A LETTER … To Those Ngawha Children Remember that usual morning chorus, right after my Vauxhall was parked? Miss, may I take your hand? Miss, I want this one! Miss, Miss, Miss! Carry your bag, please? Ohhh, Miiiiss! Ah, yes; you made music. At unexpected moments these strains still come to me, maybe from the shiftings of my memory, or maybe they blow in from off the Pacific. Before they are gone I am back among you, my little Maori scholars of Tai Tokerau. I used to think that with my native tendency to indulge children I was a treat for you. You surely were a treat for me. To have city school children in America run to me so in the morning didn't happen. And you were so willing to do your lessons that I became more ambitious myself. I remember the feijoas you brought me, the big gooseberries, the passion fruit, and especially those mushrooms, always with your eyes flashing. We had a good thing going, eh? In many ways you let me see that I was in the right post. For what I did, you gave me life dividends. And after those three good, memorable months in school with you, up in that winterless north, which really was mild that year, remember?—it was time to go. One of my keepsakes is that last sunset over Ngawha Springs. Have you ever watched that sun, slipping away behind its uncertain flush on the scruffy manuka? For some reason I like that. Steam was rising from the natural baths, and the people in them talked back and the forth as they simmered amongst the bubbles. On that special evening, while you were out there somewhere nearby, around your houses, I tested the water in each pool until I found the right one, then I eased down into its dark warmth. I don't suppose the talk there would have impressed you, but to me it was new, and in its special turn of the tongue I found it lively and enjoyable. It wove and held the people together, like notes in a song. From another layer of my mind, as energetic as rabbits in the hills my thoughts began jumping around, over both islands. Bingo! I was back in the Makado Cafe in Dunedin, where a tall American negro had caught me off-guard with his gleaming smile. Oh, how that smile made me sharply long for home! I ordered a hamburger. Then, presto, I was forcing myself, by sheer desperate grit, to go on with the tramp over the merciless Milford Track. Say, those countless rocky stream-beds, those innumerable ups, and those mocking, smacking, deep-sucking slushes, well! And yet, it was during that sacrificial Christmas walk that I fell in love with your country: through its relentless demands and inflictions of pain, the awes and joys its beauties inspired, its unforgettably arch-cracking, blister-breaking, inescapable rocks, its fern frond wavings and pulsating bird calls, all going on at once and mixed up together almost forever—New Zealand confidently emerged, the conqueror. I was well won. Back on O.M.S., my heart was light at the sight and sounds of teams of kids sprucing up their classrooms. And I was savouring my some-hundredth cup of sweet hot tea in very good company. Actually, on that night while I was soaking and half-listening and relishing tender new memories, I was packing those memories—and impressions and images and the like—to take away. I had the thrill of the haka, put in a good place where it would always be handy. Near it was the excitement of seeing and hearing the elders' oratory on the marae, and I would also take the good feeling I got from the reception of your people at huis and in their homes. I knew I would want these treasures, and others like them, for a long time, so I settled them in my mind and heart