MARGARET LEE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 83

MARGARET LEE.

(Written specially for the D.L.F* Page.) By LotA. CHAPTER I. Margaret was just six years old. The first five years of her life- had been spent on a large sheep station away in Central Otago, on which her daddy had been manager. Margaret often thought of those happy days, and ■the long long ridea in front of daddy's saddle, while mamma cantered along by his side. Away round the run they would go in the early summer mornings, aJmost up to the foot of the Lammerlaws and round the Black Bock, which somehow Margaret always imagined looked like a dreadful big bogie-man catting in the middle of the white tussocky valley. And sometimes they would have afternoon tea. in Ah Kin, the Chinese rabbiter's hut. Ah Kin would give them, real Chinese tea. in funny Chinese cups with no handles, and English silver teaspoons, and daddy would laugh his hearty, jolly laugh and say, "Ah Kin, you rascal, where you raise the silver?" But that was a secret Ah Kin never told. He would point to Margaret's thin little figure and say, "Lilly gall too muchee thin, too muchee thin; no good at •11." "No fear, Ah Kin," mamma would answer; "she eat plenty porridge, plenty milk and eggs; she grow great big fat girl like Nell, «our cook." But Ah Kin would shake his head, and cay with his pensive smile, "Too muchee thin, too muchee thin ; lilly gal no good at all." And then, how Margaret loved all the -wee white lambs, and clapped her little hands in delight as she watched them playing and skipping about on the hillsides, just \is if they were playing tig and hide and seek with each other. When daddy and all the shepherds would go out to muster the sheep for shearing she would climb up the steep hill beEmd the homestead and -watch the big mobs of sheep coming trailing down the hillsides, with the dogs barking and the men shouting. Margaret loved the great mountains and the rolling valleys with their glorious beauty and freedom. And then at night what jolly romps she had with daddy in the big\ kitchen! He would go down on his hands and knees, and Margaret would climb on his back. Maramia would be a wild cow daddy was mustering. Or daddy was an elephant and mamma a tiger. Oh, the wild capers of the elephant, ana the squeals and screams of the poor hunted tiger! Nell, the ccok, would laugh until her fat sides ached. When they were too tired to play any more J>ad6?y would get his violin and play all Margaret's favourite tunes, and mamma would sing her favourite songs. Margaret's favourite ■was not ft song, but a hymn, "Now the day is over." When that was sung, she would be oarried to bed on dad's Back, and mamma 'would sit beside her until she fell asleep. In the morning mamma would take her to feed the dear wee turkey chickens in the big plantation and the fluffy, creamy ducklings with their hen-motheT. Dozens of chickens also had to be fed. and last, but not least, the pet lamb. Ah. it was sucli a ibusy, happy life! not one dull hour in all the day. Always some new pleasure, some fresh delight. Suddenly, by one of those strange fatalities at which we stand aghast, wondering why such things should be, all Margaret's happy life on the station was ended: a frightened, maddened horse — a stumble, a sunken rock, — and daddy's hearty, iolly voice and laugh were silenced for ever. The little child and the grief-stricken wife were hurried to the nearest town, where mamma's, only relative. Aunt Jean, lived. From there the mother was taken to a private hospital, where, after a few days, she passed away, to join her dearlyloved husband in the land of "shadowleas skies" Margaret, stricken beyond all capacity to feel or realise her loss, from being a bright, ha-ppy, winsome little maiden became a dejected, desolate little creature who knew not where to turn for sympathy. Aunt Jean was a reserved, taciturn, Scotch woman, little veraed in the ways of children, since she had never had any of her own. She had loved her only brother Willie, Margaret's grandfather, with an unselfish, admiring devotion. She had looked upon his wife as "« puir feckless cratur." His only daughter she considered "a spoilt bairn," and Maigaret she resolved to train up according to her own ideas. Her husband John was a good-natured, quiet, reserved man, who sometimes patted Margaret on the head and called her "a puir wee lassie." Margaret felt crushed and desolate in her new home. Auntie Jean had explained to her that dadSy and mamma had gone away to heaven, and some day Margaret •would go to them. Margaret at first eagerly locked forward to that day. Then, as it came not, she began to wonder vaguely how and why mamma and daddy could go away so far and remain so long without their little girl. And her small, intense face began to wear an expression of subjection and voiceless sorrow. She was tall for her age, and slim, straight, and active, with a clear, dark Complexion and large, luminous brown eyes. Auntie Jean dressed her in blue and white atriped overalls, thick woollen stockings, and coarse leather lace-up boots, and plaited her long dark curls in two plaits, tied together with ugly dark ribbon. Margaret hated the drill overall and the heavy boots; and above all she hated wearing her E-air in two plaits. JBut she bo-re it all without protest, as she &ad born her great sorrow. The one bright gleam of sunshine which brightened her life oarne through her daddy's only Bister, May. May was young, bright, and bonnje, and loved her little niece devotedly. She lived away at toe other end of the town with Mrs Grey, •who owned ft bonnie little baby boy, who wore lovely white dresses and white shoes and Books, and whose pet name was Tui. Auntie May would sometimes take Margaret •qp town on Saturday afternoons, and this ■me quite a fete day to Margaret, whose little heart was brimful oMove for life and frpuntf and all things bright and beautiful. *—z Saturday afternoon Auntie May and Mar-

