WHEN THE GRASS CAME ON.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 359, 27 October 1898, Page 5 (Supplement)

WHEN THE GRASS CAME ON.

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Oh, man of the world, on a godless chair, Nor pence nor piety placed you there ; But the wise in their folly and fools have decreed That there you sit till another suceeed. About ten miles from a place sometimes called Paradise-all-but-t he-Weather, which is just 18 miles from another place in New Zealand, far up in the hills through the mist cap, then down a dark and lonely gully, stood a hut. It was one of those old-fashioned places made of mud and tussocks which men called houses in the first days, when a room and a-half were ample habitation for a family. It was growing sad with age, although time was when the original occupiers now become gentlefolk by reason of priority of settlement, worked their, day's work like, ordinary people and in the evening gathered in a hospitable circle round a brignt manuka fire. Now they live in the midst of a luxuriant plantation with a three-mile carrige drive to a palatial house, and no man's boundary for ten miles on every side. A son had oven gone sufficiently to the dogs to work for a living in the P.W.D. In the hut lived an old identity, Tommy Hodson. Almost as old was he as the tall white kowhai trunk, long since dead, that stood up straight and ghostly near his hut; and almost as white. He came out in 18-19 ; settled ; thrived : lost; broke up ; and roamed until 1888, when he settled in the old hut where other 3 had gone before and here he had lived doggedly ever since.

Tommy's friend was a dog; his acquaintances were sheep. But the lives of Tommy and the dog were one and inseparable. Abraham the latter was called, from a former scion of Tommy's housa ; breed dubious, but his master always held that he was a half " tamer." The other half no breed at all—"jestdorg," Truly Fate in its irony is the most wicked inhabitant of this colony. All personal and individual wickedness, all hard lives and filed schedules, ail unmarked graves have their origin with Fate. Aud what of happiness has she given ? Mayhap a penniless emigrant has become an M.H.R. That old Hodson arrived in an early ship people knew. Whether it was the Mariner ('49) or the Nourmahal ('SB) no one cared. That was not a matter for antemortem concern. As an undisguised fact he was an early settler, and poor. So two conclusions were drawn, which were these ; first, he had probably seen better days; second, he was not a Scotchman. The first was true ; the second v>as not to be denied. In the early days, about five years after the settlement, he had held a large run, and seemed, but no one knew why, to have been swirled into the tide of Fortune. As all the men know, that swiftest of tides has the deadliest of backwaters, and in these the speeding chip is lost beyond recall. Land measures passed the Council, and Tommy's land had to go. There was no hope for a time of taking up more, and before he was able to do so the new iniquity came to the colony. A Scotchman would have climbed on to his feet again in a few years ; an Englishman is someone else. And the years passed. Tommy was old, and yet the battle of life was all before him. He was one of the most familiar figures in Paradise-all-but-the-Weather, where without fail he

turned up every sale day to discuss the weather and entry. Occasionally—when he sold a few sheep to pay the rent or buy flour —his presence was the outcome of pure necessity; but his regularity was mere habit, for it is a breaking I things to forgo an old custom. With the farmers and dealers his eccentricity and simplicity mane him almost popular. Living alone, and finding it hard e.iough to do so, he always found it possible to get exactly Gd less than an absolutely starvation price for his little lots of sheep ; and during the wanton slaughter of each lot at the hands of the auctioneer he would assure his indulgent hearers that he could easily have got half a crown more for the sheep a sveek ago, but he wished to give them a chance ; that the miserable biddybiddy wretches he urged round the pen would be worth twice the money in a week's time, and their weight in gold ' when the grass came on.' If the auctioneer did not break in upon his harangue he would invariably end by quoting the last bid : ' 'Hree an' six. Well, A think there's more in them nor that.' Then with a sigh. ' Bit A'ra gaun to sell!' Thus infectious is an accent. Then he would limp virtuously round the pen with a wisp of ' dock' in his hand to make the broken-mouthed sheep (if there were any such) show themselves. The onlookers would laugh derisively at the quaint figures, but the money would not rise*and the sheep were knocked down.

