SHORT STORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2529, 3 September 1902, Page 74

SHORT STORIES.

WHAT THE PAPER SAID.

By Arch. M. M'Nicol.

(For the Witness.)

•Thomas Mason, a young married man, •Kployed on the Golden Brand dredge, met ■with an unfortunate accident on the 7th 'inst., one of his legs being crushed by the machinery. As a result, it has been found necessary" to amputate the limb." That was what the paper said, and) the paper, being cramped for space, and accidents being so common nowadays, could not be expected to say more. And you, my lords and my ladies, read the simple paragraph and thought no more about it ; but behind what the paper said there lies a tale. •It begins with the courtship of Thomas (Mason, who married a pretty little wife ibefore he could afford to keep her, and tolaced her in a 10 by 12 tent, furnished with a big box for a table, and two little cun-ningly-contrived boxes for chairs, and provided her with two cups and saucers and «, broken mug, and one or two other little articles of domestic appliances. It was not a very bright beginning, but Tom Mason •was only a navvy on the railway line. There were some happy days in that tent ; !the brave little wife said it was not like feeing manned at all— they weie just like jlwo children "playing house." But there came a time in the lives of fthese two people when Tom Mason's wife ,was sore stricken, nigh unto death, and /Torn Mason, who had been living in a fool s toaradise, received a rude shock, for the gruff country doctor swore at him, and) told him, if he loved bis wife, to move her to a Hecent dwelling. So Tom Mason broke up jhis tent, and rented a house, and moved jhis goods and chattels. That did not take Jong. As one of his mates graphically put Jt: - "E carried all Vs blooming furniture on Vs back." Shortly after this a dredge commenced 'operations in that district, and Tom Mason got a job at 10s a day, and the world be|an to go well with him. The days of the Boxes and make-shifts had vanished to anake room for the two easy chairs, ana jjtke hundred-and-one articles, serviceable Wl unserviceable, that go to make up the Some of a well-to-do working man. And Sn the midst of all this prosperity Tom (Mason had another little mouth to feed. No man is content with things as they are, and Tom Mason was no exception to !the rest of his fellowmen. In the furnishing of his house, in his opinion, there was etill one thing needful. Tom's great ambition was to have a piano, but the desire of (his wife was a sewing machine. Not having yet reached that state of affluence that /would warrant them buying the two, in jher opinion, being a prudent woman, an Article that would be of some use should tome before a luxury. The piano could Kvait. Now, Tom Mason had a great regard for the opinion of his wife, and never were the many benefits that are to be derived arom a sewing machine more ably championed. Then Tom brought forward his .view of the matter, with perhaps more eloquence than logic. Bringing his brawny Ifist down on the table, after the manner of a man whose views are not to be alteied, !he clinched his argument home. "Besides," said he — "besides, our baby's X boy, and whoever heard of a boy working a sewing machine.*' That settled it. Tom Mason forthwith .wrote out an order for a piano on the de-ferred-payment system, and he posted it !the next morning on the way to his work. As the gathering shadows steal over the iface of the earth, when the darkening clouds veil the bright beams of the sun, so is a man enveloped in the gloom of his own jexistence, so is a man struck through an flmseen force, \>y an unseen hand, for an tinseen reason. The Golden Brand dredge is in high fettle this morning, my lords and my ladies. £Fhe day previous a jubilant board of directors had announced to a meeting of grateful shareholders that the Golden Brand was jpaying magnificently. Other dredges might pall tipon their shareholders, might liquidate ; the Golden Brand paid a dividend. 'And this was how she did it:

The taskmaster, the engine, brought all it's faculties into play. The big buckets heaved in mid-air, dapped beneath the surface of the water, ripped, scraped, and tore along the bed of the river, and came to the top with their cargoes of boulders, gravel, end mud, hidden amongst wheh were the liny gleams of gold, for which a meeting of grateful shareholders returned a vote of thanks to a board of honourable directors. *Xhe tables received their burden. The iravenous drum swallowed the unsavoury Jciass.

This went on, and on. and on ; it looked "Us though it would go on forever ; but Ihere intervened one of those mysterious workings of Providence that, in the twinkling of an eye, alter the whole course of H man's life. An accident occurred. Something went wrong with the machinery. Bomeone had blundered, with the result that Tom Mason was maimed for life. They carried him home on a stretcher, and when the doctors had finished with him, they left him to the care of his wife, and said that he couldn't be in better hands.

Now begins the history of a brave .woman, whose first bitter drop was to canGel an order for a piano on the deferredpayment system. There were times in the years that followed after this when her •\ieart longed-, with the yearning of a •youth that has grown into old age, for the days that were spent playing house in a tent that had no furniture worth speaking of.

High up in the world's roll of honour stand the names of its noble women : heroines who have been .saviours of their kind by their forethought, by their selfdeuia^ and hx italic 4§finfl £iie wolW

rings with the praise of these brave women. There are also heroines behind the washtub. but of them the world knows nothing. If it did, they wouldn't be there. Now, also, if I had time to tell you, begins the history of a big helpless crippled man, who had to live on the exertions of his wife, while it wrung his very soiil. But no lives, provided they are good lives, aie altogether lost, and neither were the lives of these two people. " They also serve who only stand and wait."

But you, my lord= and my ladies, you know nothing -of all these "things. You only know what the paper said.