NEW ZEALAND STORIES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7, 14 August 1912, Page 55

NEW ZEALAND STORIES.

The Editor desires to state that New Zealand Stories by New 'Zealand writers, are published on this page regularly. The page is open to any contributor, and all accepted stories trill be paid for at current rates. Terse bright sketches of Dominion life and people, woven in short story form, arc required,, and should be headed “New Zealand Stories.” Stamps for return of MS. must be enclosed

The Touch of Nature.

By

F. B. DOWDING, Hukerenui.

IE was a whiiefaced university graduate, and thought she knew everything; ASz was certain of every filing, and ■would have argued about anything under Heaven with the Archangel. 6he an unaccountable pleasure in proving by intricate and 'bewildering reasoning that two and two make four—• •which is perfectly obvious anyhow, or in demonstrating, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that X equals a fearsome conglomeration of coin plications—whkrh n > one in his sense cares a tin-tack, about. Fairy castles of abstract nofhiugliest, founded on the great word “’Perhaps,” she was a master architect —an M.A. Because of these things, she thought herself a superior person, and constantly implied in her conversation that the common herd —you and I, my friends—• would have to evolve a long, long way out of monkeydom before the serene height attained by herself and her college professors, and Ibsen, and Browning and Meredith, and —well, just a few select others —could be attained. She likewise thought her own reasoning infallible ! Incidentally it may be mentioned that she was a genius, but a genius in a fair way to kill her body by overwork, and 'to starve the soiut by allowing it but pauper rations of human emotkxns. Well, as a precaution against her quite snapping the bonds that linked her to her kind and soaring prematurely to regions ethereal, she had been sent after her university examination, to pursue fugitive health at a North Auckland farm—a dairy farm in the making. She .fast caught up on health; but suffered painfully in the chase. Her soul was raw with the wounds she daily, hourly received. She had not imagined there could be so much raw, uncouth ugliness in the round world. She could have sought nut beauty, ami have found it too; for not in the eye but in the soul doth beauty dwell. To her it was all ugly, hideous, repellant. These gaunt, iire-blackened dead trees, straining poor despairing skeleton arms to heaven, or lying in mouldering-stricken heaps; these sombre, sullen fern hills invaded by living tongues of green, or splashed by great black blots where burn had been; the staring white house in the centre of the stubbly ten acre paddocks, without feme or tree or Hower to soften and humanise its contour; these dirty, uncouth, children round the back-door; these loud voices, this conversation redolent of dairy rows, and fat pigs—Oh ! it was ugly, unspeakably painfully ugly, and she hated it. The people, to, seemed to her rough, boorish ami unbelievably ignorant. Their interests seemed to wander no farther than their boundary fences, their intellects to tread a dreary circle of cows and dance and show, and show and dance and cows. She could find no interest in the things they clave to nor could she interest them in the subjects with which she was well acquainted. Iler “brilliant conversation” concerning literature an t art and music, hero fell on stony ground, and blossomed not into the Howers of sympathy ami friendship. She felt isolated, marooned by her fellows, a stranger to her kind. Not that a more balanced temperament would have felt these pangs, for the rough good nature of the people more than math* up for their lack of surfae*, refineihent. and there was much both of beauty and of .culture in unheard of corners, had she eared to look for them. But she had been turned out of her protected hothouse life too suddenly, and

she shivered in the cold blasts of this actual world. Had she only realised it, there were some interesting and intensely human characters round her. “Boss” Jennings, the political Oracle of the country side; “Doc” Ferguson, the ten-der-hearted liigh-souled, drunken storekeeper, who acted as doctor to the district; Afiss Steevens, the quaint, shy eighteenth-century old maid, who kept the post office; “Hard-case Jimmy,” the wit of the road—these and a dozen others might have repaid her sympathy and her study a hundredfold. But her eye had not learned understanding nor her heart the love of her kind. By the family where she boarded she was tolerated only. That is as far as the friendship between the country man and the towns man ever goes, unless the one changes his habits and his circle of ideas and becomes in some measure the other. Between Norah the eldest daughter and the college gill there was the unreasoning but inveterate enmity of opposing temperaments and training. The two things combined made these two daughters of Eve almost creatures of different worlds. Almost, but not quite. Norah was a typical colonial, healthy rosy, vigorous, and almost as strong as a man; fond) of excitement and of the country amusements, somewhat free and easy in her converse with "boys,” an inveterate flirt, but at heart a good girl, in the human sense of the word good. Her education was that of the fifth standard of the country school' —most of

