THE STORYTELLER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 355, 5 April 1910, Page 6

THE STORYTELLER.

AT SMITH'S. Some women are fools, and some are cats. I did not know this till Ella explained. A chap learns such a lot when lie is—but that would 'be telling tlx'.' • torj the 'wrong' end up. I went over to play tennii with the fellows at Smith's station. I had to borrow Carlisle'* boiled shirt to go in, and Steve's sleeve-links. Steve said he "was going to sit on the verandah, and pelt water-melon, rinds at the goats to 'keep them off the sweet-potatoes on ■Christmas Day, and he should not require sleeve-links, as 'lie only meant to wear a sing'let and moles. Carlisle had not worn a boiled shirt since the bar maid at- Wonga took up with the woolbuyer, so he was out of it anyway, and reckoned he would lie in the hammock and swear at Steve. But I was off to 'Smith's, and they wished me luck. I rode the chestnut, and the girls had ■promised to lend me a racquet. The lagoon was full of -water; the seasons had Ibeen good. The swamp oaks made reflections in the clear pools, and a p i? of palest gold 'was a water-lily afloat. It made a core feel kind of sentimental.

The girls were on the lawn when I got there. The black boy took my horse to :the yard, and my valise to the quarters. Ella Smith had a friend up from Btisfoane for Christmas. A tall girl 'with a fine figure. She made one think of a Sandow girl, only more graceful. Ella i said it herself, and added that she •wanted me to be particularly nice to lier friend. I did not feel that hard, especially as Ella seemed to think it was her duty as hostess to stuff that little snipe of a yellow-gaitered Englishman who was globe-trotting about the place, looking for beetles or white ants or some such truck, with all the nicest cakes. Englishmen always have healthy appetites, and can tell you a lot about tate de fois gras, and liqueurs and absinthe, and all that tommy rot, while colonials stick at corned beef and pumpkin, with damper as a makeweight. "You Australians eat too much meat," I heard him saying in that pretty "Goo" and "really noo" and "goodnaite" voice of his. I knew then that he had not been out long. And I exjpected the next, "and drink too muck !tea!"

"Oh, Lord!" I said, a>d the Sandow girl laughed. "Ella finds Mr. Beauvoir more amusing than you do. Dear Ella appreciate* Englishmen, doesn't «he?" (That's'what Ella calls bein "a cat"). "I am so fond of Ella; but »he is impressionable, isn't alie, Mr. Euyston?" I was fixing the net, so I had an excuse to say "damn," and smother it in am apology. The Sandow girl was tightening a strincr on her racquet. Ella ealled to me to come and have some tea ; but r shook my head, and asked her frie*d to play the first set with me. The Englishman took off his gaiters, and played with Ella. She doesn't play well, and she streams every time she .does hit the ball by accident, but she looked awfully pretty and impudent m her white linen hat. Beauvoir seemed to think so. As for me, I played rather decently, considering that- I had been mending fences all the week, and I lost one of .Steve's sleeve-links. It was rough on Steve, because his sweetheart gave, them to him, before she married the other chap who wrote poetry. Poor Steve! I remember the day he heard the news; he tried to write some poetry too. He borrowed a rusty .pen from '.the cook at the hut, and some blottingpaper from the selector's wife, and took the last sheet of cream-laid from under mr lmnk. Across the top of it he scrawled "Epitaff"—Steve is shaky at spelling—and then he asked Carlisle if lie had anv cartridges. Carlisle hadn't any made, only half a bottle of whisky. When the cook came to look for his •pen to Write for a Tattersall's ticket, Steve wai-s offering to Bet Carlisle he could pin a fly on the wall with it, and Carlisle was fool enough to take up the ybet. The matter with old Carlisle ).i that he's lazy. The Sandow g/irl and I beat Ella and the Englishman easily, and then I let her give me a cup of tea, black and strong, confoundedly nasty. Bushmen do not really like strong tear though they get into the habit of drinking it black from having to do without milk so often in the backblocks.

