A SHORT STORY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 364, 10 April 1915, Page 13

A SHORT STORY.

THE EVOLUTION OF EBENEZER.

[By E. Or. Bonney, in the "Australasian."]

Eb Camcross was not a sport. He (lid not frequent prize lights or pigeon matches, and knew little or nothing about rabbit chasing, ragging, or the races. But if Eb could not tell you in what year Johnson became champion of the world he could at "least trace Johnson's ancestry back to the period when tree-climbing was the most popular athletic exercise of his fore parents. And he was wise in many other branches of scientific research that you or I could not learn about in a generation. I find it hard to show you Eb as I saw liini first, on that day so long ago now. He Avore glasses and a discoloured straw hat; while a long-tailed banger, miles too big, seemed'to' be everlastingly trying to get him down and worry him. He used to read books. Eb was a student, and a hundred a year left him by his mother sufficed for his modest wants.

And yet 1 like to count Eb my frier \ We met first at Mrs Little's boardinghouse, at Thirroul, New South Wales, where I had gone to recuperate after a strenuous bout with a virulent influenza germ. He sat next to me at the table, and passed me the mustard —and we were introduced. 'Tis ever thus at the seaside.

I prepared to become frieiully. "How are they breaking?" I asked him. Eb looked puzzled. A girl on the other side of him tittered, and Mrs Little paused in her endeavour to make one helping of steak divide up into three.

''Mr Carneross never surfs," she said. "He doesn't fish either, or go blackbcrryiug, and he'r only walked down to the beach twice in three weeks.''

"Perhaps he's afraid of getting up an appetite," I said, and the girl the other side of Eb tittered again. I began to be looked at. "Have you really been here three weeks?" 1 asked Eb wheu we got out on to the verandah. He pleaded guilty. "Then I'd like to shake hands with you," I said. "I've always wanted to meet a hero outside the pages of a novel.'' Wc shook.

"'I don't want to lead you into any vice," I told him. "But if you feel incliued to walk down to the beach with me just now, I'd be glad of your company.''

We made our way down-to the beach. Eb told me that he had come to Thirroul for health reasons. Too much study had broken up his nerves, and the doctor had recommended sea air and a blackberry and fish diet for at least two months.

"Well," I said, "you surely get the sea air diet at Mrs Little's; but about the other part " "Oh, yes," Eb remarked; "them too. We had blackberries three times last week for tea—done up in pastry and in other ways. There are hundreds of bushes, growing just over the hill from the back gate; and the little Littles bring home buckets full of them every day." We walked on. When we got to the beach Eb pulled out a book on some subject like the "Martyrdom of Man," or something. •' Now look,'' I said; '' didn't you just tell me that the doctor man had ordered you to give up study?" "Oh, this is only very light stuff," was his reply. 1 looked at the first chapter.. "I

wouldn't like to fall overboard, with one in each pocket," was my comment. "Come on, and have a wade." So I got Mm in. If you have ever (seen a crab trying to defend itself against the attack of a small boy armed with a stick, and you can remember what it looked like, you won't have any difficulty in picturing Eb's antics when the first wave hit him. The more he tried to come out, the further he seemed to go in, until at last he got rolled up on the sands, and lay there looking like a bit of drowned seaweed. "If you don't mind getting a belated answer to your question at the dinner table, "he said, holding his head down to let the water run out; "they're breaking all right." "That's the spirit," I said encouragingly. '' Stand on one leg, and hold your head sideways, and kiek with the other —like this. Did you ship much water 1 ?"

'' Only a sea ot two,'' was the answer, made with a smile.

