GRANDMAMA'S STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2866, 25 November 1890, Page 4

GRANDMAMA'S STORY.

A TKUK TALK OF THE EARLY DAYS, (Cγ a Waikato Ladv.) CHAPTER X—Life at MaungaTAUTAItr. " You would havo been astonished to sec how many visitors passed through Maungatautari, some staying with us, others in their tents.

" Our house was on the line of road to Taupo and the hot springs. Travellers crossed the head of the Waikato River at the fulls. It was a wild place, the water rushing over huge boulders, the only bridge boing an old canoe thrown across. How many hundred travellers must have gone over that old canoe. My husband used to go sometimes and see the travellers safely over.

" Mr and Mrs Norman, of Onehuugn, came up on a visit. The acting Governor and his party also passed through, and left us some nice books and papers. Our own neighbour, Mr B. 8., used to come over often on Sunday, and spend the day with us. " One Saturday I was busy cooking and scrubbing, when to my surprise who should we see but Mr B. K. dressed in his best costume. ' What is the matter' said grandpapa, ' here is Mr 8., perhaps ho is going to be married," and running down to meet him, for a guest in those clays was not to be despised, I said as shook hands, ,' What is the matter Mr B. that you come today, instead of tomorrow.' 'What is the matter with you rather, Mrs S,' he said, •' This is Sunday/' aud he was right. We had lost a clay. " I had to put ray work aside, and make the best of matters, though much disappointed, for Sunday was a great clay with us.

"Sometimes we used to go out directly after breakfast, and climb up Mount Canaan, where we spent the day, strolling home quietly in the evening. No locks on our door, no watchdog, only a Tui, who used to cry mournfully when we went away, and loudly welcome us back, crowing like a rooster and other funny things. He had a most original cage made of supplejack, and string instead of wire, but the worst of it was that Master Tui used to eat the string. "The natives treated us like kings and queens, and it was amusing to see the Pakeha. 1 had plenty of help, but only one regular servant, Puaka's sister Utiwai named after the wild burr, which is so unpleasant at certain seasons in the bush.

"Tho first year we sont several tons of bacon and flour to Aucklud, and were doing very well indeed. The winter used to be the worst time for us, no books and papers, and very cold. The snowy mountain could easily be seen from our door. We used to be so cold that we found bed" the best place, and our lights were usually out by S p.m. Maungatautari was a most prolific place, large plantations of rasberries growing wild, such enormous quantities of peaches we had, and used to make jam iua twenty gallon boiler, filling every available jar, even getting gourds from the Maoris. We could buy a fowl for a clay pipe, and other things in proportion.

" The next year proved a very eventful one. Mr 15. and my husband had both gone to Auckland with produce. The evening after they left was hot, and the atmosphere close and heavy. Soon after we had gone to bed, I felt my iron bedstead shaking, the little Maori girl was sleeping on a mat close beside it, my boy being in his little cot. i said ' Kati' (stop) to the girl, but she replied, ' I am not doing it.' Thou I heard all the cups and pannikins in the kitchen rattling and the houso shaking. The little maid sprang up crying ' E rue ru,' (the earthquake) and with wonderful presence of mind she caught up the boy, and I taking tho baby, we both ran out of the house. \Vhun we got outside we held on to the fence or we should have fallen, and the eartli shook so much that I felt quite sick, and all the time we could hear a loud rumbling and roaring in the direction of Tongariro; e Ru c llu the girl called, Rawliehi Te Puaka. Thoy must have felt it also, for Puaka and his mother came running over. There were more shocks that night, but none so severe as the first, and having protection,-1 did not feel so frightened. Towards morning we went to bed again, our kind Maori friends sleeping before the fire.

" Soon after this Bishop Selwyn sent word that he would visit all the churches and schools. Such prepai - ation.s as were made, of course, in our quiet Maori village ; there was nothing to renovate but the roads, These had been almost impassable; in places so bad that the horses sank to the stirrups. Parties of 00 and 100 Maoris turned out, fascined and otherwise improved the roads.

"We had a letter of introduction from England to his lordship, which hud uuver been delivered ; so 1 proposed that when he arrived your grandpapa should meet him and invite him over to our house.

"Tho uvoniug ul last camo thatho was oxpc'ctoJ, and your grandpapa wouUlown and auw tliu Ijishup, -\vho sliuoli linuda warmly with Liw, but rofusud our hospitality, snyiug lie pruforrod staying in lu'a owu tout. Notliiug was yaid about llio lottor we Lad, aiidiny lituibaud camo back rathor voxod, in fact, thought it uukiud of hiiii. All at ouco T said, 'Perhaps. James, Bishop Selwyn tliought 1 was a Maori woman, you know most oC Uio settlors havo native wlvou,' '• 1 oxpoct you aro riglit, my doar, grandpapa said, and he wont down again in tho evening. 'Who would have expected to find a European woman up here,' said tho Bishop, and he arranged to como to breakfast with us tho noxt morning. Wo wnro up oarly to recoivo him, how kind ho was, and how ho admired our

garden and collections of forns and curios. Ho showed us an instrumont liko a clock, which he carried with him for measuring distances, and told us so many interesting things Your grandpapa went with him part of the road to Taupo, and we often looked back to that visit with great pleasure.

" Not long after we had a pleasant visit from the Kev. Mr Folkner and party, poor gentleman, we never saw him again, he told us that coming in our little quiet home was like a green spot in the desert.

" But all our European friends and acquaintances -were not of such high degree. There was one curious individual, who lived with the Mangatautari natives occasionally, and then away again. He rejoiced in the name of ' Paddy Regan,' and was a strange looking man with white hair. Though he looked so old he always declared he was only 37 years of ago. Perhaps he believed it, or had never known his true age. He said his hair had turned white in a single night, but he never told us the particulars, and as he had lost part of each ear, perhaps that had something to do with it. However, on account of his extreme simplicity, or the opposite, whenever the Maoris wanted to express profound unbelief, they would say with emphasis ' Parirakaui.' " As an instance of Maori devotion, there was a friend of my little nurse, who came often to see us. She was the prettiest Maori girl I ever saw, with wavy light brown hair. She had no parents to look after her, only an uncle, who treated her most cruelly; in fact she ran away from him. Once he came to our house storming and raging; he was going to kill her when he found where she was. My scanty knowledge of Maori at that time stood mo well, for he went off without finding her. When I wont in she was crouched under the bed crying bitterly, and her uncle went right down to the Waikato Heads to look for her. I was almost afraid to keep her, your grandpapa being away, but she pleaded so hard to stay that I consented. A day or two after she was holding my little girl when a coal from her pipe fell on the child, burning it a good deal. We tried all the native remedies, but the burn would not heal, and the poor little thing became quite ill. I often said, 'Oh, I wish her father was home, to go to the doctor in Te Awamutu.' The next morning the girl was gone, and we could not imaginewhere she had gone to, but that evening, just at sundown, in she came, with medicine, and a letter of instruction, she had walked over thirty miles, in the heat of a mid-summer day, to save the child. What European girl would have done that ?

(To be roiitiiittaf.J