it cheerfully forgotten; but for all that she had a quick perception and strong common-sense brain of the world’s workers. Of course she had a "boy.” He was another common country type; rough, hearty, blunt, sincere, with his whole soul looking fearlessly through his clear grey eyes; a straight, strong man such as any woman might be proud of. Be swore a Tittle, drank a little, and was no innocent generally; but children sprang into, his arms, women trusted him and the other "boys” of the district all called him a “it — fine chap.” Norah liked him none the less for his peccadilloes; she would) have despised hint, if he had been a “goody-goody.” She was right, too; for under the mere surface coating due to environment Jim Wilson was of the type of young Englishman that seems to embody and express the very soul of the race. They were very much in love, and the college girl derived considerable halfenvious amusement from their amours. One evening in the sunset calmness she was sitting, near the window, her soul aglow with the western splendour, when the two carte past from the milkingshed). .They were talking in the low, half-cooing murmur of all lovers, and he was telling Norah that she always looked like a queen. He meant it too, for, you see, that poor fellow was in love. But the sight of Norah, fresh from milking, her hair ruffled, her sleeves rolled up over red freckled arms, her dress untidy and torn seemed so utterly opposed t<r his declaration that the college girl just

had to laugh. Norah heard her. of course. A woman is nev< r too engrossed not to notice things like that, and from that day hostilities were opened; hostilities of tin l feminine order, hidden under fair and civil speeidsM. and sugarcoated; but with the poison lying hidden all the same. When visitors came the college girl flaunted her superior accomplishments till Norah sat in miserable eclipse, but Norah “cut the college girl out” at the local dunce.- 1 . This was not a hard thing to do, for the young fellows could not admire, and did not try to understand, so rare and strange a creature as a girl who could not joke and talk trifles with giggling enthusiasm. For her part the college-girl looked down on the country boys from an immense height of superiority, yet, was feminine enough for Norah’s flaunted victories to cut her to the heart. A little of common human clay at the core, you see! Her conversion to humanity and the cessation of hostilities came about' some what dramatically. An agr'n-iiltural show, fourteen miles away had drawn the whole family', except Norah, to its bucolic joys, she had; stayed at home to look after the homestead and to milk the few cows in the evening, and would of course go to the big. dance at night. The college girl, who had no interest, even theoretical, ill dairy <-ows, fat pigs, and farm implements, had refused to go, thereby' nneoiiseiously widening the rift between herself and the family. "H’m,” said Norah to her mother, as she fastened that portly person's dress. "She’s too high and, mighty to go in our ol’ cart. P’raps she'd like a carriage an’ pair or p’raps a motor car to take her. Mighty line notions she’s got, I must say I” ( The family had departed early in the morning, and after dinner Nnrak- decided to drive the sulky to Doe. Ferguson’s store some seven miles in tho opposite dircotion, to get some necessary provisions. With characteristic self-de-pendence she »?anght the horse, a young and flighty animal; harnessed hint to the sulky ami drove oil unaided. . The t’ivo girls had indulged in some sharp passages during the morning,, and s-he disdained to ask the college girl to help her or to come with her, merely in-tinia-ting .ungraciously, passed, the verandah, where the other, was reading, that she would not be gone long. Alboiit • three oVdotk the col Lege girl, who had been lounging on ihe verandah all day reading, ami thinking she was enjoying Browning, derided to go for a

