Old Drumble (13 page)

L
ITTLE BY LITTLE
, the continent of long grass shrunk to an island and, as it grew smaller, it took longer to cut, because Jack had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing.

He’d begun by pushing the mower fast, but that was too hard, and it didn’t cut well. So he tried pushing it slow, but that didn’t cut well either. Specially not the rye grass, which just bent over whether he was pushing the mower fast or slow.

Jack looked at the kitchen window and whispered, “Bloody old rye grass!” Slower and slower he pushed. Slower still. And still slower.

If it was too far for Dad to pick him up on the bike, from out Griffiths’ corner, maybe he could get a lift back to Waharoa with one of the carriers, he thought to himself.

After picking up the cream in the morning, the carriers spent the rest of the day carting bags of manure,
rolls of barbed wire, and timber between the railway station and the farms. Andy would get one of them to give him a lift home.

As Jack thought of that, the mower blades slowed till they stopped. He leaned against the handle as if still pushing, but his feet stopped moving, and he looked at the remaining long grass. There seemed to be more of it than ever. It wasn’t fair.

“Looking at it won’t cut so much as a single blade of grass!” He leapt in the air. “You can just mow all that side again!” said his mother’s voice. “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Put some elbow grease into it!”

“Mum?” Jack begged.

“What do you want now?”

“Mum, when you were a little girl, did your mother make you mow the lawns?”

“When I was a little girl, we didn’t have a mower, so I had to learn to use a scythe. Children had it hard in those days. Don’t think you can go asking me questions and use that as an excuse to stop mowing. Get on with it, or the grass is going to need cutting again before you’ve finished.”

Whirr! Whirr! Whirr! Jack had already found that pushing the mower fast meant it didn’t cut the rye grass. You had to push it just right, not too fast, not too slow and, even then, you were lucky if it cut properly. Jack’s gloom deepened.

Harry Jitters sneaked back along Ward Street, grinning nervously, and hid in the bamboo patch. He was wondering if he dared tear past Jack’s place, barking as he ran. If he really went for it, he should be around the corner and out of sight before Jack’s mum came after him.

Harry felt the scratches on the backs of his ears and thought of how she’d nearly caught him yelling and trying to get his head out of the fence. Mrs Jackman could move! It might be safer just to give a bark from behind the bamboos.

Harry put up his head, barked once, thought he heard Mrs Jackman coming, and skedaddled whimpering, but at Whites’ corner, he saw Minnie Mitchell watching him from outside her gate. He looked over his shoulder, pulled up, turned himself into a huntaway, and gave a fair volley, “Wow! Wow! Wow!” towards the bottom end of Ward Street.

Even if it was too far for Mrs Jackman to hear, it sounded pretty good; besides, when Minnie saw the blood on the backs of his ears, she’d know how brave he was.

At the other end of Ward Street, Jack emptied the catcher for the last time, and sniffed the smells of fresh-cut grass and compost.

“What’s that boy dreaming about now?” his mother said to herself and opened the window. “Put the mower
away,” she called. “Hang up the catcher, and see you close the shed door. Then you can run along the street and play with Harry for a while, but see that you keep an eye out for your father, and come home with him.”

Jack pulled his lips back off his teeth and growled as he ran down Ward Street to get his own back on Harry Jitters. He wasn’t going to be an eye dog this time, nor a huntaway: he was going to be a pig dog, a holder, with a bit of bully in him.

Holders with a bit of bully in them hang on and don’t let go. They can’t even bark much because their nose is jammed hard up against the pig, where they’re hanging on to its cheek or ear. But they growl, deep in their chest. “Grrr!” Jack said.

Teeth fastened in the gristle of its cheek, nose hard up against its jaw, laying his own body back along the boar’s side, so it couldn’t hook him with its tusks, Jack growled again, “Grrrr! Grrrr!” so that Mrs Dainty walking home from the shops with her basket said, “I hope you’re not making that noise at me, Jack Jackman!”

“Hello, Mrs Dainty,” said the holder, turning himself into a boy.

“I said, I hope you’re not making that noise at me.”

“No, Mrs Dainty. I’m growling at Harry Jitters, because he barked at me.”

