The Haystack

by Jack Lasenby

  Everyone moving fast, not saying much. From out at the end of our walk, I could see the top of the stack slanting inwards. The Kaimais a cloudy wall that grew higher fast. When I looked again, the grey wall bulged up the sky, rolled towards us. I felt uneasy.

  The last loads came in on the sweeps. First the other man came down, then Mr Dunlop, and they started tidying up around the stack. The sloping top looked like a roof. Mr Hoe and Sam finished off the ridge with the last load, a few forkfuls gathered up from the ground about the stack. I wondered how Mr Hoe knew just how much hay it took.

  Jerry drove up a dray loaded with heavy railway sleepers, and several folded tarpaulins. Dad and Mr Dickey heaved the tarpaulins on to the stacker’s teeth.

  I clicked, Clop walked out, and the tarpaulins slid on to the stack. We backed up, and I patted Clop’s neck.

  Men were running and dragging the sleepers. Mr Hoe and Sam unfolded and tugged the tarpaulins along the top of the stack, the ropes dangling. Dad and Mr Bluenose twitched them to help spread the canvas, and tied their ends to the heavy sleepers.

  “So the wind can’t get under the canvas and shift it,” Dad told me, and from somewhere high in the dark, Mr Hoe’s voice said: “Harvest home!”

  Jerry grinned at me and nodded up. “The old man always says that. He’ll be a sight happier, now the covers are on. We’ll thatch it once the weather’s cleared.” Jerry unhooked the traces, and swung them over Clop’s back. “He’s been a bit tetchy all day, like a bear with a sore head—he knew it was going to rain, and we missed having Old Peter Rust. He could build a stack. Fast, too.”

  Suddenly, the brown haystack with its green covers stepped forward out of the gloom like an elephant, the red giraffe towering beside it. Mr Tiddy had switched on his headlights just as Des Orr arrived in his cut-down Model A and did the same. I blinked in the dazzle. Men were running, throwing ropes, swingle-trees, harness, Clop’s collar, pitchforks onto the dray. A seething noise rushed towards us over the hedges and paddocks.

  “Maggie! You come with me and Des. We’ll run you home.”

  But Dad was already piggybacking me across the paddock. “Thanks, Laura!” he called as he ran. He swung me up and over the stile, across the plank, and on to the bar of his bike.

  “Where’s Mr Bluenose?”

  “Getting a lift,” Dad grunted. “With Mr Tiddy.” He pedalled hard. “Just as well; he’d get a ducking before he’s halfway home.”

  A couple of fat drops landed on the backs of my hands where they gripped the handlebars. I hunched myself into Dad and heard the gate click behind us. We rode up the path under the cabbage tree, past the kitchen window, and two more fat drops plopped on my head, then several more as I slipped off by the back step.

  I pulled the light cord in the wash-house. There was a roar. Between shoving his bike into the shed and running for the back porch, Dad’s shirt was sleek black. The noise I’d heard coming across the paddocks now strummed the corrugated iron roof to thunder. Inside my head, I saw a picture of raindrops falling where Clop and I had walked, splatters of dust that turned to mud.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Why Mrs Hoe Couldn’t Speak Properly, Why I Swallowed When Laura’s Sewing Machine Whirred, and a Truly Elegant Morning Tea.

  “A PROPER CLOUDBURST.”

  “At least we got the hay in.” I wobbled a bit as I pulled the wet shirt over Dad’s head. “What about Old Clop?”

  “Jerry will be looking after him.”

  “Dad, Mr Hoe said, ‘Harvest home!’”

  “He’d have heard it each year when he was a boy, in the Old Country. You did a great job, Mr Dickey told me. Look who’s miaowing to be fed.”

  “Mr Cleaver said to tell you somebody saw Mr Rust near Ngongotaha.”

  “When did he tell you that?” Dad looked round from putting coal on the blazing kindling.

  “This morning. Mr Malone was talking to a drover who saw him carrying his swag, and heading towards the Mamakus.”

  “Did he say when the drover saw him?”

  “Last Saturday.”

  “A pity he didn’t turn up. He might have got himself taken on again today. Here, get this inside yourself; I’ll make you some cocoa as soon as the kettle boils.”

  Dad must have undressed and put me to bed, because I woke in the morning, and couldn’t remember eating tea, getting into my pyjamas, not even saying goodnight to Aggie. But she was there smiling, head on the pillow beside me, and Milly asleep on my feet.

  Near the stile, a few days later, the cut grass still looked whitish; further out in the paddock, it had a green tinge. I jumped from the stile and ran across to the brown elephant under its canvas covers. Where the grass had been worn to the ground by the sweep running in, green shoots were already growing. Clop’s track was disappearing. The red giraffe had been dismantled and taken out to Dunlops’. I closed my eyes, and tried to remember the smell of new-mown hay.

