Booreedly Jack Bushman

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 December 1904, Page 177

Booreedly Jack Bushman

By BRENACH

OOEEEDY JACK was a specimen of the old-time bushman, a type now long vanished from the scene. Twenty-five years of Colonial life— during which he had passed through every phase of experience that the Bush affords—kauricutting, timber-jacking, pit-sawing, rafting and mill-work, etc.— together with fights and sprees innumerable— had left him at the age of sixty still hale and hearty, though rather stiff in the joints for regular work among the kauri. The only colonial industry he had never tried was gumdigging. That, by the real oldtimers was only considered fit for " Mories/' new-chum 'brokers, or such incapable softies as had neither the pluck nor the savvy to tackle the genuine work of the Bush.

It was a fine summer's day, a good many years ago, that he passed through our settlement on a tramp between two distant timberbushes. He had walked about thirty miles, and it would take forty or fifty more before he reached his destination ; so he gladly accepted the invitation of one of our party to stop for the night. The

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settlement had been only recently formed, and we were all bursting with new-chum energy as we took our first steps in colonial life. With the exception of one or two who had " been out before/ and who were able to give us a lead, most of us had learned the science of woodcraft from the pages of " Masterman Ready," or some similarly fascinating work which has lured the adventurous Briton to seek a home beyond the seas. Tt all looked delightfully simple — in the book — but when we came to tackle the thatching of a house, or the splitting of a refractory log, we found that " Masterman Ready " and Co. did not apply ; and though we plunged hopefully on we did not make very satisfactory progress. The advent of the experienced stranger seemed to offer a solution of the difficulty, and from the start everything went on greased wheels. He kneAv everything, and there was nothing either outside or inside the shanty that he could not turn his hand to. Whether it was the splitting of posts and rails, the rigging up of a Spanish windlass, the baking of a loaf, or the salting of a pig, old Jack was all there. But it was in the handling of puriri tim-

ber that he especially shone, and indeed by winch he acquired the sobriquet of " Booreedy " (settlers' name for puriri), which stuck to him for many a year. It was a picture to see him opening a tough four-foot log. The wedges that our leading amateurs had tried in vain to enter — only to see them bound away into the scrub— seemed to draw like so many spike-nails. He never hurried the operation. "We'll

sit down and have a smoke/ lie would say, " and let her do the work herself. Don't you hear her talkin' ?" as a gentle ticking would indicate that the yet of partition had commenced. Then the wedges were " backed up," and a few solid blows from the heavy mauls would complete the operation. He soon 'became a regular institution in the settlement. When he had finished with one homestead he would generally go on to another,

with perhaps a brief interval for a visit to some of his old haunts. I can see him now as he came on the '' Wallaby track." A tall, gaunt figure, slightly stooping from the hips, but still square in the shoulders — his dress a short-sleeved flannel shirt and a pair of moleskin trousers rather the worse for wear, with an old blue jumper tied by the sleeves round his neck. He moved lightly along with short,

high steps — as a man does who has spent the best part of his life in the bush, and whose safety depends on how he places his feet. He carried his blankets Maori " pikau " fashion done up in a flour-bag, for in those days the blow-fly boomed through the land. His axe lay on his right shoulder, and in his left hand he carried a small black billy with the arm slightly kinked at the elbow, a habit he had got into from many years of carrying the " jack/

He always came with a budget of news, and though he could neither read nor write he was fairly well informed even on matters outside the horizon of the Bush, while his observations on men and things were very shrewd and practical. He had been to every timber station in the province, and could hit off to a nicety the leading features in the character of every contractor or 'boss between Tairua and Mangonui. He worked cheerfully from daylight to dark, whether his employer were

present or not, and was not at all particular as to the nature of the job he was asked to undertake, as for instance, when one of the matrons of the community wanted to visit a distant part of the settlement it was not unusual to borrow the old man for the day to look after the house in her absence. On her return she would find the place all tidied up, a week's supply of lirewood cut and stacked, and the dinner cooked to a turn, while the children would tell what a time they liad had, and describe how Jack

had taught the kitten to jump and set the dolly's broken leg. It is hardly to be supposed that such a paragon should be without some Haw in his composition, and [ grieve to relate that our friend was not free from one that was almost universal among the old-timers. He was all right so long as there was no grog about ; but once he got the taste — or, I believe, even the smell — he became another man. He would purchase half a dozen bottles ofi rum to start with, and go on a regular

burst so long as lie had a copper left. He went through all the stagey : first, hilarious and playful, then gloomy and quarrelsome ; generally ending up in a fight, in which, as might be expected under the circumstances, he usually got the worst of it. As soon as he had " suffered a recovery " — frequently a painful one— he was always ready to admit the particular kind of fool he had been, and was full of good resolutions for the future. But they never came to anything, and at greater or less intervals the old

