Page 17 Advertisements Column 2

Otago Witness, Issue 2181, 19 December 1895, Page 17

long since gone, but the effort to pay the Interest taxed as to the utteiw most. And the bad times continued. At first people were hopeful. Each year they said, " Surtly things are at the worst — they will mend." Yet they did cot mend, but rather grew worse. Prices went steadily down, and ever down. Wool, and grain, and oattle— everything tbat we had to sell— was cheap, and everything that we wanted to buy was dear. And every quarter the interest on the mortgage had to be paid. Oh I how I droaded those quatter days ; and how I lay awake for nights beforehand wondering how the money was to be found— what we could cell and what we could do without. Ready money grew scarcer every year. Tbe poultry and butter kept the house, and even for these the local storekeeper would not give the biggest price— we were too heavily In his debt, and we dared not Bend them elsewhere lest we should offend him. Ob, how true are the words of the wise man, '• The borrower la servant to the lender " 1 When time* were good father bad taken up too much land — more than hf ever possessed the means of working— but his heart was in it and he could not bear to give it up. I think whtnever he looked at us two girls he must have wished tbat we were two stalwart sons, who could have helped him " to fence and to plough, to reap and to sow," instead of being of the " wrong sort," us cor old Sootch shepherd uneallantly Bald. Then besides these misfortunes— daughters that should have been sons, and the bad times that came to everybody— father wa» specially unforfcnnate. His beat; horses died oi luDgworm ; a long wet season killed half the lambs and gave the sheep footrot, and then just before last harvest our wheat was " shaken " by a bad nor'-wester, and tbe golden crop that waß to have paid off so many old Ecorei was scarcely worth putting the machines into. For a whole year the interest on the mortgage had not been paid— there was nothirjg to pay it with. Had our creditor been a man, even the hardest of men, he would have had a heart and some natural impulse of pity to whiob we could have appealed ; ' but our mortgagee was not a man, but a company, of whom it was bitterly eaid, "It had neither a body to be kicked nor a soal to be saved "—a great impersonal company, representing a number of absentee shareholders, whoia colonial representatives had no discretionary power, but were forced to demand and obtain Shylock's pound of fleßh. " There is but one thirg to he done," Bald my father when they pressed • for a settlement. " I'll sell the place myßelf and make the beat terms that I can with all my creditors. I£ I let the company cell mo up I shall get nothing." And this was no doubt true. Even I never knew what it cost him to part from the land which he had cleared and laid out chiefly nith his own bands ; and from the house whicl he had raised in the game way,' beginning with a two-roomed lean-to and afterwards adding four good rooms, with many conveniences, until be h%i completed tbo cosy and comfortable homestead of Glendermid Farm. Hers Sophie and I were born, and here mother died. I have often heard it said, that we, in the colonies, have no home ties. This may be true of people in tovrnp, who are ever moviDg from house to hou=e and street to street just to save themselves tbe trouble «f spring cleaning, but it is not ttue of country folk whose own hands have built the homestead on their own soil, and who love their home with- the clicging protective affection whioh lies at the root of all family ties. " A poor thing, but mine own 1 " To leave a spot thus dear is a rending of the heart's closest-clinging tendrils, and when joined to the "earth hunger" so strongly developed in some natures, it makes the parting as Bad as that between two living lovers. I know this, for I have seen it. Sophie, in spite of her 17 years, was but a child, pleased with the thought ' of any change; but father's heart was well-nigh broken, not only with grief at the thought of leaving the old place, but with the sense of failure, cursing all the efforts of his life, and leaving him in middle age to begin thf world all over again. Ib has often seemed to me unju3t, that in life, as in book?, all the pathos, all the interest of the situation, centres in and round the young actors, whose own youth, energy, and hopefulness are so great an endowment that on them sympathy seems wasted and pity more or less of an insult. Tha " true pathoa of life " belongs to the middle-aged, who bear the burden and heat of the day, toiling along a bare, glaring, sun-scorched road, crossed bj ice filled gullies, and swept at every angle by the bitter biting blasts oi adversity. Not for them the sweet illusions and the dew-drenched floweri of youth, nor yet the calm sun-sets and sanctified hopes of age. If we could depict it properly— if