The Englishman had a -big grey topee, find cellular shirts, made for tin 1 tropics. He also had light-blue eyes and a red moustache. Ella took him to see the cabbages in the vegetable garden. The Sandow girl and T followed, to look at the oleanders. She asked me to pick her some, and then I heard her sing out to Ella, should she ask me to get some for her?

"Oh, no!" called Ella daily. "'Mr Beauvoir is taking' care of me."

I should say he was. They were about an li,c>iir over those cabbages. When they came back, the Sandow girl was reading my palm. She said she must hold my hand close to her face, because she was short-sighted. •She had an awful grip 011 her, but * deuced line figure. She put on low-ir.'ck evening, and persuaded Ella to do the lame. Ella isn't at her best in iowneck, became she'* thin. She was quite offended with me for saying once she had nice bonea.

The Englishman said he admired ethereal 'beauty. This fetched her. These English chaps seem to know what women like. I expect they learn on ■board ship. I know more about earmarks and cutting out fat .beasts. And that Christum I always Deemed to say just the wroßg thing to Ella.. But it was all right what I said to her friend. Ella's mother liked the new-chum. He used to talk about his country geat and hit park, while she knew Tery well that I was only one of a triangular partnership in a" sheep station, with prickly pear at the back of the run, and rabbits not far off. But Ella's father had a wary

eje on those tan leggings and cellular shirts. He smoked a lot. He was that sort of old fellow, and he did not say much; but 1 always noticed that he smoked his pipe when the Englishman was handy. That showed it was no pipe of peac«.

I got the thimble out of the Christmas pudding, and the Englishman got the ring, and he went through a lot of rot, trying it on Ella's linger. The Sandow girl and I strolled out to see tlie oleanders under the moonlight. It was her idea, and there wasn't any moon. The mosquitoes worried me; but she did not seem to mind. Then we started palmistry again m the dark. It seems you can tell character by the feel of a hand as well as by the lines. Besides, it's natural enough to hold a girl's hand when you sit in the dark; tout I thought it a bit cool of the Englishman to hold Ella's. I should never have known it but for her father bringing out the storm lantern. The Sandow girl spotted it at once, and said she thought they always sat like that.

Xext day I said I would go home. I thought Steve might want to go into the township or somewhere, and Carlisle would be all alone; 'out old Smith insisted on my staying over the dance, <tnd sent the 'black boy across with a note, pressing the other chaps to come. [ knew, of course, that both Steve and Carlisle were handicapped for clothes and etceteras unless I went home first. In fii-d, we could not all go Out visiting together. I always lent Steve my dancing pumps by arrangement. However, old Smith seemed to smell a rat, and there were some of his shirts and starched collars' and Bill Smith's shoes in the quarters, when they were finally persuaded into riding over.

The first thing they saw was the English chap playing cat's cradle under the pepper trees with Ella. It was a bit rough on me, but they are decent pals, and they stared out of the other window, and pretended to be astonished at the way the bamboos had grown since the rain. But, in the 6x6 mirror I saw Steve wink at Carlisle, and then I strolled off to find the Sandow girl. Carlisle was struck on her right away, and she asked me whether lie had any money. There was something very •traight about the Sandow girl sometimes, in spite of her being a cat, as JSlla says. I talked a good bit to old Smith after that. I always liked did Smith. He is suck a fine listener.

The trouble with Mrs Smith was when once she began to talk a fellow could count on nothing short of the bullockbell they rang at meal times cutting her skort, and »ot always that. I did not enjoy that Christmas much at- Smith's.

I got a dance with Ella on boxingnight, and we quarrelled abominably. She said it was my fault. I think it was. I said all China-blue eyed chaps ■were scoundrels, and she said my assertion had as little reasonable foundation as my 'brains, and that, perhapß, it wasn't my fault. Probably, she had forgotten what I was like, as latterly she had been associating with Intellectual men. . . . The new housemaid

iad filled the jvhisky decanter with methylated spirits by mistake (she came of temperate folk), and so I did not get much comfort from the nip old Smith offered me, except from the fact that he did not tender the Englishman even that. However, Beauvoir was whispering in the passage with Ella when we went to the quarters, and Carlisle sat for a long time on my bed, smoking, and telling me what he thought of women. It seemed the Sandow girl had found out that he had no prospects after all. Presently, he set fire to the mosquito nets, and, when he had put a jug of water over me, he went to bed somewhere under a table, for there were not enough beds to go round, the Smiths having expected people to dance all night.