I began to admire him. "You're a Briton," I said. "But now I think you had better come home now, and change your clothes." Eb was laid up for two days as a result of his encounter with the surf, and I used to go in and read to him. The stuff he had been used to was too solid for me, so I gave him some of Miss Corelli's masterpieces, mixed with Shakespeare and Charles Garvice. When he got better we went ferngathering together, and he told me lots about the theory of evolution, and the origin of species, and other matters, which I've been trying to forget ever since. So while I was educating Eb into the mysteries of rock-climbing I was learning a bit myself. I could tell you now, if I were put to it, how many years it takes to turn a forest of trees into coal, or why there was no full moon in February this year. Eb, in the meanwhile, was accumulating knowledge as to the records of Freddie Welsh and Carbine, and other public characters, and he could run 50 yards withoiit getting winded. How. did 1 inveigle him? Well, I'll tell you. One day, when he was showing me his collection of butterflies, I said, "Yes, they're very pretty; but you haven't got a' sample that comes anywhere near the ones I saw yesterday. Red, white, and blue they were, and nearly as big as the palm of your hand."

"Indeed,' - ' said Eb 3 interested. "I must look up their pedigree. The eolours seem unfamiliar."

lie took down a book from the shelf, and we went right through it from one cover to the other. When we didn't find it Eb began to get excited. "Are you quite sure the rarkings were as you described," he asked. "Well,'' I said, stubbornly. "There they are, and more than several of them, too. I don't know much about the habits or proclivities of the animal, but I can surely take you to the spot where they were, and only yesterday." Eb shook hands with me, and next morning, as soon as we had breakfast, we started out on our butterfly hunt. All day long we tramped, and never sighted anything brighter than a green blow-fly. We got back in time for tea, and, as soon as it was over, Eb dropped into bed, tired but happy, after arranging for another tour on the morrow. In. the morning he a. as up bright and early, and lie would have eaten tvo eggs had they been available. "It's years," he said, as he spread the third piece of bread, "since I've been able to touch anything more solid than a glass of water for breakfast. Do yon think we've any chance of coming across those to-day?" "Well, now," I said. "If what you say is right, and all those old professors haven '1 been able to track this new variety of mine, how can you expect to do it in a day? It may take us another three weeks; but if we get on to them in the finish you won't mind, will you?" "I should think not," was the reply

I got, as Eb busied himself getting the nets and the lunch and that packed. That day I took him seven miles in ■all, and in the adjournment he kept on the hunt, while I had a sleep. But we had no success.

Mrs Little began to look at us that night at tea. We were so hungry that we had no - complaints to make regarding the food, and ask,ed for more.

By the end of a week Eb was beginning to get a bit of colour about him, and ho was eating prodigiously for a small man. Now and again he'd get a bit downhearted because we hadn't succeeded in nailing the colours to the box, but he was a man used to disappointment, and easily soothed; When we had been out for thxee weeks Eb chased a rabbit for over yards, arid didn't take a dyspepsia tablet after lunch. So I talked to him seriously. "Young man," I said, "you're going gay. Do you know," I went on, '' that it's .only a month since

you were a thoughtful young person, who had the book-reading habit, and did not believe in taking tea with your meals. Now "

"Now," he broke in, happily, "I've got a normal heart beat and lung action, and^—".

'' But you haven't got the butterfly,'' I cut in. •

"Hang the butterfly. I mean —look here, old.chap; it's been awfully good of you to bother about me, taking me about, and wearing yourself out, and all that. But now I've got my health back I don't seem to care if all the butterflies in creation were out of stock. You don't think me ungenerous for saying that, I hope.'.' . I f aeed him, and , took his baud. '' Eb,'' I said. '' There's something I'd like to say to you, too. I haven't ever seen a red, white, and blue butterfly, and, so far as I know, the book's right when it says there isn't one in existence. But what I do know," I

said, "is that if ever you come across one you ought to prize" it above all your possessions, for through it you've been given the best gift jp£ all—* health."

I won't tell you what Eb said to mo in repjy; As I told you in the beginning, Eb Carncross was not a sport, and, as most of you. doubtless come under that category, you appreciate it.

But if Eb didn J t know the difference between an even-money chance and an . v evangelist, he was at least man enough,"*

to come to me two years later, when things financial were a bit rocky with me, and press upon me the loan of a sum sufficient to pull me through. I didn't learn till afterwards that he had to mortgage his inheritance, and practically put himself on the outer, to do It, and it was not until Si months late* that I was able to pay him backv So perhaps, after all, Eb Camcrosi was a sport.