LOOKING AFTER TH’ AFFAIRS OF STATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21538, 9 January 1932, Page 15

LOOKING AFTER TH’ AFFAIRS OF STATE

THE ERE AND THE AFTERMATH Written for the Otago Daily Times. By T. S. Fields are furrowed without the farmer's usual pride in exact straightness, the farmer covered with dust and the sweat of toil frowns heavily on the land he owns but for which he has not paid his taxes and thinks hard and earnestly. For which candidate shall he stake his vote? First of all we will pardon him if he thinks with a little flutter under his shirt and a conscious h’m! what a fine fellow he will be head, shoulder, and half his body above his fellows, saying, “Mr Ahm! ”; stuttering questions. The country at the call of a blackprinted notice in the local post office and much chaff amongst its fellows rolled up in its clean shoes, colla'rs, frowns, and clean faces to sit with starched back on a backless structure constructed for the convenience of country folk at their amusements; the country’s family bustled in with self-deprecatory steps and subdued importance later. Now I, leaving early, decided to dawdle in the dusk yet still be there with time to spare. I admired the mellow fragrance of twilight, the white of day, and the green of trees as I lingered along the silvered highway mirroring the sky. A bird, a lark, chanted serenely and as ecstatically as usual, as it always does at dusk, and a thrush called “ Work-ing? ’’ I shook my head sadly. Down in layered folds came night and cold on earth and mists thick on the mountain and rain, blessed gentle rain, in niggardly dribbles from heaven. I noted a neighbour’s geese “ pinching ’’ a neighbour’s potatoes and the colours' on the face of the mountain patched in like the painful effects of our modern artists grown old, and heard anon and felt anon the listless puff of a wind. ■ And I reflected on the independence of our world when men must live on other men to live at all and the race is full of words and misery at the same time, when a white blank crept up the mountain to the skies, and trees, like etchings on a white canvas, moved a little against the drift, and I was caught in a windswept deluge. Rain! The river received it plonk! plonk! in joyful splashes. Sadly had its resources been taxed by men with tins and women with buckets and children with bare feet and tins and cows with big stomachs and empty mouths these last weeks. The heads of little fishes bobbed up and down to the bottom of the river with the news, like good reporters, and from far and near the fish colony rose as in a net to the surface to peep out and see for themselves, like good fish, that it was even so. And it was even so. At least, it appeared so to me that the fish did that, but perhaps it was the effect of rain on my excitement-fevered head which caused me see all those tiny splashes as fish swallowing rain after the dull routine drink of stale river water. . lam digressing. lam doing what _ 1 “didn’t ought.” By now I should be in the hall. Instead I am “ decelerating in speed and accelerating in excitement, ambling leisurely along a country willowwitched road. I thought on charity, and a car came along, stopped—they say the millionth car does this —and offered me a lift. . “ Ye —es,” I said, for this was adventure on a step to the campaign, and hopped in. The dog whose seat I usurped sat on ray knee. Evidently he was used to sitting on ladies’ knees, and the driver told me all about the difference between raw meat for dogs and cooked meat. _ When the car stopped I was still nodding my head wisely. I dawdled towards a single eye that shone like a beacon between heaven and earth, the light of the hall. I hesitated in the sad shades of teardrooped willows and coyly hoped that did not look suspicious. , A regiment of soldiers drew nigh, ine twilight and their swinging strides deceived me; this was a troupe of foreheads and hips looking neither to right nor left, but seeking the goal. A girl leaned # on a gate and talked loudly of the ’lection. A car jerked and stopped near me and 1 speculated idly on the vagaries of mankind, for the man got out his ‘ paper and began to read, and the lady pursued her knitting. Meanwhile it rained and shadow slithered and the eyes of night began to be awake. I drew nearer the hall. Cars slid up and stopped ponderously; heavy men waddled up, and no man denied_ the other the right to occupy more than his share of earth. To-night, almost, there was respect in man’s eye for man. And all over the country and in the town man was issuing from his anthill on a tri-yearly pilgrimage in search of truth and the rights of man. “ Looking after th affairs of State.” I, too, strutted behind and crept in late, properly abashed when a fusillade of faces peeped over coated backs to look at me. I sat on the extreme edge of a creaking seat which caused me unspeakable discomfort, and a very old, fat man and a very young, thin one balanced the other end. There was a man like a magician on the stage. Slim and straight with one white, wide hand upraised and his black trousers merging into long flat boots that turned contrariwise. A_ body upholding a mind which was talking rapidly throngn its mouthpiece to the earnest gentlemen and fidgeting ladies present, very fast were his words as if his were the tongue of a typewriter, with a catch every now and then, and a few intelligble words excellently pronounced to show he could say them as relief. My neighbour over the way. with his mouth open and his eyes opening and closing as if he slept and woke again with his intelligence panting a few words behind, looked up and steadfastly and involuntarily shook his head and scraped his feet every now and then. Before him a man sat roundly on his seat: on his flat head grey hairs stuck out stubbornly like reeds from mud; loose he sat with his clothes in deep wrinkles about him A hunched heap of clothes, I stirred like an uncomfortable hill. Over all the wand of silence struck as we were frowning and diligent in prayer. The chairman sat very comfortable with his legs crossed, with his best Sunday expression on. his eyes a perfect blank. Behind us stole a fairy zephyr that tickled our spines without mirth; our lips grew bluer and onr stares blacker, and our legs were given to wandering mosquitoes and trembling.

