FROM HAWERA TO STRATFORD.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 53, 4 March 1913, Page 2

FROM HAWERA TO STRATFORD.

(A Traveller’s Talc.) It was a summer’s morning, but chilly for all that, perhaps just because 1 had to get up early; however, my watch soon put things to rights, in the temperature lino at any rate, by informing me that if I intended to catch my train I was bound to run for it. 1 found out, of course, after I had arrived at the station, that my watch was deliberately lying, and 1 told it so, but its unexpressive countenance was still unexpressive, and so too when I rebuked it as the cause of my stomach’s inequalities consequent on my exertions so soon after breakfast. I gave up complaining to it after thus recognising the futility of reproving brazen-faced untruthfuls, and politely asked a passenger next to me if he would mind my opening the window. “Not at all, pard,” he returned ; “not at all. Why, blimie, push yer foot through it”—pause, and then most sublimely—“if it suits yexconvenience.” 1 coughed, deferentially, that I thought the weather was rather cold, and—and —and—well, he was a brickmaker —I’m sure he was. Me hati a brick in one pocket, a trowel in another, his mole-skin pants were daubed with cement and a short, blackened clay pipe protruded defiantly out from a stubbly face. However, his physiognomy was hard and so were his hands—and —and, well, 1 don’t think I got past the fifth “and,” and I didn’t open the window. On the seat opposite was a smooth-faced, uuch-bored-looking young man, wearing red and blue hose with white stripes down them (the stiipes looked like tape sewn lengthwise, but I suppose they couldn’t be tape). His hair was parted down the middle, of course, and of course he had a large, in fact, a very largo tiepin largely, in fact very largely, displayed from out of his tie—gleams of gold glinting forth from sombreness. Ex —quisitely tasteful. The forehead of this blase youth of a wcaried-out world was prominent and long, and so was his coat. I was respectfully regarding his tan boots when he produced from his larynx: “Goter lucifer, gent? wanter smoke,” in so loud a tone that I immediately complied with a whole boxful. I might say here before I go on, that during the rest of the journey X was without a smoko myself, for I was without matches! A long hay stack then came into view—a “foine” stack, I heard my neighbour’s neighbour remark to his neighbour’s neighbour. “Aye, aye, that it be,” returned this neighbour, and the carriage relapsed into its painful silence. A clean-skinned, soft-moustachioed, rather superior looking individual (whom I found out afterwards was a plasterer; in fact, I guessed so from the beginning Suddenly broke the stillness. “Ho! Hay! a..,fpw? I a foire!” he shouted, and repeating “a foire! a foire!” rushed across the carriage, flung himself against the' opposite window, and everybody else in the carnage did likewise . “Pugh! smoke of the engine!” ho said, and flung himself back to his seat. Everybody else in the carriage doing likewise; except an old farmer with bandy legs and bowyangs. He fought his way back over the prostrate body of an obstructing guesser-looking chap, lank of length. Crestfallen looks came over all when the seats were at last regained, and once more complete silence hung in the air. Then “I reckon ’eo ’ad mor’n one las’ night,” guffawed the brickmaker to no one in particular, but all looked at me, and guffawed for quite ten minutes. In fact one fellow got quite red in the face with his guffawing, and had to stop it. Then everybody glared at me. The plasterer was a huge man, I might say, and there was no one else in the carriage so diminutive as myself. In the meantime, I was blushing most violently at their protracted viewing of me, and when that poor fellow, nearly choked himself and the rest of the company fell a glaring at me, I felt all over as if I were a goal warder, a Scotch thistle head turned inside out, and a piccalilli not in a pickle, but still was myself. At last matters subsided in the mirth-and-anger line, and a lot of steaming and puffing on the part of the engine managed to bring us to the top of a little mound—l was travelling second-class, by-the-way, and on what is termed a “goods” train—and then the lot of the same steaming and puffing' was shut off and, lo! we found ourselves at a station platform! Here all my companions left me except a paperreading person, who was occupying the far corner on my side of the carriage. I don’t know what sort of a man he was, for I never saw anything of him but his paper. I meant to have a look at him in the Are rush, but wasn’t successful on account of his being so very engrossed in the reading, despite he was also rushing to look at the lire; and I didnt like to disturb him. But I secured the paper when he got off at the next station and found it to bo an old copy of “A Mother’s News to Mothers”, and only half of it at that. I can only explain his reading it because he was a British traveller, travelling in a British railway carriage. 'Some two dozbn boys, with satchel on shoulder, making for school, got on at the nextstation and brought with them their usual merry faces and their quips and pranks. At times they were rather rough and unruly towards one another, and put the carriage now and again in a flue disturbance. I know there are some sapless souls who self-ab-stracted from the gaiety that belong only to youth, would allow their minds, shrunken like the kernel of a withered walnut, to dub their boyishness “horseplay! disgraceful! ought to lie stopped by the department” (whatever that may be, for we only'know I

earthly things by what they do) and etcaetera, ctcaetera, ‘Tis well indeed these carping crones do not govern the world, for they, ghoulish harpies that they are, would fasten their clammy talons on the tender minds of youth and tear merriment from - out the universe. To me, the solitary onlooker of their healthy,,£mi,, they missed no commotion. Ay! Ay! they raised no commotion, but they broken down the barriers of my emotion, and for uhe rest of my ride, heedless of blooming youth or withered age, I journeyed in the past. I watched my younger days come and go like the shadow of a phantom. Merry one moment; and sad the next, the gentleness of some fond recollection would immediately give place to glpom as some heavy sorrow renewed itself, and ever and anon some dear face would look at me down, through tne perspective of years that are, forever departed, or some kind trusty face would smile up at mb in the present. And thus my journey sped along, my thoughts keeping time with the rhymthic clank-beat-clank of the flange on the rail. A hoarse hoot from .the engine aroused me from my reverie and we rattled into Stratford station back into a work-a-day world. That evening, after a busy day of it, I tumbled off to sleep in an hotel sitting-room, where a notice displayed that “Card playing was prohibited.'”