We rode away at dawn. "The Three Musketeers," as Mrs. Smith, who read Dumns in the original, called us, to show she understood French. Only she said it the French way. The Sandow girl was up, to give us breakfast. She had become very decent to me again. I did not see Ella, tut the Englishman was in the garden picking flowers. The Sandow girl said he put some at Ella's door every morning, and that old Smith sometimes trod on them by chance.

It was a beautiful morning—willows dipping in the creek, pigeons calling in the eight-mile scrub; and, far away, the faint soft blue of hills. Carlisle said he tlioui'lit he would have a read, and then a sleep. Steve said he would sleep first. I went out to cut prickly pear. I felt like it. Three weeks afterwards chance took me to the station about some sheep that had got boxed with ours. The Englishman had gone. There had been some sort of a row. the bookkeeper said, and Ella had been crying. Mrs. Smith had given old Smith cold meat for breakfast ever since, and the Chinaman cook was worried. Like all hands, he loved old Smith.

However, I felt more at home without the grey topee and yellow gaiters. Unfortunately. I said so to Ella. She declared she was surprised I felt at home Anywhere without the Sandow girl. I went off to smoke with Smith. Somehow I always seemed to rub Ella the wrong way.

That she was unhappy I could see, qivi she was losing her complexion. She talked about England at dinner, am. said she hated the sight of gum-trees, that her life was too narrow, and she wanted to expand her brain in contact with cultured persons and civilisation. Her mother said that was quite natural. Her father offered her the middle of tiro boiled jam-roll.

I woke that night after a few hours' uneasy sleep, ill which some danger intangible. yet pressing, threatened Ella, a dream of winding scrub tracks where something waited —waited—ready to spring—?_ horror of voiceless efforts "" speak—a misery of ineffectual fear. I wo'cr ■mrtrtenlv in a cold sweat, to tiear the latch of the back gate drop. There

was nothing in that, for it might easily have been the wind. I got. up, and went to the window. 1 am not usually a funk; 1m I there was something worry - ,ing lue to-night. If I had been a fellow of bruins, or a poet. I might have called it imagination. As it was, I fancied it might be the jam-roll. Then quite suddenly 1 knew what I feared. For, in the waning moonlight, I ;-aw Ella i'l'u-siiig the garden towards the gate. She was muffled in something dark, and she carried a little bag. 1. could not .see her face; but I should know Ella in the dark. A man was standing by the gate, holding it open. There was a familiar look about his champagne-bottle shoulders. Beyond, by the Cape mulberry and the red bamboos, 1 could hear the creak of ieather, the rattle of buckle and strap, the stump of an impatient horse, and darker against the shifting moon shadows on the trees, the outline of a vehicle. When Ella reached the gate I was there before her. The Englishman stood jwith an insolent laugh in his china-'blue eyes, a contemptuous curl of lip under his red moustache.

"I would not come out to speak to a lady half-clothed," he said, for, of course, I was only in my pyjamas, with bare feet. But this wasn't a time to think about collars or sleeve-links, "All the clothes in the world wouldn't make you fit to speak to lier," I retovH"], "If you wcro tuvy gort of decent chap, you'd woo by daylight."

Ela liad grit. She did not scream or shrink. She came straight on to th§ gate. "Will you let me pass?" she said. I think she enjoyed a spar with mo, even then. "I'm damned if I will," I answered. "I'll rouse the station first, and your father. If the chap wants to marry you, why, there are better ways than 'fly-by-night for a girl's good name!" He put out his hand and laid it on Ella's wrist. "Come," he said, "and let this lunatic go back to bed." "No, ;,ou don't!" It was he or I for it then, but Ella pushed between.

"Don't lie silly, .Mr. Furaton," she said; "surely I can marry whom I choose, without your interference. .