“ We as a nation ” —the voice penetrated to the chill recesses of our brain and stopped; a frozen smile of mirth twisted an odd face and stuck there and faded away like a desultory whiff of wind. The “ nation’s " bare heads still in the bleak air, heads bare of hair and hated heads ot yawning women under frowsy streamer ends stared woodenly. Wind nosed inquiringly round the paneless •windows, and so to us, A moth fluttered

and the chairman playfully tapped it. The power of the speaker’s personality began to assert itself and we began to sleep. Somebody said “ Hear, ’ear ” lowly. All the men woke up and looked at him sharply and one brought out his pipe and began to smoke in scented screens. All the men produced their pipes; thick wreaths clouded their frowning foreheads; they leaned forward on their knees. One or two ladies got out their handkerchiefs and gave the men inquiring glance® and disgusted coughs. Then the ladies shifted weight on to the other leg and prepared to follow their own desires. Minutes into hours passed, and suddenly we were inundated with silence. Questions? The candidate for our favour leaned to us alert. There was a pause and giggle. “ Go’n git up. Ham. G’n now.” “H’m, Haw, H’m, b’m. Well , . Ham floundered, retracted, began again and got there after wiping his mouth and changing feet. The others hung on his word with curious smiles. When he sat down to grin at the ground all the men suspended smoking for a minute to think about it. Time dragged away in pleasant speculation. Who next? Females telepathised to the males what they could do an* they would and wished afterwards they had, with the feminine eye to effect. The men matched wits. Very square and mellow-eyed and knowledgable were the men. Came a pause and before any man could think of anything else the chairman said if they were satisfied now a — “ No-o.” The man with the flat head, scratching it provocatively, arose. He started softly, and as his brain wrote ideas he translated them and louder and louder grew his tones until the sleepiest was wide awake. Then he stopped, to sit and stand again. He was a bottomless pit of questions. At last, before he could dig up another, the chairman had the vote of confidence proposed and only one voice in a firm boom roared NO. This thrilled us; we had pleasant visions of the Town, Hall. The only missed question I believe was “Would you be in favour of it raining? The tanks are empty and the cows are thirsty, but we like fine weather. What can you do about it? ” Myself did not think of it in time. We passed quietly out of doors heavy with words now it was all over and, thought I. in the exuberance of the moment, “I’ll vote for that man.” I heard a woman say “ Such a charming speaker; his wife looks a nice woman.” The motley crowd* straggled to the dusk and paused in the drizzle, “It's still raining, isn’t that,lovely! ” I caught the echo of a hollow murmur far down in double chins and raincoat. "Might be a flood.” Ere the Election is Humour. Aftermath means Hope.