TIRED OF TOWN.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 November 1921, Page 6

TIRED OF TOWN.

THE POOR RICH MAN. In a recent issue the Auckland Star gave details of a rich poor man who, aseventy years of age, came to the city ; with thirty-five years’ savings amountpng to over £lOOO, who thought hcj would like to find a home in the city in which to end his days. In the interval he has been inundated, chiefly by women, with offers of hospitality, so that he could end his days in peace and comfort. “Friday,” as the man was nicknamed by his associates, says that he got his name because he could not stand women; he was always too shy to understand them, and they did not seem to understand him. A woman has never cooked his “tucker” for him, and he has decided not to stay in the city after all. He thinks a week or two within its boundaries has cured him- o-f the habit he was getting into of talking to him self. He misses in the crowded streets ! the fresh air he has been used to, and : the hard pavements make his feet tired, j besides the nails in his bluchers seem I to make as much noise on the concrete as the noisy tramcars do that trundle ; up and down the streets. When he was I in the city before the trams were only j a penny, and now they charge him two- ' pence and look at him as 'though he had • not got it. He liked the old norso trams i that used to be because they were more natural, and one seemed to get more for ■ ■their money! He had been accustomed! all his life to cook his own breakfast, | and he could not stan;l waiting so long! in the morning, especially these fine, ! long mornings, when a man got up a l bit before five to see the sun rise over ' the hills. It was fine to go to the fowl- ' house at the bush camp and get a fresh j egg to fry with bacon* of his own curing, and smoked in the big chimney of the cookhouse. When he wanted to wash his shirt and socks at the boarding house where he is staying there was such a fuss about his getting some hot water, and then there was no sunny place to dry them after they were washed. He was longing to get back to the whare by the running stream, where he anchored his washing to a rope and let the pure crystal water’ run through it, | and then all the clothes, even the blankets, washed themselves, and where life was altogether more in keeping with what God intended it to be than it the city. “They say the country is lonely, but give me the songs of the birds and the humming of the bees in preference to your noisy streets, which can be lonely enough to a. poor wayfarer,” he