“You mustn’t make up fibs, or I’ll tell your mother. Harry Jitters isn’t even here. I saw him running home, as
I came round the corner from the butcher’s.”

Jack stared back and was silent. It was never any use trying to explain to Mrs Dainty.

“That’s how it always starts, with a little fib. Then whoppers. And the next thing is, you’re telling lies. And we all know where that leads. The gallows!”

Mrs Dainty pursed her mouth. She’d been a bit down to it, that morning, not sure whether to go and collect her mail and do her bit of shopping, because she was afraid of being chased by a bull every time she put her nose outside her gate. It wasn’t right: all these mobs of wild animals being driven along the street. But now, suddenly, she felt much better. She swung her basket and walked on briskly.

Jack growled under his breath, and made a quick Unga-Yunga face after her. He would have stuck out his tongue and tried his puku dance, but everyone knew Mrs Dainty always spun around, to try and catch you being rude behind her back.

Mrs Dainty did spin around, but Jack was already trotting down Ward Street towards Harry and Minnie, who stood outside their gates, watching him coming. Harry moved over and stood closer to Minnie.

“Your mother took the skin off the back of poor Harry’s ears,” Minnie told Jack.

“She did not! He stuck his head through the fence, barking at me, and he couldn’t pull it out fast enough
when Mum charged outside and nearly caught him, and then he got his ears tangled up in the wires. Serves him right for having such big lugs!”

But Minnie Mitchell was not beaten easily. “Where were you going this morning?” she asked. “With that dirty old man, and that dirty old dog trotting in front, and all those dirty old sheep?”

“Andy,” said Jack, “is the best drover, and Old Drumble’s the best leading dog in the southern hemisphere. We took the mob down through Waitoa and Ngatea, and had a bit of trouble getting them across the Piako River at the Pipiroa ferry.”

Minnie was too smart to be caught, but Harry fell for it. “Where’s the Pipiroa ferry?” he asked, touching the backs of his ears delicately and examining his fingertips for blood.

“The creek behind the factory,” said Jack, “it runs down the back of Dickey’s place and the pig farm, behind the pa, under the road to Walton, and turns itself into the Waitoa River, and then it becomes the Piako and runs into the Firth of Thames and the Hauraki Gulf, and then it goes up the Pacific, over the equator and the North Pole and down the Atlantic, down over the equator and the South Atlantic and the South Pole and comes up and turns left and comes up the back of Waharoa again.” Jack took a breath. “Andy and Old Drumble, they’ve driven sheep that way lots of times. It’s the same way
the Maoris came to New Zealand from Hawaiki in their Great Fleet.”

“Aw…” Harry said, uncertainly.

“You think you’re smart, don’t you, Jack Jackman!” said Minnie Mitchell. She wasn’t sure about the equator and the North and South Poles, but Mr Strap had told them about the Maoris coming to New Zealand from Hawaiki in a fleet of canoes, and there’d been something about it in the
School Journal
. She picked at the left shoulder of her dress with her right hand, so the puffed sleeve stood out as it was supposed to. “Anyway, how did they get the sheep over all that sea?”

“Easy,” Jack said. “Old Drumble can do anything.”

J
ACK LOOKED SCORNFULLY
at Minnie Mitchell and Harry Jitters. “How did Old Drumble get the sheep across the sea?” he repeated.

“He made the sheep hold each other’s tails in their mouths, and blindfolded them, and led them along a tightrope. And Andy followed them with Old Nell and Young Nugget and Nosy holding each other’s tails in their mouths. All the way up the Pacific, over the North Pole, down the Atlantic, over the South Pole, and back up to Waharoa.” Jack took another breath.

“You’re silly, Jack Jackman.” Minnie plucked at her puffed right sleeve with her left hand and smiled at one shoulder, then the other. “Don’t take any notice of his stories.”

“Did Old Drumble wear a blindfold?” Harry asked. “Course not! He was out in front, leading, so he held Andy’s stick in his mouth and balanced like Blondin
walking across Niagara Falls. Old Drumble’s got a good eye and perfect balance.”

“Is that true?”