But I saw that she was trembling now, and that she glanced anxiousiy «,rer her shoulder to old Smith's room.

■ "If your father forbids this man the house, he does it with pood reason, vou maybe sure " I was beginning, when the Englishman tripped me. The only thing I ever saw in him to admire was ,the 'way he laid me out. It wa« the neatest bit of jiu-jitsu I've seen for many a day, and was tasting dirt and dead mulberry leaves in an instant . . •with all the sinking in the world in my ears. Far off I seemed to guess at a voice expostulating, and the turn of wheels, and I don't know what possessed me to lie still a minute, and take my i cue from Ella.

"Oh, we can't leave him like this!" she said. "We can't. He might he dea:d ; Just let me make sure, and then I'll come." He did not know women so very well for all his smart tricks. He tried to force her into the .biu-klioard. I Relieve she slapped him. It's a thing she won't talk about, but old Smith's revolver suddenly sang out, and Beauvoid ■was in the buckboard, and away over the lower crossing, splashing through the water, and waking the black ducks in the reeds, and starting all tne dugs in creation barkine down the station street. I .believe he jumped the sliprail, buekboard and all; but T did not know or care, for I had by arms round Ella, and she had flung her arms round me, and old Smith was fetching water and swearing as I had never heard him swear in my life. It was the "most refreshing string of oaths 1 ever experienced.

Ella's pretty hair was wet through, and I was very groggy on my legs. I must have struck a bamboo-reed shoot in my spill, for I'd a fearful bruise on my forehead next dav.

I have sometimes suspected Mrs. Smith of having a hand in that projected elopement. You see, Ella was under age, and old Smith obstinate. Once married, the old lady thought the father would give in. and Ella would have the park and the country seat', and the culture and the civilised societr. easy. But Ella is loyal. She won't split on her mother. As that may be, Mrs. Smith was on the verandah in a with a becoming wrapper about her, and no curl papers. "My child!" she shrieked; but old Smith stood between.

"Your only child," he said, "and that's the way you train l:r;\" ■ "The dictates of her own heart." murmured the mother, looking out along the road, whence came a far-off clattering •of hoofs.

"Fiddlesticks," said old Smith. "When my daughter tries to run away with a married man at midnight, 'tis not hearts 111 be talking, but bullets"—he tapped his revolver. Old Smith looked dignified ever in his pyjamas, with his white hair •n end.

"A married man! You never told me, James, you never."

"No; sometimes I say too little perhaps, but then I did not know I was dealing 'with blanky fools. I thought the waster had gone for good. And some wonvn, mv dear," he looked hafd at Smith—[ could nave clapped the •Id hero on the back —"some women say too much. Good-night, Ruyston. Stay to breakfast. We are going to Jiiive omelette."

I went back to the quarters without a word. There was a feeling in my fists wanting badly to punch that Englishman, but I knew that I should never get within hitting distance of him again. He would see to that. =

I took advice from Carlisle, and kept away from Smith's for a month. One day I met Bill at the boundary, and he told me how a passing insurance doctor .had informed his father in confidence that the Englishman was married, and separated from his wife. The old man blamed himself bitterly now for not letting Ella into the secret. "But dad hates to say an unnecessary word, as you know," added Bill.

"How is Ella?" I asked. I was feeling bit down. Steve thought he had seen something like a rabbit that morning, and had gone to lay baits. Bill Smith looked at me. We winked. "Ella? lie said. ''Simply rippin'. . . . Why don' t you come over?"

Some women are cats, and some are fools, so Ella says. She told me she wouldn't have looked at the Englishman if it had not been for Hie Sandow girl. The Sandow girl confided to her that "she jfould not get rid of me. I pestered her with attentions. "And." Ella continued, "I had 'always been used to your •pestering me!" Ella says it was all the Sandow girl's fault, and she repeats that some women are fools and some are cats. "If the Sandow girl was the cat. who is the fool?" I asked. I wasn't trying to be 'witty. I just wondered. "I am the fool," said Ella, "for I love you!" Ella scored off m« that time, too.— J 1 is'ralasian.