game went on. The curious part of it was that these dissipations never appeared to affect his health. For the moment he was a wreck, but a few days work always set him right, and in a week or two he was as sound as ever. We often wondered how he had drifted out to the colony. He was not at all the type of the " assisted emigrant." He could never have accumulated sufficient capital to pay for a passage even if he had desired to do so ; and there was nothing in his style or appearance to suggest that he had been sent out " for his country's good/ He used to tell interminable stories about his early home as a boy on a Yorkshire farm, and of his subsequent adventures on a canal-boat, which he said used to sail right up into Regent's Park. The various fragments of his colonial life, if carefully pieced together, would have covered a period reaching back to the coming of Captain Cook, but there was always a hiatus that was never filled up. It was a far cry from the Regent's Canal to the Kauri Bush, and we were naturally anxious to know how he had spent the interval. Of course, we might have asked the question, but, whatever it may be now, in those days it was considered an unpardonable breach of Bush etiquette to ask a man how he had come out. As Jack himself expressed it, " You might as well ask a fellow at once what he had been in for !" We got a clue one day, however, in an unexpected manner. Our friend was returning from one of his periodical escapades in a condition of incomplete recovery, when he chanced to look in at a house where he found the old Major engaged in teaching his nephews the sword exercise with a pair of singlesticks. He stood watching the performance with great interest from the doorway, when at last — during a pause— he said, " Wot's that y'r tryin' to do, Major?" "Why, don't you see, you fool, I'm teach-

ing the boys the cuts and points ?" " Cuts and points !" he snorted, " that'll do for the Line. Gimme the stick, Jimmy/ And with that he straddled his legs wide apart, and grasping an imaginary bridle in his left hand he swept the weapon round his head, as he shouted in a voice we had never heard before—" Circ'lar guard. Hengage !" (n about a minute the Major was up in a corner, and as soon as he got his breath, he said : "Why, Jack, you old sinner, you've been there before, and you always said you couldn't ride !" This little episode, together with the fact that he had a very neatly tattooed figure of a field-piece on the upper part of his left arm, inclined us to think that some time or other he had got tired of the Royal Horse Artillery. Of course, 1 had my turn with the rest. 1 had just burned oft" a large clearing, and was glad to obtain the services of an experienced bushman to help in the " logging up." This is hard work, and one which demands a good deal of skill, as anyone knows who has tried it, and one would suppose that eight hours spent in chopping, and rolling and piling among the flames and smoke would be enough to exhaust a man's energies for the day. It might ha\e been with most men, but not with Booreedy Jack. In addition to his work in the clearinghe did all sorts of odd jobs about the house. He was generally up before daylight, and he had a breakfast cooked by the time most hired labourers would have condescended to turn out. He was a light and dexterous hand with the fryingpan, and his " slap-jacks " were the envy of all the housekeepers in the settlement, while in regard to fried potatoes— well, I have occasionally eaten worse on the Boulevards,, which is saying a good deal. During the lengthening autumnal evenings — after we had done a good day's work on the clearing—wewould sit and smoke our pipes by

the fire, and yarn and speculate on any and every subject that came into our heads. This was the time that the old man was in his glory : and he would interlard the narrative of his youth and colonial experience with theories of the age of the kauri, the formation of the gum and the spontaneous generation of the fern— with all the other unsolved problems that are threshed out every night in a Bush camp— or

which used to be before the bushmen had learned to read, and a weekly mail brought in the latest news of the sins and sorrows of the outer world. He sometimes— though not often — dropped a metaphorical tear over the " might-have-been/ but he was generally hopeful about the future. Like most old-time bushmen, he had a fixed idea that sooner or later he would make a little home

for himself in some sheltered spot far removed from the temptations of the mill-stations — there were no townships to speak of in those clays — all he wanted was to get a start. Once that was done the rest would arrange itself. So far all he had to show for his twenty-five years of hard graft, was the suit of clothes that he stood in, with his axe and billy and a pair of worn blankets. But that did not matter. He could

tide over the first year by splitting posts and rails for the Forty- Acre men while he was making his clearing and his crops were maturing. There was plenty of wild pork in the bush, and that, with a sufficient supply of potatoes and pumpkins, was good enough for any man. He would manage to pick up a few fowls, and with the eggs and the surplus of his onion-bed he would procure what he wanted in the way