' Well, they're a bargain,' exolaimed Tommy as he clambered cut of the pen ; • A thought there were more in them nor that.'

Like many a well-to-do farmer, Tommy was always assuring his friends that he was in truth going from bad to worse, but after the manner of men they merely bantered him on his bank account.

By and bye the winter came on and the attendance at the sales fell off. The farmers from away back on the hills, where the long greasy bends of the roads glittering in an occasional pretentious sunshine told of bad traffic, gradually failed to put in an appearance. Still old Hodson turned up every fortnight, although he complained bitterly of of the impassable state of the roads, and 'he didn't know but what he wouldn't ever get down again.' Next day he appeared as usual, and with a small draft of sheep too. Miserable and poorly they looked, thin, dirty, and bedraggled, and he informed the buyers that they were the last of his flock, and consequently the fittest and the pick of the run. Midwinter comparisons were unable to refute this ; but prices were low. He expected at least Gs Gd ; after vainly tottering round the pen for 10 minutes the price stuck, and the sheep brought os 3d. The highest bidder was disappointed to find himself there. Then monthly sales were announced for the rest of the winter. Next sale day was wet and Tommy did not appear. For the following sale his little leasehold on the hills was advertised for sale ' with improvements thereon.' The improvements were not particularised, and prospective purchasers were invited to inspect in person. Which was a suicidal arrangement for the trustees : for even the most sanguine of young fanners do not care to take a farm away on the most dismal hills in the district, especially after seeing it.

The notice created casual remark, and many of Tommy's acquaintances at the saleyards wondered what he would do for a living, and whether, he would go into the Benevolent.

Next day Tommy was again the subject of discussion on account of the presence at the yards of Abra-

ham, who made his ridiculous little self noticeable in his wonted way by picking loud quarrels with various inmates of the pens and leaving them unsettled. But Tommy himself did not appear. In a separate pen stood two miserable ewes, whose very appearance said ' Hodson ' to the spectators. By and bye the auctioneer, in putting them up, confirmed the tale of their apearance. A derisive titter went round the pen, and the best-opinioned wits said funny things about their value.

The auctioneer said these wore the last two off old Hocison's place, and the owner had been found dead in his hut that morning. The tittering was followed by silence, and the wits looked ashamed. The auctioneer then told the circumstances of Tommy's death, and read the following note, which had been found scribbled on an old paper bag while the dead man's fingers held a piece of carpenter's pencil : I never kept books as i no is the way to became better up but i don't want to be buried in charity and this is my accounts to this date.

23 yow and wither 5s 3d—£6 Os 9d rent is £o Os Cd and flour and tea and things from the store is eighteen she and (id lenving no money to bury me if i am founded here then there is Ab ram as might be a little more, i though i had 27 yow and 2 might be found on the run to pay me oil' to make 5s 3d each that is 10s Gd perhaps they are not ded but i have not soed them a long time Abram is a half tarrier and i think will complete me burying if he is sold.—-T. IdonsoM.

A laugh was hardly suppressed at the allusion to Abraham, who at that very moment was snarling at an ordinary sheep. Then Hodson's two were put up. They were worth 2s Gd, but the bidding started at 5s and ran up like lighting to 30s. everyone by means of a bid putting in a good word for Tommy. No less well-meaning were the buyers when Abraham was put up, but all were afraid to bid lest he should be left on their hands. He was finally knocked down at lis Gd, exactly 23 times his commercial value.

The sheep were handed over to"a butcher to be fattened, and the proceeds devoted to the " Tommy Hodson fund,' and voluntary subscription raised the fund to sufficient to give him a solvent funeral and to identify his grave with a plain stone, inscribed : T. HODSON, A Hero Against Fate.

At last he had got his full price. This happened when tho grass came on.