•walk. In spite of herself this glorious spring day, palpitant with the throb of youth and life attracted her more than the subtle abstractions of the incomprehensible poet. The two farms adjoined, and as she closed the great gate that, led to the road she saw Jim Wilson, Norah’s “■boy," mending a feme in the next paddock. Ife had staied at home, poor fellow, simply 'because Norah could not go, and •because he honestly thought that he Could not enjoy the day ■without her. lie had' probably been working his way towards the boundary fence all day, his mind tilled with rose-lighted •visions of tea at the house, a glorious night at the dance, and of long delicious, life-filled moments ■under the all-knowing stars before they said good-bye As she turned into the road she saw the sulky loom into view over the top of the fur hill. It seemed to be ‘travelling umisually fast, but in a moment the crest of the nearer hill hid it from View. lAlmost instantly it swept into yiew again, and came dashing down 'the nearer hill at breakneck speed. Suddenly, with a cold horror, she realized that the horse 'had bolted. The sulky was swaying perilously from side to side, and Norah was li'aning backwards stratiiung <>n the reins with all her might. The platter of wild hoofs •filled the air with terror. Then she thought of the •rill beyond the farm, with its sharp trend, end the steep gullies on either hide, and her soul wilftd with a sick fear. The sulky was almost upon her now, vet she felt powerless to move. Suddenly a thunderbolt in Wue Funnelled itself over the fence, straight it the frantic horse’s head. Then a dim fnis't, out of which loomed hazily the struggling man and the plunging horse, seemed to blot out all things. When it iwas cleared away there on the road, almost in front of her, lay Jim, his white face upturned, Ins hands clinched, a tfiny stream of crimson flowing across his forehead and dripping silently into the yellow dust of the road. i The. horse, foam-covered, and still norYons and wild-eyed, was gingerly grazing at the roadside. Flung in wild abandon over Jim’s body was Norah. As the college girl approached she looked tip, her face wild, her eyes staring, blank with misery.

‘lie’s dead! He’s dead!” she wailed piteoudy. “Jim! Jim! Speak to me Jim!” She shook him by the shoulders, then pressed back his hair from his bleeding brow with cold, fingers. “He's dead! He’s dead!’’ she

wailed again, and then her hands closed above he.r head, her poor fingers turning and twisting with the agony of it, she flung herself again on his.prostrate liody, sobbing out her soul with an awful grief. To the college girl it was a heavensent revelation. Here on 'the grounds of an artificial culture, an accident of intellect, she had been setting herself on an eminence high above her fellows, thinking of these two uncultured children of nature as creatures of a lower sphere. And there before her eyes was love ineffable, sacrifice noble, sacred as any her books told of; grief deep and soul-raking as the never dying , wail from the world’s groat heart of woe. In that moment she found lium'.uiity and became herself a lover of 'her kind.

These thoughts came a»J went like a flash of light. At such moments we dwelt awhile, flee and unfettered iby ■lime, 5n the wide spaces of eternity. Then a great tenderness seemed to swell up in her soul, to overflow and inundate the parched desert of her .being. This great miracle, changing and directing her whole life, took place while She was approaching the two on the road. Tenderly she bent over Norah, and tenderly she tried to raise her. “Norah, dear Norah,” she said — and she had never dreamt her voice could be so full of loving kindness—“ Norah, dear, he may not be dead. Won't you let me see?” Norah heard the kindness in her voice, felt die tenderness in her touch, and slowly she rose to her knees, and with strong anguished eyes, watched the other as her trembling fingers felt for his heart. It was beating, oh so faintly, but still beating. “He’s not dead, he’s not dead, Norah!” she cried joyfully. A great wave of gladness surged into Norah’s face and then she covered it with her hands, and fell quietly weeping. Tlie other had some knowledge of first aid, and she was feeling over his body for broken bones. There seemed to be no hurt about him except that deep gash on his head, from which the red blood cored sluggishly. “Norah,” she said gently, like one speaking to a little •child. “There are no bones broken. Do you think we could get him into the sulky?’’ •Somehow, they managed it. Norah got <up with him, and pillowed his head • on her lap, while the other led the horse through the gate, and down the long cart track to the house. There they managed to lift him out and carry him to the sofa in the. front room. In

the dun green light percolating the drawn blinds, his face looked so white and stark that Norah, with a little ■whimpering cry, fell on her knees at ■his side and buried her face in his breast. For half an hour the college girl bathed his bleeding forehead and tried all the simple restoratives she knew, but still his eyes remained closed and a dreadful pallor dwelt on his face. His breathing too, was getting laboured. Suddenly, with a shock of fear, she rose, and gazed at the two. dearly some one must go for Doc’ Ferguson—-the amatuer doctor of the district, and that one herself. She could not ride, she was mortally afraid of <a horse, but still she must go. Norah was so shaken that she was shivering, now, as if with mortal cold. But very little more, and she too, would be insensible.

