Uncle Trev and the Whistling Bull (7 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Why Old Furry Didn't Have a Hot Water Bottle

“Great weather for Old Furry.” A drip hung off Uncle Trev's nose, and when I told him he wiped it with the back of one hand and rubbed it on his trousers.

“When I do that, Mum says, ‘Haven't you got a hanky?' ”

Uncle Trev blew on his fingers. “She can get a bit funny about things like that. Do you know I couldn't hear the engine for the frost crunching under my tyres? Great weather for Old Furry,” he said again.

“Did you bring Old Tip?”

“I left him home, keeping an eye on Old Furry.”

“Who's Old Furry?”

“You know Old Furry.”

I shook my head.

“I've made him for years.”

“Made him?”

“You might have things a bit round the wrong way,” said Uncle Trev. “What do you think Old Furry is?”

“A new bull?”

“I said Old Furry, not Old Fury. Why would I go buying an old bull? Old Satan's enough trouble already, the old sinner, and there's Young Hubert coming on. You should have seen Old Satan this morning, shivering and wiping his nose on the back of his hand, and stamping up and down under the shelter belt, trying to get warm.”

“What about Old Toot? Did you put a cover on him?”

“He's been wearing it all this week. He's very proud of his cover, Old Toot, specially since I painted his name on it, though he still complained about the cold this morning.”

“Why did you paint his name on his cover?”

“He was scared Old Tip might pinch it.”

“It'd be too big for Old Tip.”

“That's what I said, but Old Toot moaned till I got the Stockholm tar and painted his name both sides. Now he spends most of his time down by the road fence. People going past in buggies wave and call his name, and he nods back, very dignified. Cars give him a toot, and he trots around the paddock with his head and tail up. He's quite vain for a horse.”

“What about Old Satan, why hasn't he got a cover?”

“I made him one out of heavy canvas hemmed around the edges, the way your mother finishes off her oven cloth.”

“Blanket stitch?”

“That's it. Then I embroidered his name in capital letters on one side with red wool. I thought he'd like that, but I'd forgotten Old Satan can't read. I tried to teach him, but he said he couldn't be bothered learning. Well, I suppose it doesn't matter to a bull. Not like a horse, who has to be able to read signposts, or a dog like Old Tip who likes to read the
Woman's Weekly.

“No, that ungrateful Old Satan, he shouldered the rubbing post in the middle of his paddock till the buckle under his neck came undone, then he tossed the cover over his head, ripped it with his horns, and bits of red wool floated everywhere. You know how your mother's forever saying something's like a red rag to a bull?”

“Yes.”

“Old Satan saw red. He pushed over a couple of chains of fence, tore a gap in the hawthorn hedge into the next paddock, and charged head-on into a big strainer post. Knocked himself silly. ‘After all the trouble I went to,' I told him, ‘and look at your cover now. You can stand out in the frost and be cold for all I care,' and I pulled the ruins of the cover off his head. But he didn't take any notice; well, he was unconscious, of course.

“That's why he was stamping up and down this morning, rubbing his hands and bellowing about how cold it was. ‘You had a cover,' I told him, ‘and look what you did to it.' And, would you believe it, he swore black and blue he'd never had a cover. He's not just a bad-tempered old brute: he's a born liar. Well, look who he's named after.”

“Have you thought of giving him a hot water bottle?”

Uncle Trev looked at me. “If the other farmers found I'd given my bull a hot water bottle, I'd be the laughing stock of the district. Besides, he'd just stick a horn through it and then complain because all the hot water ran out. Bulls aren't the most grateful of animals, you know.”

“Old Tip likes a hottie,” I said.

“A dog's different.”

“You told me last winter when I was at school that he pinched yours.”

“That's right, I kept waking with cold feet and thinking I'd kicked my hottie out of bed. Then I woke once, and that Old Tip had his head under the blankets. He shoved my feet out of the way, got his teeth into the hole at the bottom of the hot water bottle, the one you hang it up by, and – flop – dragged it on to the floor. I didn't let on I was awake, but heard him grunt to himself as he curled up and snored away warm while my feet froze.

“I gave him a good telling off, but it made not the slightest difference. In the end, I bought him his own hot water bottle and wrote his name on it. Then Old Toot found out, and nothing would do but I must buy him a hot water bottle and write his name on it, too. They're like a pair of squabbling children. Who ever heard of a horse with a hot water bottle?”

“That's what Mum said.”

“You want to be careful what you tell your mother.”

“If Old Toot's got a hottie, why was he cold this morning?”

“He forgot to fill it last night before he went to bed. ‘Serves you right,' I said. ‘Isn't it enough that I've bought you a hot water bottle? Do you expect me to fill it for you as well?' ”

“Does Old Tip fill his own hottie?”

