ICHABOD

Evening Star, Issue 22460, 3 October 1936, Page 2

ICHABOD

THE GOLDEN AGE (Written by M.K.S.. for tlio ‘ Evenin'* Star.’) I had not .seen the place fur many years, and admittedly youth gilds it's memories; still, 1 had not been so young that I could endow it with beauties that were purely imaginary. Ancient photographs, too, remained, and letters that told of those splendid holidays of our youth. They show the house,' old-fashioned even then, standing solid and serene as it had already done for half a century, its architecture long and spreading, with wide verandahs and a blazing garden with cool green paths of smooth-shaven turf. Those were the spacious days of the New Zealand sheep farmer, before boom prices and instability, the acute shortage of labour and practical difficulties of. the war years. All the stations then had their large homesteads, but the accommodation for their employees was also on a commodious scale. Despite the humble and misleading name of Station Whare, the shepherds" quarters were very pleasant places; here the men slept and ate, but much of their leisure was spent at the neighbouring homesteads, for these were the days of informal tennis parties, woolshed dances, and bathing picnics. The old house had a whare almost as charming as itself, its verandahs hung with old-fashioned climbing roses, its kitchen garden the pride of a* very autocratic cook. There were more than a dozen permanent hands living there, and many were the second generation to be employed on the place. The head shepherd, of course had his own cottage; his father had helped to break in the run 40 years before and was now comfortably pensioned and Jiving in a house with a hundred acres Of good flat land attached, a gift from the employers whom he had faithfully served. THE PATRIARCHAL SPIRIT. Although there had been only two generations of owners and the place was still in its infancy compared to those of the Old World, a certain air of tradition had already clustered about its old-fashioned eaves. Perhaps it was because the owner had belonged to a family of landholders in England and had brought some of the atmosphere of that older home to the New World. Their first employees, too, had come with them, so that there was a certain feudal air about the relationship. Devoted service upon the one side induced a sense of responsibility upon the other, and if the owner sent his sons to Cambridge, he also saw to it that his manager’s brilliant boy went through the New Zealand University, and that the delicate wife of the head shepherd had all the medical skill procurable. The welfare of his servants was naturally his immediate concern. Nor had he been handicapped in this pleasant, spacious life by any lack of means, for he had brought capital with him from Homo and had invested it wisely with that infallible flair for good laud that was no mean part .of his inheritance. Luxury was alien to his simple traditions, but comfort he appreciated and understood. To be his guest was to enjoy colonial country life at its. best and most harmonious. Naturally enough, young people collected there by the dozen all summer, playing tennis on the old grass courts, incessantly riding the well-mannered hacks that grazed contentedly in the horse_ paddock, dancing in the evenings in the large polished hall. They were good days, careless and laughterfilled, but they ended with so much ol.se that was pleasant and wholesome in August, 1914. ; MANY CHANGES. A short time ago I passed that way again Although I had heard that the old place had fallen upon evil days, I had not seen its decay for myself. Nor was it easy to locate the site of the old gardens, for the,, a venue of English trees had been cut down and the tennis courts had disappeared. The whole face of the countryside was changed, so that it seemed that the fire that had destroyed the old house had been merciful, and that not only to the new owner who gained substantial insurance and lost a tiresome white elephant. The day of the dairy farmer had dawned, and the station had been cut up into innumerable small farms; all along the road where I had remembered whitefaced Herefords and heavy-bodied Polled Anguses, sleek Jerseys with heavy udders and soft deer’s eyes browsed contentedly. The sun of prosperity had set for ever for the grazier. My old host was dead 15 years before, and not too soon, for the war had robbed him of all that had filled his life with zest. Of the three sons, two of whom had enlisted in England, and the third with our Main Body, only one had returned, a war-shattered wreck. There had been a complete exodus of the station hands; every ablebodied man had enlisted and the owner himself, with the help of a bottle of hair dye and more shameless lies, had actually succeeded in getting as far as Trentham —but no further. Through the war years ho had struggled on, hopelessly, short-handed, while fences decayed, scrub grew, and the place deteriorated hopelessly. Nor did the boom that followed restore his fortunes, for to these he gave small heed. His whole duty, it seemed to him, the burning interest that consoled him for the sons he had lost, was; to look after the widows and orphans of those men who had enlisted from his farm. With only one son and no grandchildren to consider, this seemed to him the first cal! upon his purse. So well did ho answer it that the end of the good years found him little better off. But ho was happy in the knowledge that, in the good old feudal way, those who had looked to him for help, whose wage-earners had served him, wore provided for. DECLINE AND FALL. Loss followed loss during the years of slump. His son had neither health nor interest to give to working the place and a new generation of employees had grown up who knew not Joseph. The old man did not understand . their ways and they were a trifle impatient of his pomposity, his patriarchal airs. He was unhappy and at a loss under the now conditions, and failed to draw from these employees the excellent work that they liad it in them to give. Each year ho slipped a little further into debt until, before the worst slump came, the place was practically in flic bauds of the hank- and he only the nominal owner. Then ho died, still a little hurt and puzzled by changes whoso real significance lie had utterly failed to grasp. .Mis death was a relief to the mortgagees. They had kept him on less for his practical value than for the metal weight of his presence on the place. Now they wore relieved of all scruples, and seizing their chance, they roadod the place at groat expense and cut it up into dairy farms. In this way they were able to preserve their security and allow the only son a small income. Each little farm had its uwu villa rest-

denre .and its own trim milking shed; at first, too, each had its own mortgage, but, because the land was good ancl the farmers intelligent, then prospered and gradually became owners in "full of their trim little farms. Somewhere in town the only son lives on his war pension and his small income; his wife is thankful for the, way things have turned out; for the lot of a war wreck’s wife is not easy at any time, and she dislikes the country. Of his two sons, one has an inherited love of the land and they are looking for a small, improved place near town for him. Ho lias never seen the acres that Ills great grandfather won from the wilderness, in place of the old house stands a modern villa, complete with garage and wirjjess.