DAY WITH THE JUDGES

Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1934, Page 10

DAY WITH THE JUDGES

VISITS TO COUNTRY SCHOOLS. MAORI BOYS AND CALVES. To the little Maori boys life, coloured with the lamp of a brilliant morning sun, was such a pleasant joke. What better to sit on the grass, watching with brown eyes the judges as they worked, gossiping a little about this one and that. And so they laughed and showed their white teeth, or stood and stared, roundeyed, unmoved by the picturesqueness of the rural scene. The scene, in all conscience, was homely enough. It was the grounds of the Ohangai school and the time was midmorning. The two judges of the first calves to be shown for the season were inspecting the animals and helping to carry on with the good work of the South Taranaki Boys and Girls’ Agricultural Clubs. To the reporter, however, the scene had a little charm of its own. And so on through a long and lovely day, when Ohangai, Meremere, Whakamara and Mokoia schools were visited, a few impressions registered and a few types standing out from the unindividual throng. There was the little boy with the trick of upturning his eyes in ingenuously simple fashion. His hair had a straight fringe in front, his cheeks were chubby and large freckles gathered just at the bridge of the nose. He didn’t gain a place with his little Friesian calf, but he seemed quite happy about it all, just upturning his eyes and lidding them again as the judges passed by. In that little ground, where the grass was green and a hedge’s higgledy-pig-gledyness only added to its beauty, the, light shone strong on the children. Cakes were handed round. A little Maori dropped his. Carefully he picked it up from the dust heap, as carefully wiped it, and as carefully put it in his mouth. Meremere had not Ohangai’s picturesque grounds, but its children looked as happy. When the judging was over and the officials had retired to the inevitable cup of tea, three girls and a small boy mounted their fiery steeds and gave exhibitions of riding round the football ground while two calves galloped madly round in circles. A group of girls, executive officers of the school club, presented Mr. Rod Syme with £3 from a recent concert and fidgetted while he talked to them of things they could do .zith their club, the competitions they could arrange and the fun they could have running their own affairs. They fidgetted, but when the party left they waved reluctant hands. Visitors to the Meremere school could be larger in number, they might have thought. Skies were dull at Whakamara. A farmer talked of the way children could cheat in the calf-judging. Calves, he said vehemently, had to have new milk longer than the three weeks some of the children alleged they fed their pets. A champion of the movement joined issue, but the debate was quite friendly. It was ended by a wise man. Whatever happens there’ll be arguments,” he said. Tea in the schoolhouse, while the children sang. Time was late and a judge manfully swallowed hot tea in a hurry. Rising from a desk he took infinite care once before he had been caught and had to be prised away. The sun was strong again at Mokoia and the pupils lay in the long grass, chewing it as they watched the calves. A girl, eight years, not more, charged with the care of an inquiring two-year-old, showed her strategy. “Who likes Glory?” she said. Immediately half a dozen hands went up. “Well, go and get her,” she said. Glory, as a matter of fact, showed a strong affection for the reporter, handing out love in strong dashes by giving her new “beau” peanuts, or throwing grass at him. . . And in the westering sunlight the judging went on. The bigger pupils talked uneasily of milking time and the parents watched with proud eyes. And the kettle boiled and tea was made and served and the party set out for home, a day’s good work done.