“Catch him forgetting. And, while he's about it, he fills mine and puts it in my bed. He can be quite thoughtful, for a dog, Old Tip, but he's usually got an ulterior motive.”

“What's an ulterior motive?”

“He only does it because he wants something.”

“What about Old Furry?” I asked.

“What about Old Furry?”

“Does he have a hot water bottle?”

Uncle Trev shook his head.

“What about a cover?”

He shook his head again.

“How does he keep warm?”

“Sits on the stove.”

“Sits on the stove?”

“What rubbish are you filling the child's head with now?”

At Mum's voice, Uncle Trev yelped and jumped to his feet, pulled off his hat which he shouldn't have been wearing inside, and said he had to get home to milk.

“Milking,” Mum laughed when he'd gone. “He dried off the last of his herd weeks ago.”

“He was telling me about the frosts, and how he gave Old Tip and Old Toot a hot water bottle, and Old Satan wanted one too, but Uncle Trev said, ‘Who ever heard of a bull having a hottie?' ”

“Why encourage the man? He only comes up with that rubbish because you listen to it.”

“And there's somebody else on the farm now,” I told Mum, “and he doesn't have a hot water bottle: he sits on the stove to keep warm, so he can't be as big as Old Toot or Old Satan.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Yes, he's called Old Furry.”

Mum stared at me and shook her head. “How on earth I managed to give birth to a child with addled brains, I'll never understand. Old Furry's not an animal.”

“What is he then?”

“It's the silly name your uncle gives to that thick soup he makes with bacon bones and split peas. I'll give him Old Furry next time he comes in.”

Chapter Fourteen

Uncle Trev's Secret Recipe for Old Furry

“Old Furry's just soup,” I said, next time Uncle Trev came in.

“Old Furry's not just soup: it's a way of life.”

“How do you make it?”

“That's best kept secret.”

“You can tell me.”

“Your mother would torture it out of you.”

“Mum says it's ordinary old split pea soup with a few bacon bones.”

Uncle Trev looked cunning. “Then why is she forever begging for the recipe?”

“Why don't you give it to her?”

“And have her hand it around the Women's Institute?” Uncle Trev shook his head. “And she'd probably change its name. I tried calling it Old Fury for a while, but it wasn't happy with that, then I started calling it Old Furry, and it tasted much better. Old Furry's fame has spread as far abroad as Te Poi and Tirau.”

“Heck.”

“A man'd be a fool to give away the recipe. Besides, keeping it a secret annoys your mother.

“It all began when me and Old Gotta came back from the Great War. We were baching in a couple of whares we threw up to live in while we gave each other a hand to clearfell the blocks of bush the government gave returned soldiers for farms. We tried to join the Waharoa Women's Institute so we could learn how to bake a decent date scone, and how to knit ourselves a jersey for winter. But do you think those women would let us join?”

Uncle Trev looked at me, so I shook my head.

“One day, Old Gotta said, ‘Trev?' Now you know you can't rush Old Gotta. It's best to let him repeat himself a couple of times, or he gets shy and shuts up. It's because of living alone.”

“But you live alone.”

“I've got Old Tip and Old Toot to talk to. Besides, in those days, Old Gotta only ran dry stock – to crush the fern – and they never have a lot to say for themselves. You can't hold much of a conversation with a steer, you know.”

I nodded, as if I knew.

“
‘
Trev,' Old Gotta repeats, ‘them women won't let us join their Institute.'

“
‘
That's right, Gotta,' I told him.

“
‘
Don't we need to cook, and knit, and sew, and darn our socks, Trev?'

“
‘
We know all those things,' I said to him. ‘We can throw a stew together, and bake bread in the camp oven. We can knit plain and purl, and sew a patch on our dungarees, enough to get by. I can darn my socks when I can be bothered. You could darn yours, too, if you wanted to; you just find it easier to borrow mine.'

“Old Gotta thought of that a while, then said, ‘Gotta bit of tobacco, Trev?' He filled his pipe. ‘Gotta match, Trev?' He lit his pipe.

“
‘
It's the principle of the thing,' he said, as I took my tobacco and matches out of his pocket. ‘Keeping us out of their meetings just because we're men. It's not fair.'

“I didn't remind him of the time he and Billy Burns and me squatted under the hall windows, listened to the women gabbling inside, and made gobbling noises like turkeys. Nor the time we threw stones on the roof while your mother was speaking.”

“
‘
We give the vote to women in 1893, and that's how they show their thanks,' ” said Old Gotta. ‘What say we set up a Men's Institute? We'll show them.'

“Next thing, he called a meeting of all the jokers in the district and put a notice on the hall door: ‘Men Only. No Women Admitted.' Your mother was furious.”