Caret had gone up town, faking Master Tui with them. May had gone into a large shop on some little business, leaving Margaret and Tuo, who was not a very desirable companion while on a shopping expedition. Margaret amused her Bel f quietly watching the passers-by. Presently a Chinaman strolled leisurely pat; he was clad in a rather shabby fawn overcoat and a shabby grey felt hat, but he looked clean and decent. He paused just a few doors from Margaret, who gazed idly at him. All at once a flood of recollections poured into her memory ; it was Ah Xin — Ah Kin, who was such a friend 0? daddy's! The next moment the astonished pedestrians beheld the unwonted spectacle of a little child flying past them and seizing the Chinaman, who was gazing quietly into a shop window, by the arm. Ah Kin tuine4 and surveyed the small figure, who clung with both little hands to his arm. A light broke over his passive countenance, and -seizing both Margaret's little hands, he broke into a torrent of unintelligible Chinese words. Then in a voice full of tenderness he said, in broken English, "You Ah Jack Lee's little gallee: you lemember Ah Kin? How you get on— all lightee 9 " Oh. Ah Kin!" almost wailed Margaret, so full of sadness was her voice, "tell me where mamma and daddy have gone to? I want them to come beck to me so much." Expressions of amazement, pity, and sorrow cliased each other over Ah Kin's face, and, still holding the little hands, he looked down into the eager, wistful little face of the child, who waited expectantly for his answer. " r ihey gone," he said at last, with a sorrowful shake of his head. "They gone to the happy spirit land: they no come back no more^ — no more. Then a brilliant inspiration seized him. "You come alongee me, little gallee. Ah Kin got something to give little gallee; welly beaiity thing; you come." Disappointed .and wondering, Margaret allowed himi to lead her away down the street, holding tightly to his-slimi brown hend. He was part of her old life — the old happy life she pined for day after day. The passing crowd gazed curiously at the delicate, refined child and the shabbily-dressed Chinaman as they pasted along the street hand in hand. By-and-bye they came to a Chinese lanndry in the main street. In answer to Ah Kin's ring of the bell another Cliinaman appeared ; a few sentences in Chinese passed between them, and the laundry man made hi& exit to an inner room, from which he returned carrying a cage which contained a, beautiful canary, who hopped briskly from perch to perch with a "Tweet' tweet!" of inquiry. "Lilly bird for you, lilly gallee; Ah Kin take you home now, and take birdie too," said Ah Kin When May had finished her shopping she found poor, deserted Tui weeping aloud, and passer6-by trying to comfort him in vain. He refused to be comforted; in his despair he had torn off hie hat, his bib, his shoes and socks, and thrown them on the pavement, along with his pillow and rug, while he Igave vent to his grief by long-drawn-out shrieks, and kicked his little bare heels on the bottom of his go-cart. Had he not been firmly strapped in, I daresay he would have thrc|wn himself after his clothes. May dressed him, seftled him once more comfortably in his go-cart, and looked about for Margaret. Just as she was_ wondering which way she could have gone, sHe saw her coming, still accompanied by Ah Kin greeted him the cage and canary. May met them, and holding out her hand to Ah Kin greeted him warmly. To the passers-by he might be only a Chinaman ; to May he was her dead brother's friend. Had he not, at the risk of his own life, saved that brother, carrying him on his back over several miles of rough country to his own hut, where he had nvyrsed him with all the skill of a doctor and the tendernes of a woman? So May was not ashamed to allow him to walk by heT side. The canary was taken home to Auntie Jean's, who gave it but a cold welcome. The cage was hung at the scullery window, where the canaiy danced and whistled to Margaret's great delight. Then more dark and lonely days loomed up before Margaret, for her deaf atmtie and darling little Tui were going a long journey up to th& far, far North IslaTfd 1 for two long, long months. (To be continued.)