of groceries and tofoacco, with an occasional addition to his wardrobe in the shape of a shirt or a pair of trousers. The onion- bed was his main chance. He always came back to that : and many a half-hour 1 have listened to his calculations as we sat together in the " whare." They were as faultlessly perfect as the prospectus of a new joint-stock company. " Tisn't every one as can grow honions," he would say. "Tt looks easy enough, and so does playin" the fiddle : but there's money in it, and it's a sure thing if you manage it properly. You see, a packet of seed only costs sixpence. The labour will cost nothing, as I'll do it myself, and all the manure you want is a few barrow-loads of hashes and a bit of lime that you can make by burning a couple of kitfuls of pipi-shells that you can hump up from the beach. Well, you see, a packet of seed will sow half a square chain" — I thought it must be a very large sixpennyworth, but that did not matter—and then he would estimate how many rows would cover the space, and the number of onions in each row at six inches apart. Taking half a pound as the average weight of a bulb— or a quarter to make sure — that made so many hundredweight, which, at fourpence a pound, or say threepence, would run up into quite an imposing figure. Thus far his calculations were generally pretty uniform : but this was only the preamble. The real question was the investment of the capital thus acquired. Sometimes he inclined to a fowl-farm. " Hens is easy managed," he would say, " and they bring in a quick return : and besides, they eat up all the small spuds and things that you can't find a sale for." And then he would proceed to show how the stopk would increase at a ratio to which geometrical progression was not in it. But his favourite spec was a calf. He would purchase a

lieifer calf for a pound or thirty shillings. In two or three years' time she would 'be a cow and be having calves of her own. Two of these he would train as working bullocks — he never had any doubt as to the sex of the coming progeny — and with this handy team he could undertake a larger cultivation, besides hiring them out to the settlers and taking contracts for hauling posts and rails and so forth. It all went on without a hitch. There never was any question of failure. " Why, so-and-so." and then he would mention some well-known capitalist. " didn't have half the start that 1 would have. and look at him now, smokin* cigars and drinkin' champagne. Why, he could buy up the whole of the River if he liked." But he never got any further, as soon as he got his cheque he would go off to the nearest place where he could get it cashed — generally in the neighbourhood of some bush pub— with the firm intention of limiting his expenses to the purchase of some necessary articles of clothing and investing the balance in the savings bank, but in two or three weeks he would turn up in a more or less battered condition, without even the sixpence for his preliminary outlay on the onion seed. The winter had passed and the logging up had long been completed. The grass-seed, sown on the ashes,. had sprouted, and already a fresh, green tinge was beginning to spread over the clearing. Strange to say, with the exception of one slight lapse, old Jack had kept perfectly sober all those months — a longer spell, he said, than ever he had had since he came to the colony. Still, 1 had an idea that this satisfactory state of things was not going to last. There was evidently something coming. The old man was getting restless, and though he did his work as well as ever, he seemed gradually to lose interest in the place. He got silent and' gloomy. There were no more yarns

of Ids early adventures and Bush experience. And even the visions of the fowl-ranch and the onion- bed faded away. He commenced to turn in early, but he used to light his candle every hour or so and have a smoke. I guessed what was going to happen, but 1 was afraid of precipitating matters 'by making any remark. At length the end came. After a more than usually restless night he told me one morning that he wanted to go for a change, and asked me if I would mind settling up. I knew him well enough to be aware that there would be no use in arguing the point, so 1 gave him his cheque, and he took his axe and blankets and departed, and T never saw him from that day to this. I left the settlement soon afterwards, but as T kept up a correspondence with my friends, 1 was posted up from time to time in the local news. I found that the old man had made up for his prolonged abstinence under my roof by a burst of more than usual magnitude. He had wandered into a sly grogshanty, where he got drinking and playing cards with a lot of Maoris and gum-diggers. The card playing developed into a fight, and being in a minority, and with money to lose, he soon got the worst of it. Three days afterwards he crawled back to the settlement with a broken arm besides several cuts and bruises — all he had to show for his six months' wages. However, he soon recovered and went on as before. {Sometimes he was gardening- for the Major, sometimes taking a small contract of splitting puriri, but usually acting as general utility man for one or other of the settlers. Eventually he disappeared from the district, and many and various were the speculations as to what had become of him. But as time passed on without 'bringing any news, the opinion was firmly adopted that he must "be dead — probably drowned in a creek or perished in some trackless bush where his bones would be found many years after-

But old Jack was not to make his exit in so prosaic a manner. One of the settlers, on a visit to Auckland for the summer holidays, was passing down Queen Street on Christmas morning, when he was struck by a tall, upright figure marching with a military step be-

hind the band of the Salvation Army, which in spite of the unfamiliar uniform bore a remarkable resemblance to Booreedy Jack. He looked so hale and hearty, and so well set up that the likeness might only have been an accidental one were it not for the peculiar kink in his left elbow that has already been remarked on. That was unmistakeable.

Of course the news quickly went round, and many were the rejoicings over the brand plucked from the burning : and we were glad to hear afterwards that the reformation had not been a transitory one. Whether it was that he had at last

found his true vocation in life, or that his new friends had succeeded in drawing" out his better self, the fact remained that he continued for many years, not only a shining; light, but a really useful member of that wonderful organisation.