“Norah,” cried the college girl, sharply. “We must unharness the horse. We forgot that, you know.” Norah rose mechanically, and, together "they went outside and took the horse, which was still in a lather of sweat, and quite unfit for another journey, out of the sulky. “Now Norah," she said, premptorily, “you go inside and watch by Jim. I am going to Doc’ Ferguson's, and mind, I trust you to look after him till I come, back.” She obeyed like one in a t rance. Norah's horse was in a small paddock near the house, and a man’s old saddle and a hridle mended with flax, hung in the cart shed. With her whole Ibe-ing racked with fear, yet with steadfast resolution 'Upholding her, and beating down the cowardice, she •caught the horse, saddled him ,and mounted. She had fixed a great epur to her dainty heel, and after she had jig-jogged painfully along the cart track, and out on to the road, she gripped the saddle with iboth hands, and drove the spur in savagely. (She never could remember much of that ride. Alortal terror gripped tier heart, she was momentarily in danger of being flung headlong, yet when the horse slackened a little she drove in the spur again relentlessly. Fear for her ■own safety, anxiety for those at home, strove tumultuously within her, yet above it all sang a joyous note of triumph. For she knew that at last she had found humanity, and that henceforth the spirit of love was hers.

She galloped up to. the store, in a smother of dust, her hair streaming, her spectacles gone, her horse dripping and panting. She delivered the message somehow, and waited till Doc, his itt-

etrinnent-case strapped to his back, ran across the road and in a few minutes came, leaping the low hedge on his great grey horse, and pounded away down the white road ahead of her. She followed as fast as she could, but her horse was tired out, and, try as she would she could get no more than a canter out of •him. fcllie arrived nearly a quarter or an hour after Doc. “Cosne here. I want you!” he called as he heard her stop on the verandah. She saw that he was cutting cleanly into the flesh of Jim’s forehead, and she clutched at t'he doorpost at the sight. He gave a quick glanee at her, then, “I must have this blood sponged away,” he said sharply, “Hurry now!” 'Not the words, .but the Hone, firm, strong, infinitely reassuring, gripped her, and kept her from fainting. Soon under Doe’s quick, calm orders, she was sponging away the blood, while Doc, with what she saw must be extraordinary skill, laid bare the dented bone, and raised it from the compressed brain. Presently - she saw the colour coming back into Jim’s face; but most of all she noticed and marvelled at the change in Doc. His eyes were inspired, his fine face instinct with a great tenderness. A new dignity was on the man. Whaft a doctor he would have madet Only a few' days ago she had seen the same man drunk, and propped up against the 'hotel verandah post, singing foolishly and daring the world in general to fight. She had wondered then that the young fellows, instead of baiting him, were trying one and all to get him home. 'But she had condemned him utterly'. Now! — “And ‘he went about doing good,” she whispered to herself, as she fixed, the last bandage. •When it was finished and Doc’ sat chin in hand, waiting for the return of consciousness, she approached him, trembling at her own temerity, yet resolved to show her contrition. “Mr. ‘Ferguson,” she said. “You are a good man. Will you let me shake your hand?” Ole rose awkwardly, his face flushed. “iNot good, lassie; God knows not that,” he said, simply. And ‘there were tears in the eyes of both as silently they shook hands. Then he led her gently to the door. “She’s in there,” he whispered, pushing her towards the halfopen door of the room across the passage. “Tell her he’ll live,” he whispered, as she ran fionr him. ■Norah was kneeling by the bedside, her face in her hands. The college girl knelt beside her and put her arms tenderly' round the grief-stricken girl. Norah flung her arms round her former opponent, and their lips met in a long kiss of perpetual reconciliation. Norah and Jim were married in the autumn, and the college girl, something warmer than book learning shining through her spectacles, was Norah’s bridesmaid. iShe has many friends now, for she is rapidly becoming famous, but she does not number Jim and Norah Wilson among the least of them.