PATCHWORK PIECES

Otago Witness, Issue 3860, 6 March 1928, Page 77

PATCHWORK PIECES

By

Eileen Service.

(Special for the Otago Witness.)

XL.—THE “ T’S.”

When you were little you were taken to a picnic. There were so many grownups about that you wondered how you would enjoy yourself amid all the bass laughs and high-pitched simpers you heard around you, for you did not like big people. They frightened you. Then you saw holding on to a lady’s hand a boy about a year older than yourself, and at once you -were happy again. Here was somebody foi- you. You would hot be lonely now. But the boy was a disappointment. He clung to his mother’s dress and refused so much as to look at the “ nice little girl ” beside him, let alone go and play with her, while to-all suggestions that the pair of you should be friends he answered, “ No-o," in a peevish, whining voice. ■When you strove to take his hand he gave you a secret pinch. So you left him, wishing your brother Pepin had not been ill at home that day, but glad he was absent if only to escape the boy. You wandered away from the starched skirts and holiday trousers until you were right in the wood. And there, under a tree, you saw colour. Bluebells! The first you had ever found all by yourself. A bright patch of them !

As you gazed in delight, you decided that you jvould pick a few to take back to Pepin and tell him how you had just happened to look, and there they were, growing all ready; but first you would wait beside them in case you might see a fairy. You had always known there were fairies in bluebell-time in England, but you had never found one yet. So, still as a picture, you sat down on a log to watch. You scarcely breathed. How dreadful if you made a noise to scare them! All at once, there was a rustle behind you, and the next minute somebody had given you a great push and sent you tumbling forward. When you picked yourself up, shocked beyond speech, your frock was drenched with dew, and the bluebells, the splendid, laughing bluebells, were broken to ruins. You began to cry. Then, Through the tears that expressed your hurt and fright and sorrow, you saw that your assailant was the boy of whines and pinches. But now he was grinning triumphantly. As he caught your eye, he made a grimace, while you stared, too surprised at his malice even to think of retaliating, until with a “ Yah! ” he ran back the way he had come, to leave you standing there alone, your small chest gulping as you wept.

You learned later that his name was Toddie. And that was why, when you and Pepin were a little older, the name “Toddie” was given to a certain band of imaginary creatures which, capable of every sort of wickedness you could think of, filled your days with excitement and your nights with fear. Only, you did not dare to pronounce their name in full. You spoke of them as the “ T’s ” instead, and even then marvelled at your boldness in saying so much. How they first came into being you cannot remember.

_ Sometimes on winter afternoons you were allowed, as a special treat, to turn the table over so that it sprawled on its back with its- legs in the air in the centre of the room. Then it was no longer a table, but a ship taking you and Pepin to New Zealand, and you played there until someone came to give you your baths before tea and bedtime. But once when you were thus, you discovered that there were T’s in the nursery. And after that you did not playships any more. It was the day after Pepin’s bjrthday. You were going through one of the loneliest stretches of your voyage, .the ocean wild and rough about you, and no sign of land anywhere. According to your compass, a glass marble where you gazed as into a crystal, you were out of your course. So you decided to drift till morning and then pick up your tracks. In the meantime, you would light the ship’s lantern and have supper. ' So Pepin, who was bo’sun, brought forth the football he had been given for being five years old the day before, and

you who were captain because you were six, lighted it with the pin that served as a match. It was then that you realised the presence of the T’s. For the ship’s lantern, instead of staying neatly on the top of the tableleg' mast where before it had balanced, leaped down on to the deck, where, accompanied by long hisses, it jumped about all over the place until it finally flopped over in exhaustion on its side. When you examined it, it was flat and lifeless, with all its rotundity gone. Nor would it revive for you. You looked at Pepin in dismay. “ T’s,” you whispered. And then you saw that not only was it a T.that had bewitched the lantern, but that the whole sea around you was thick with them. You shivered. No longer was the dark a comforting period during which you could eat the biscuits you, had brought with you and pretend to sleep till morning, but one fraught with terror and horror. The light from the fire only accentuated it. And the grown-ups were all downstairs. You sat very still, with Pepin crouched beside you. You did not dare to put a ' foot On to the floor, for every shadow was alive/and ugly little faces that grimaced

as you watched leered up at you. You were safe as long as none of the T’s came on board. But how long would it be before that happened? One of them must have been there already to put the spell on the ship’s lantern. And—why—was that not a skinny hand on the side now—coming nearer? You screamed so loudly that a grownup came rushing upstairs, two steps at a time, to see what was the matter. As she turned on the light and flooded the room with reality, the pair of you flung yourselves wildly upon her, nor was it until several minutes had passed that you could be quietened. For you were certain that just, before you screamed a voice had spoken. And it had said “Yah!”

Thus you w-ere hag-ridden by the T’s. Every “ only pretend ” game sooner or later became haunted by them, and you never knew when they would come upon you. You and Pepin did all you could to overpower them—laid crusts poisoned with ink for* them to eat, and dug holes in the garden to lure them to doom, while the hours you spent devising plans by which you might overcome them en masse and free the world for ever from their evil influence, were long and serious. But the T’s were always too clever for you. They were everywhere. Nor was it only when you were alone or in the dark that they came. If you could have told somebody about them it might have been different. A sympathetic adult could have dispelled them for you at once. Only you did not know that. You thought that grownups would never understand, and for that very reason, never mentioned the T’s in their presence. For you knew that if they .heard themselves discussed by somebody who disbelieved in their existence, they would make things all the worse for you later. They were a force which you and Pepin had to meet by yourselves, and nobody else could help. They disappeared temporarily with your growing older. When you were eight you came out to New Zealand and were supplied with new interests and new friends to share them. Pepin had boys to play with, and used footballs properly now, not as ship’s lanterns, while both of you went to school. You forgot all about the T’s and the way they had persecuted you, until one day when you were given “ Helen’s Babies ” to read, and, turning over the pages before starting, came across the name “ Toddie.”

At once the old fear descended upon you. The T’s! The awful ones! Had they found you again? Were you to be terrified by them even here? For a moment you felt the same panic that the name had hitherto evoked, and looked round miserably. Then your face cleared. T’s—in the sunshine, and among these friends, now that you were eight? Of course not! How could you be so silly! You turned again to your book and, finding a picture of somebody holding two dripping figures by the hand, read that Toddie was one of them after having been fished out of a pool by his uncle. Back went your thoughts to the picnic and the boy who had pushed you into the bluebells. 'Well! Toddie looked very woebegone in the picture. Is that how you had looked—not so wet, of course, but as rueful? It must have been funnv!

Then you began to laugh. You had been reading while you sat thinking, and had come to a description of Toddie which filled you with pleasure. Why, he was horrid no longer! He was a nice, naughty pickle who was going to amuse you immensely before you were finished with him. Already you liked him.

So, then and there, the memory of the first Toddie died away, and with it, in the face of common sense, and environment and humour, the last of the T’s. They would trouble you no more. Everything was changed now, and there was a new Toddie to think about, a Toddie with a jolly name—one you liked saying! How different it was from those other times, and how foolish you had been! Besides—there, it was out at last—the T’s were only make-believe after all!