SERIES OF MISHAPS

Taranaki Daily News, 17 August 1935, Page 9

SERIES OF MISHAPS

TRIBULATIONS OF YOUNG DROVER. '' ' ■ SAD STORY OF WEDDING GUEST. The trials and tribulations experienced by the son of a well-known Hawera farmer while engaged in moving a young herd from one property to another was responsible for a number of serio-comic episodes on Thursday. As they had been undisturbed for nearly 18 months the cattle when driven on to the road became very excitable, persistently breaking through the fences bounding the roadside, with consequent effects on the temper of their young drover, who each time he managed to get them on the road again had his hands full with the task of trying to keep them there. The excitability of the cattle soon communicated itself to the rider’s horse, and little progress had been made before the latter, in endeavouring to head off a recalcitrant animal, came into forcible contact with a telegraph post, almost rendering itself unconscious in the process, and effectually rendering itself useless for the remainder of the task in hand. Nothing daunted by these, catastrophies and displaying dogged determination, the young man decided to drive the herd on foot. All went well until a conveniently open gate on the roadside attracted the attention of the herd and, despite frantic efforts on the drover’s part, the whole herd, with one accord, passed through the gate. The young man’s consternation can be better imagined than described when he found that his tattle, instead of entering a paddock, had made themselves thoroughly at home on a newly-sown garden and were being quite successful in their efforts to turn the ground over. With the thought that, under the cir r cumstances, discretion was the better part of valour, the farmer’s son beat a precipitate retreat from the scene and, with the telephone as a medium, communicated to his father the fact that he could bring his own cows home, the descriptive terms used, no doubt, leaving little to the father’s imagination. As he was to officiate as best man at a friend’s wedding later in the day, the luckless young fanner made his way to town, in good time for the ceremony but with plumage still considerably ruffled.