we could truly limn that which passes before out eyes, the true pathos of life would be seen to He with the middle-aged— with the uusUccessEul farmer, and not with his pretty daughter. At leant so ib seemed to me as I saw Sophie carelessly criticise tbe advertisement which had cost father so many pangs. For now, ab last, ehe ended her task of revision, and prepared to road hei composition aloud for general approval. I It was much longer and more flowery, but I liked father's plain words best, and eaid so. "Ob, well, have it as you like ; I don't care," she said lightly. " Perbapi father's in best after all — anyone can understand it, that's one .thing." " And the chief thing, too." "Perhaps so. Anyway, I shall be glad when the puichaser appears, and we are able to get away from this tiresome old place. Oh, yes, I know whai you moan, Molly. It is our home, and all that, but It'B a dull old hole all thi same, and I shall be glad to Bee the last of it. Ob, I hope the purchaser will come soon, and that he will be young and rich, don't you 1 Gome, oonfeaithe truth, Molly, just for once." I looked at father, and caw him wince and cover bis eyes with bis bands. " Yes ; if it ib to be sold, tbe sooner it is done tbe better," I answered firmly. " And aB we -want the money we'll hope that the purchaser may b< rich and liberal. But I don't care whether he is young or not. It can't make any difference to us." " Wbo knows 7 " said Sophie, mischievously. " It's the new ohums who have all tbe money nowadays, and they are generally young and — green." Father was once more conning over the advertisement which he had com. posed with such care and difficulty, and which Sophie's supposed disapproval had materially damaged. " Will it do ? Eb, Molly ? Do you really tbink that it will do 7 " "It.hiDk that it is just the very thing," I answered promptly, "and st does Sophie, and I will brirg you some stamps and an envelope so tbat yoi can send it down to Dunedin at once by the night's mail." Chaptbb 11. The' Rosebud Amalgamated. " Ob, Molly, come here !— come quickly I Here is' father and a etrang* gentleman with him. He has come in answer to the advertisement— our advertisement, you know. Ob, do go and tidy up your hair a bit and put on * dean collar. They will be here in a minute." "My collar will do well enough. If it's clean enough for you and father, it'e clean enough for him, whoever he may be." But Sophie did not hoar me ; she bad run into our bedroom, and was craning her neck before the queer little gla6B which alwayß made one eide of your face so much larger than the other and your complexion a sort of muddy green. No one could be very conceited wbo looked into tbat glass two or three times a day ; but Sophie and I knew it bo well that it did not affect us in the least. And now, through the half-open door, I saw Sophia trying to look at the bow at the back of her neck, a feat which is rather difficult to perform. " Oh, Molly, is it otraight? Tell me, quick 1 " But there was no time to settle the question ; two pairs of heavy feet were already on the verandah. The advertisement'— our advertisement, as Sophie persisted in calling ithad produced many answers, but aB yet no bona fide purchaser. Indeed, the answers were bo numerous that one would have supposed that every second person in New Zealand was' possessed with the desire to bay freehold land. Latterß came from Auckland and from the Bluff, and from soores oi intermediate places. Letters which asked the most absurd questions and utterly ignored the facts which had been so emphatically stated in oui famous ad. ; as, for instance : " Was the land freehold or leasehold?" "Had it been cultivated and improved 1 " " Was it on deferred payment 1 " and so on. A secretary would have found ample work in replying to these letters. Sophie and I began to dread the post-time. Nor was this all. Numbars of people came to " see ths place " ; people who had obviously never read the ad., for they went away declaring that there was too much or too little land; too many improvements or not enough. It was plain that the majority of these came just for the outing, and without any real thought of purchasing. And the questions thej asked I— tbe inquisitorial demands : " Why we wanted to sell? " " Had fathei been extravagant 7 " " How had we managed to live with only one sitting room?" " Was that dark hole the dairy 7 " " What a small pantry I" "And no bath room ! " And they peeped into every hole and corner ; into every box and cupboard — even the very oven. "We have come so far, we may as well see everything." Outside it was just the same. The arable land should have been pasture. The pastures should have been cropped. All tbat was done should hava been undone, and tbat which was undone should have been done. I wonder how father stood it all. Certainly it did not improve his fc*nan«, or mine either for the matter of that.