“Did she throw stones on the roof?”

Uncle Trev shook his head. “Those women gave their husbands such a hard time, not one turned up at our first Men's Institute meeting. There was only Old Gotta and me, and he had to leave early so he could get home and borrow a scythe off me.”

“But you weren't there.”

“That's why I had to leave the meeting early, too, so I'd be home when he rode over and asked, ‘Gotta scythe, Trev?' So that was it. Your mother gave us a hard time. ‘How's your Men's Institute going?' she'd ask, and she'd give that special little laugh.”

“That wasn't very kind of her.”

“It wasn't just your mother. Whenever Old Gotta and I came into Waharoa, those Institute women stuck their hands over their mouths, giggled, and rolled their eyes at each other. In the end, we drove my buggy over to Walton and got our stores there. And would you believe it, the woman in the Walton store, she stuck her hand over her mouth and giggled, too. Those Waharoa women had spread the word around the entire countryside.”

Uncle Trev was silent a while. “You know,” he said, “the worst thing you can do to a woman is to ignore her. That really gets her ropeable.

“Old Gotta and me, we drove my gig to Waitoa early one morning, before first light. We reckoned it was so far away, nobody would know who we were. We loaded the gig with sacks and sacks of sugar, flour, tea, and tins of Cocky's Joy, laid up in a patch of scrub, and drove home in the dark. We'd show them, we said; we wouldn't go near Waharoa again; we'd ignore them.”

“Did Mum and the others feel ignored?”

“We worked away for about six months till the tucker ran out, then we went in to Waharoa and called on your mother, but she just looked over her shoulder and sniffed and went on with whatever she was doing. She'd not even noticed we hadn't been in for all that time, and nor had any of those other thick-skinned women.

“I was a bit knocked back,” said Uncle Trev, “but poor Old Gotta was hit real bad. ‘I'll show them!' he said. ‘I've a good mind not to go into Waharoa for another six months.' ”

“What did he do for stores?”

“Borrowed from me. ‘Gotta bit of flour, Trev? Gotta bit of sugar – tea – tobacco – candles – bully beef – condensed milk?' I had to come into Waharoa or he'd have starved, and I couldn't do that to him.”

“Did anyone notice Mr Henry hadn't been into Waharoa all that time?”

“What do you think?” Uncle Trev shook his head. “Nevertheless,” he said.

“Nevertheless?”

“I fixed those Institute women,” said Uncle Trev. “Specially your mother.”

“What did you do?”

“I put a story around. I didn't let on to Old Gotta what I was up to, because he can't keep a secret. Instead, I told him the story, and he blabbed it to Squeaker Watson down the road, and Squeaker Watson told it to his wife, and she couldn't get to the next Women's Institute meeting fast enough. A couple of days, and those women had spread the story all over Matamata County, and as far abroad as Te Aroha and Cambridge.”

“Gee.”

“The story was that I'd made a soup so good that Aunt Daisy was trying to buy the recipe off me so she could broadcast it on her wireless show. Within the week, every woman in the district was stopping my gig and begging for the recipe. Word reached Aunt Daisy herself, and she said on the wireless that if anyone could give her the recipe for Old Furry soup, she'd broadcast it.”

“Crikey.”

“Requests for the recipe poured in from all around the North Island, even the South Island. The Waharoa post office had to put on an extra man to pick up the mail from the paper train each morning. My mail got that heavy, the Post Master General came and begged me to stop the whole business.

“
‘
I can't do a thing about it,' I said, and gave him a feed of Old Furry before he bicycled back to Wellington.”

“Did he like Old Furry?”

“He no sooner got back to Wellington than his wife wrote and asked for the recipe.

“Ever since then, your mother and every other woman the length and breadth of the Dominion has been trying to get my recipe for Old Furry, and I've kept it a secret. We got our revenge on those women not letting us join the Institute just because we're men.” Uncle Trev took off his hat and listened. There was a click.

“That'll be the gate. Hooray.” He vaulted out my window, and I closed it behind him.

Mum came in, sniffing. “Where on earth has that man gone? I had something I wanted to ask him.”

“Mum, Uncle Trev told me about his secret recipe for Old Furry.”

“Did he tell you what he puts in it?”

“He wouldn't because he said you'd torture it out of me.”

“If there's a God in heaven,” Mum said, “your uncle will be punished for all the lies he's told on this earth.”

“You could have let him join the Institute,” I said. “Him and Mr Henry.”

Mum looked at me so hard, I slid down under my blankets.

“If you're well enough to listen to that man's nonsense,” she said, “then you're well enough to listen to somebody telling you something useful. It's high time you were back at school.”