“Course it’s true!”

“It is not true!” Minnie lifted the hair behind her ears with both hands, tucked it back in place, and patted it. “He’s just making it up. Anyway, where’d they tie the ends of the rope?” She shifted her red belt, so the buckle was in the exact middle of her waist.

“Old Drumble tied the rope between the North Pole and the South Pole. And when they came to the equator, he led them along it.”

“The equator isn’t a rope!”

“It is so. You look at the big map at school, and you can see it. Remember, Mr Strap said it’s a long line right around the world.”

“All the same,” said Minnie, “the Maoris came the other way, not round the middle of the world,” but Harry didn’t understand what she meant. Her voice brightened, and she plucked to show off her puffed sleeves again. “Hello, Mr Jackman!” she said.

“Hello, Minnie! Hello, Harry! Jump on, and I’ll give you a lift home.”

Jack scrambled up on the bar, leaned out around his father’s arm, and yelled back, “And next time I’m going to help them drive all the way out the Wardville road, as far as Griffiths’ corner.”

“Don’t go getting your hopes too high,” said his father, “but I might just have a lift jacked up for you. The county council’s going to be carting shingle from out the Gordon, and they’ll be running backwards and forwards for the next couple of weeks; so Bob Murdoch told me. With a bit of luck, we should be able to get you a lift back into Waharoa with him, next time Andy comes through.”

“Corker!”

“It’s not for sure yet; we’ll have to see how it works out, and if your mother approves, of course. Now, what’ve you been up to this morning?”

“I had to mow the back lawn.”

“Good! That saves me from doing it. What happened?”

“I told Mum about Old Drumble burning his throat on hot pumpkin, and going on a pub crawl.”

“What else did you tell her?”

“I said ‘Jeez!’ and Mum said I was taking the name of the Lord in vain, and she said she wasn’t having the pair of us reeling home drunk, smoking tobacco, and swearing. And something else. Bla—something.”

“Blaspheming?”

“That’s it.”

“Sounds like the sawdust heap again…” The bike paused at the corner of Whites’ Road. “I told you to keep it to yourself, all that business about hot pumpkin, and Old Drumble going on a pub crawl.”

“I couldn’t help it. Mum just looks at me, and I have to tell her everything. It’s her strong eye. She said it’s a wonder you haven’t taught me how to spit and put bets on with the bookie.”

“I suppose I’ll have to take my punishment.” Mr Jack-man pedalled on towards home, but Jack had heard him say that before, so he just grinned to himself.

“Remember,” his father said, “how you got yourself into trouble, telling your mother about her strong eye?”

“Dad, Mum can tell what I’m thinking through a closed door. And when she stares at me, it’s just like the time Old Drumble eyed me. She’s got strong ears, too.”

“I know.” His father sounded sympathetic. “Even when I hammered my thumb, the other day, I didn’t swear, in case she heard. Try to remember not to mention her ears.”

“I didn’t say anything about them today. Are you really going to take me over to the billiard saloon and teach me how to put bets on with the bookie, Dad?”

“Do you want to get me hung! You go talking like that, your mother’ll sool Mrs Dainty on to me.”

“But Mum said you were going to teach me how to gamble.”

“I don’t think that’s what she meant.”

“And I got into trouble with Mrs Dainty. She thought I was going ‘Grrr!’ at her, but I told her I was just being a holding dog.”

“And did she believe you?”

“She never believes anybody. That’s why I pulled a face.”

“Did she catch you?”

“No, but she said I’d started off fibbing and I’d finish up on the gallows. What are the gallows, Dad?”

“The interfering old biddy! Keep out of her way’s the best thing.”

“The trouble is she sneaks up and listens to what I’m thinking. She must have strong ears, too.”

“Now,” said Mr Jackman, bumping the gate open with the front wheel, “when we get inside, nothing about your mother’s eye and ears. And keep off Mrs Dainty’s too. What do you reckon Mum’s got for our tea?”

“I hope it’s mince. I love mince! Sausages best of all, then mince with mashed potatoes. So I can make rivers through the spuds.”

“I used to like doing that, too, till your mother stopped me.”