THE LUMBER ROOM By "PAUL PRY."

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 31, 30 October 1937, Page 4

THE LUMBER ROOM By "PAUL PRY."

Mary

Scott.

W. J.

Long.

— Langdon

Smith.

Richard

[ Aldington.

— R.A.

[a]

Kina.

Our Spring Song, The sun continued to shine, warm soft rains #oke the paddocks to green life, and all the bush trees were veiled Avith bridal white. More xnarvellous still, the clay roads hegan to dry up and I meaitated writing to my banker for a small overdraft in order that Jezebel, our old and evil car, might be registered once more. Then one evening I came home after a mellow day spent within sight and sound of tiny frisking, lambs, clumsy new-born calves, and the myriad call of the bush birds. As I approached the shed, th» most vernal of all sounds greeted me. Barbara was cranking Jezebel. .... s All the winter she had sat forlorn and neglected, and we had contented ourselves with saying pericdicaily, "1 inust go and turn that engine over," or, "If we don't give her a run in the paddock, the battery will be flat." But in our hearts we know that it would bo useless. Jezebel has an unfa'iling weather sense. No clematis or pipiwhahroa would deceive her. Yet now as I came near I heard Barbara' s heavjr breathing and muttered imprecations. Suddenly Jezebel took up. There was a moment of thrill, a second of suspense, and she died away once more. But no. Barbara had jerked on the benzine and she was racing madly. And then I knew that Spring had indeed come. — "Barbara and the N.Z. Backblocks."

By

The Soream of an Eagle. The scream of an eagle . , a rara eound in the wilderness . . brought me hurrying out to know what had , caused "Cheplahgan" to brfeak silence. He was poised over his mountain top at an enormous altitude, wheeling in small erratic circles . Clearly something was wrong . . Soon the erratic circles narrowed to a centre, about which the great eagle turned as on a pivot; the wild cry was hushed, and he spread his wings wide and stiff as an eagle does when resting on the air. For several minutes I "could see no motion; he seemed just a tiny dark line drawn across the infinite blue background. Then the line grew longdev that his head drooped forwaW er . . Lower and lower, he came. Lower and nearer, till I saw with wouder that his head drooped forward as if it were heavy. Straight over me he sailed so near that .1 heard the faint crackle oi his pinions, like the rustle of heavy silk. He vanished sil- ■ ently into the drooping arms of the dark woods beyond. . . ; Just within the fringe of the'forest I found him, resting peacefully for the first time on mother eartli, his head lying, across .the moss cushioned root of an old cedar, his wings outstretched among the cool, green ferne . . . dead. — "The School of the Woods"

by

When You Were a Tadpole. When you were a tadpole and I wa» % a fisb, In the Paleozoic time, And side by side on the ebbing tide We sprawled through the ooze and. slime, Or skittered with many a caudal flip, Thiough the depths of the C?ambrian fen, Mv heart was rife with the joy of life, » For I loved you even then, Mindless we lived and mindles^ we loved, And mindless at last we died; Ail dec-p i na rift of the Carodoc drift Y/d shanbered side by side, The world turned on to the lathe of thne, And hot lands heaved amain, Till we caught our breafh from tbf " womb. of death, And crept into light again.

Introductlon to a Jazz Novef. y I believe in men, I believe in a cejw tain fundamental integrity and comradeship betrayed, there is no need to tell. I disbelieve in bunk and despotism, even in a dictatorship of the intelligentsia. Some of tlie young, they who will "do the noble things that we forget," think differently. According to them bunk must be parried by superbunk. Sincerity is superannuated. It doesu't matter what you have to say; what matter s is whether you can put it across successfully." — Dedication of "Death of a Hero." —

Mechanica! Robots. It would be more practical to fight niodern wars with mechanical robots than with men But then men are cheaper, although in a long war the mitial outlay oji tlie robots might be compensated by the fact that the quality of the men deteriorates, while they cosl moro iu upkeep. i1 rom tho point of view of efficiency m war, tho trouble is that men have feelings . . to attain' the perfcct soldier, we must eliminate feelings.

They. Of all the nuisances of human life, there is none more tiresome than that race of niysterious beings whom everybody knows, most people have suffered from, and nobody has ever seen. 1 mean "They." Who are "They"? Nobody has yet been able to tell. And yet, of all the wicked gossips. "They" are most undounted by Unfruth. Moreover. "They" are always talking. "They" keep nothing to themselves . . ever .... It is always a sure sign that people "don't know what they are talking about when they begin telling us what "They" say.