THE BOOK OF WIRIMU

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 94, 10 April 1941, Page 47

THE BOOK OF WIRIMU

Story by

STELLA

MORICE

with

Drawings by

JOHN

HOLMWOOD

Chapter II. THE RIVER HE river which ran below the whare was a fine river. In winter it was a roaring swirl, yellow and angry as a Taniwha, but in summer it was dark green and quiet as moss. It was called the Waitukituki. In winter and summer, the river was always Hori’s and Wiri’s best and most generous friend-next, of course, to the Waterfords. It filled its flood waters with wood for their fire in winter and dragged boards from the flood gates and bridges. Then it licked. higher and higher up its banks until the tongues of water tore the posts from Mr. Waterford’s fences and hurled them ashore again for Hori’s scrub wall. Sometimes it caught a sheep unawares and carried it down to the bend below the whare, and Hori and Wiri and Tiger and Miu had meat to eat and more wool to sleep on.

Once it rose high enough to wash away the Waterford’s maize shed and Hori caught the cobs in his willow woven basket, and he put them away to plant in the spring. "By corry, I give Mary Waterford some green maize in the summer-he like that." In summer, Hori and Wiri could wade across the river, or jump from stone to stone if they wanted to keep dry. Or, they could ride across on Hini the old mare, leading her almost blind son Pikau with a pack saddle on his back. But in winter, Hini and Pikau were kept in a paddock on the pa side of the river, so Wiri and Hori had to go across to the cage. The cage had a board floor about two feet square, and was hung to a pulley by wires from each corner. It slid across the river on.a thick, strong wire, which was tied to a rimu tree on the whare side of the river, and to a totara tree on the pa side. The wire was higher on the rimu than it was on the totara, so that when Wiri and Hori and Tiger sat on the cage on the whare side, it went whirring like a locust, so fast across the river that Wiri felt as though his puku had been left behind. But when they came home, tired and wet and sleepy, the cage wouldn’t move when they sat on it. So Hori had to pull and pull on a long rope tied to the rimu tree, and he coiled it beside him until there was almost no room for Wiri and Tiger. And Wiri was frightened of the roaring blackness of the river that night, so he kept very close to Hori as they went up the track from the cage. He was tired and wobbly with sleep as he walked into the whare. He tumbled on to his soft bed and burrowed clothes and all into the stripy blankets and pulled them close over his sleep head .... Safe from the morepork and the angry of the river ... and the Taipo and the Taniwha. . . At his feet Tiger lay stretched out asleep, and Miu, the black and white cat, was a soft sleeping ball behind his pillow. (Next week you will hear about the canoe they used on the river).