POOR JO.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 908, 28 April 1871, Page 3

POOR JO.

(From (he Australasian, April 15.) He was the ostler at Coppinger's, and they called him Poor Jo. Nobody knew whence he came: nobody knew what misery of early history had been his. He had appeared one evening, a wandering swag man, unable to speak, and so explain his journey's aim or end— able only to mutter and gesticulate, making signs that he was cold and hungry, and needed fire and food. The rough crowd in Coppinger's bar looked on him kindly, having for him that sympathy which marked physical affliction commands in the rudest natures. Poor Jo needed all their sympathy: he was a dwarf, and dumb. Coppincrer — bluff, blasphemous, aud goodhearted poul— despatched him with many oaths to the kitchen, and when the next morning the deformed creature volunteered in his strange sign-speech to do some work that mi<jht " pay for his lodging," pent him to help the ostler that ministered to Kins Cobb's coach horses. The ostler — for lack of a better name perhaps — called him " Jo," and Coppinger, finding that the limping mute, though he conld not speak one word of human language, yet had a marvellous power of communication with horseflesh, installed him as under-ostler and stablehelper, with a seat at the social board and a wisp of clean straw in King Cobb's stable. " I have taken him on," said Coppinger, when the township cronies met the next night in the bar. " Wh« ?" asked the cronies, bibulously disregarding grammar. " Poor Jo," siid Coppinger. The sympathetic world of Bullocktown approved the epithet, and the deformed vagabond, thus baptised, was known as Poor Jo ever after. He was a quiet fellow enough. His utmost wrath never sufficed to ruffle a hair on the sleek backs of King Cobb's hordes. His utmost mirth never went beyond an ape like chuckle that irradiated his pain-stricken face as a stray gleam of sunshine lights up the hideousness of the gargoyle on some old cathedral tower. It was only when "in drink that Poor Jo became a spectacle for strangers to wonder at. Brandy maddened him, and when thus excited his misshapen soul would peep out of his sunken fiery eyes, force his grotesque legs to dance unseemly sarabands, and compel his pigeon breast to give forth monstrous and ghastly utterances, that might have been laughs were they not so much like groans of a brutish despair that had in it a strange cord of human suffering. Coppinger was angry when the poor dwarf was thus tortured for the sport of whiskydrinkers, aud once threw Frolicsome Fitz into the muck-midden for inciting the cripple to sputter forth his grotesque croonings and snatches of griersome merriment. " He won't be fit for nothin' to-morrow, you — ," was the excuse Coppinger made for his display of feeling. Indeed, on the days that followed these debauches, Poor Jo was sadly downcast. Even his beloved horses failed to cheer him, ami he would sit red-eyed and woe-begone on the post-and-rail fence, like some dissipated bird of evil omen. The only thing he seemed to love, save his horses, was Coppinger, and Coppinger wag proud of this simple affection. So proud was he, that when he discovered that whenever Miss Jane, the sister of Young Barham, from (Seven Creeks, put her pony into the stable, the said pony was fondled and slobbered over and caressed by Poor Jo, he felt something like a pang of jealousy. Miss Jane was a fair maiden, with pale gold hair, and lips like the two streaks of crimson in the leaf of the white poppy. Young Barham, owner of Seven Creeks Station — you could see the lights in the house windows from Coppinger's — had brought her from town to " keep house for him," and she was the beauty of the country side. Frolicksome Fitz, the poundkeeper, was at first inclined to toast an opposition belle (Miss Kate Ryder, of Ryder's Mount), but when returning home one evening by the new dam he saw Miss Jane jump Black Jack over the post and wire into the home station paddock, he foreswore his allegiance. " She rides like an angel," said pious Fitz, and next time he met her told her so. She stared, smiled, and cantered away. Now, this young maiden, so fair, so daring, and so silent, came upon the Bul'ocktown folk like a new revelation. The old Frenchman at the Melon Patch vowed tearfully that she had talked French to him like one of his countrywomen, and the schoolmaster, Mr Frank Smith— duly certificated under the Board of Education — reported that she played the piano divinely, singing like a seraph the while. As nobody played (except at euker) in Bullocktown, this judgment was undisputed. Coppinger swore, slapping with emphasis his mighty thigh, that Miss Jane was a Lady, and when he said that he said everything. So whenever Miss Jane visited the township she was received with admiration. Coppinger took off his hat to her, Mr Frank Smith walked to the station every Sunday afternoon to see her, and Poor Jo stood afar off, and worshipped her, happy if she bestowed a smile upon him once out of every five times that he held h^r tiny stir rup. This taming of Poor Jo was not unnoticed by the whisky-drinkers, and they came in the course of a month or so to regard the cripple as part of the property of Miss Jane— as they regarded her dog, for instance. The schoolmaster, moreover, did not escape taproom comment. He was frequently at Seven Creeks. He bought flowers from the garden there. He sent for some new clothes from Melbourne. He even borrowed Coppinger's i « i ii ' ir iin^t'iiii^NWKiUtt

bay mare Flirt to ride ov»r to the Sheepwash, and Dick, the mailboy — who knew that Coppinger's mare was pigeon-toed — vowed that he had seen another horse's tracks beside hers in the sand of the Rose Gap Road. " You're a deep-un, Mr Smith," said Coppinger. " I found yer out sparking Miss Jane along the Mountain Track. Deny it if yer can ?" But Frank Smith's pale cheek only flashed, and he turned off the question with a laugh. It was poor Joe's eyes that snapped fire in the corner. So matters held themselves until the winter, when the unusually vret season forbade riding parties of pleasure. It rained savagely that year, as we all remember, and Bullocktown in rainy weather is not a cheerful place. Miss Jane kept at home, and Poor Jo's little eyes, wistfully turned to the station on the hill, never saw her black pony canterine round the corner of Archy Cameron's hayrick. A deeper melancholy seemed to fall on the always melancholy township. Coppinger's cronies took their " tots " in silence, steaming the while, and Coppinger himself would come gloomily to the door, speculating upon evil unless the leaden rain curtain lifted. ["To be continued.]