, and he looked puny lifting his pigmy axe to those mighty gums, and patiently hewing splinters out of tho compact bush. Having little or nothing to say to his scattered neighbours, lie exchanged small talk with his liens, and favoured Griffin, tho low-comedy dog-of-all-work, with his opinion of things.

Air Spicer was a bachelor approaching 50, wiry, leathery, deliberative, and very diffident in company. But, despite liis apparent uneasiness when chance throw him into tho society of females, Dick was looking about for a wife. 'The stillness of the long evenings and the solitary Sundays implanted a great yearning for the Companionship of a good wile ill his lonely heart. in looking about, the selector’s view was very limited. There was not all unmarried woman of suitable years within a radius of 1-’ miles. Of all tho approachable females, he admired Mrs Clinton tho most, and his only hope lay in the fact that Clinton was m feeble health, and reported to bo sustaining life precariously with one lung. Clinton held a block about a mile up tho creek, and Spicer paid him occasional abrupt and unceremonious visits there. Sometimes ho would lean against a doorjamb, with not liioro than his head inside, and pass a few remarks relative to nothing in particular, in ail irresponsible sort of way; but more frequently he just stood about outside, and criticised tho poultry in audiblo soliloquy, or reflected aloud upon Clinton’s ridiculous notions about dairy work and vegetable growing. However, lie always displayed a proper neighbourly concorn in inquiring after Clinton’s health before leaving. “ Y’ain’t foolin’ no better, I s’poso ?” ho would ask, with an appearance of anxious interest that quite touched the sick man. Clinton was always feeling “ pretty bad.” He said as much in his dull, heavy manner, and Dick would go off to indulge in contemplation, and consult his dog. Spicer did not wish Clinton to die, ho did not want to hurry him up; ho was a patient, dispassionate man, and the possibility of his neighbour’s early demise entered into his calculations merely as a probable circumstance which, however regrettable, could not reasonably bo overlooked.

Clinton substantiated predictions, and obligingly died within a reasonable time,

and Dick rodo solemnly in the funeral cortege, behind tho drays on a lame cart horse borrowed from Canty for the occasion.

After the funeral he looked in upon the widow, and, feeling inspired to say something consolatory and encouraging, expressed his belief that she wouldn’t mourn much about Peter. “ Tain’t worth while,” he said. Dick’s command of language was only sufficient to enable him to say the thing he meant once _in a dozen tries, and on this occasion ho was conscious tho moment ho had spoken that tho sentiment expressed was nardly appropriate to the occasion. Before ho could frame an apology the disconsolate widow attacked him with a speargr.u s broom, and stormed him out of the house. He walked home thoughtfully, afflicted with a nettle rash and a vague idea that perhaps he had not made an altogether satisfactory beginning. But Spicer was not cast down; ho had resolved upon a plan of courtship, and the object of his first mancouvro was to break liis intentions gently to tho widow. This he thought to accomplish by hanging round the house a good deal. Ho would haunt her selection in the cool of tho evening, or, in his more audacious moments, perch himself on the chock-an’-log fence running by the side of tho house, and whistle an unmelodious and windy jig which was intended to convey some idea of his airy nonchalance and great peace of mind.

It was a long time before Dick progressed from tho fence to the wood heap, and meanwhile tho widow had not seemed to pay any particular attention to liis movements. He sometimes addressed her with a portentous truth bearing upon tho dieting of laying hens, or the proper handling of cows, or tho medical treatment of ailing chickens ; hut usually satisfied himself with a significant grin and a queer twist of tho head that was his idea of sheer playfulness and waggery. The neighbours came to notice him overlooking tho selection or perched on tho fence supervising the weather and things generally, and predicted that there would bo “a man-yin’” up tho creek presently. Presently! Spicer did nothing hastily, nothing to lead anybody to believe that he had not all eternity to como anil go on. He never considered the llight of time, and had made many calculations that carried him on to tlm end of the next century, without discovering any incongruity. He did arrive at the wxrl heap eventually, though. Airs Clinton’s boy John was too young to wield an axe with.any effect, and one afternoon Dick lounged over to tho logs, took up the axe, and examined it with an air of abstraction, lie weighed it carefully in bis hand, and satisfied his curiosity by trying it on a log. When lie had chopped about half a ton of wood he appeared satisfied that it was a pretty good axo. That ovening ho chuckled all the way up the creek, and all tho time it took to prepare his tea, and towards bedtime confided to Griffin, with more chuckles, his opinion that it was “ bout s good’s done.” “ She can’t go back on that,” ho said with assurance.

But Spicer lingered at this stage for a long time ; ho cut all the wood the widow needed, and did other little things about the selection, and often sat on the fence, as usual, and gradually grew to be quite at homo there. The widow accepted his services now as a matter of course, and though she was often betrayed into expressions of great impatience, Dick remained oblivious, and worked out liis courtship in his own ponderous way. ' His next step towards strengthening his position was when he took it upon himself to put several new palings on tho roof of Airs Clinton’s house. This was a decided advance, and when the buxom little woman thanked him, his odd screw of the face

and sidelong nod clearly conveyed the impression that lie was beginning to regard himself as a “perfect devil amongst the women.” There was more chuckling that evening, and further confidences fur the dog. "After this Spicer ceased working seriously on his own selection, and slowly extended his sphere at the widow’s. He did some gardening, and repaired the fences and dictated improvements, but it was not till eighteen months after Clinton’s death that he made liis great stroke. It was on Sunday afternoon that Dick discovered Mrs Clinton in hot pursuit of the hoy John with one shoe ill her hand and one on her foot. John was in active rebellion, and yelling his contempt for the maternal authority. Spicer rose to the occasion. He secured boy John, took oil his belt, and proceeded to strap the unfllial youth—to give him a grave, judicious, and fatherly larruping—under the eye of his mother. Then tho selector drew off to consider and weigh the important step lie had taken, with tl.e result that, liall-au-hour after, he hung his head in at the kitchen door, and said abruptly : “ Treaser, when’s it to be f “ Moanin' which asked tho unconscious widow. “ Meanin’ marryin’.” The widow thought for a moment, and said, just as if she. wero completing tho sale of a few eggs : _ j; “This day month ’ll suit mo.’ “ Done,” said Spicer. Than he felt called upon to make some kind of a demonstration, and edged up to Airs Clinton in a fidgeting sort of way, and when near enough inado as if to kiss her, p<iused half-way in doubt, and then didn t. “The man’s a fool, said tho stout little widow composedly. Thoy were married though, undei conditions of great secrecy, at tho parson n house in tho township, with tho blinds down. It was with great difficulty Dick was convinced of the necessity of witnesses. —Edward Dyson in tho Bulletin,