  In the friendly kitchen over at the house, Mrs Hoe said, “Jerry gave your father my message then? Now, I’ve been thinking about you growing out of your clothes, and I said to Laura, heavens above, I said, there’s Maggie without a stitch to her back, and here we are with a whole cupboardful of things that you grew out of years ago. Some of them I don’t even remember her putting on, she shot up so fast, the little monkey.

  “Children grow out of things while your back’s turned, so people pass on clothes that have still got a bit of wear in them, you know.”

  Laura carried an armful from her room. “You’ll be doing me a good turn taking them,” she said, her voice like her mother’s. “It’ll give me some space in my drawers.” She smiled and fingered the gold cross that hung on a chain at her neck.

  “I wanted to get rid of the lot ages ago, but Mother always says it’s sinful to throw out good clothes that somebody could make use of.”

  They were holding dresses up against me, nodding, shaking their heads, talking without seeming to listen to each other: of taking in, letting out, taking something up, a few stitches here, a fold or a dart there.

  “And I was right, wasn’t I?” said Mrs Hoe. “I knew there’d be somebody pleased we hadn’t thrown them out.”

  “Dad says that, too. He gave my old things to Mrs Wilson, down the pa.”

  “Mmmmph,” said Mrs Hoe, looking at Laura. “I don’t know that I’d do that, dear. Heaven only knows what use they’d make of them down there.” Her voice sounded funny because she had a mouthful of pins. “I just hope they’re grateful for them, that’s all,” I thought she said.

  “Mrs Wilson’ll probably bring us a kitful of mushrooms or blackberries. She used to before, when my mother gave her our old things. Dad had a go at using Mum’s old machine, but he says you need an extra pair of hands to make it work, and several pairs of feet to work the treadle.”

  “Mmmmph.” Mrs Hoe meant me to take off my shirt and shorts. Another “Mmmmph” and I held up my arms. She dropped a dress over my head, and was kneeling, pulling it in at the waist, turning up the hem, fixing it with pins she took from between her lips.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful, Mrs Hoe, that soft red…”

  “Mmmmph. Laura hardly wore it. Shot up overnight, the little imp, such a pity. That red suits you with your colouring, Maggie. So like your mother’s. Turn around and let me see?”

  Mrs Hoe put her head on one side. “I let it down, as far as it would go, put binding around the hem to make the most of it, even thought of adding a flounce, but it was no use, the naughty girl wouldn’t stop growing.

  “Mmmmph. The waist’s all right, but I wonder if you could take the hem up again, Laura?” Mrs Hoe was busy with pins. “We can let it down as Maggie grows; she’ll get quite a bit of wear out of it then.

  “I’m that pleased to find somebody who can use the stuff; it’s been worrying away in the back of my mind, what to do with it.”

  I almost said something about Mrs Wilson again, but didn’t like to.

  Mrs Hoe tried other dresses,
blouses, skirts on me, and Laura began altering the red dress at once. She sat at her machine, turned the silver wheel, pushed down with her right foot on the treadle, her left one just touching it, and bunched up the material with both hands. “Whirrr!” The sound was so familiar, I swallowed and felt my eyes tingle, but Mrs Hoe was popping the dress over my head again, looking at it with her head to one side, and nodding.

  “Turn around.” She nodded. “Mmmmph.”

  I smoothed the soft cloth and said, “I’ll keep it for best.”

  “Get some wear out of it while you can. If you’re like Laura, you’ll shoot up before you can jump around three times and say Jack Robinson. Besides, there’s lots more need wearing.”

  We had morning tea at a little round table with a lacy cloth spread diagonally so it hung down in diamond points, and a crystal vase in the middle with a single pink rose bud, and we ate off painted bread and butter plates. It was a truly elegant morning tea with butterfly cakes, cup-cakes, and heart-shaped queen-cakes with hundreds and thousands.

  “It’s a treat to hear a child’s voice in the house,” Mrs Hoe said, as we sat and sipped our cups of tea, elaborate cups with roses painted on them, and wavy rims that were tricky to drink from without the tea running down my chin. I looked at Mrs Hoe and Laura, and copied everything they did.

  Laura asked how I was getting on at school, and did I still go down to Mr Bluenose’s, so I told her about how I taught Horse to push the wheelbarrow, and fed the pigs.

  “We used to keep pigs,” said Laura, “when we were on cream, but now Dad sends whole milk to the factory, there’s no skim dick. I liked feeding the pigs. ‘The intelligent crayturs,’ Des’s father calls them.”

  I told them how I dodged Mrs Dainty, going down past the hall, and how she was always telling me off for running round corners, and about the time she told Dad on me for blowing my nose on my fingers, the way Freddy Jones had shown me.

  Laura and Mrs Hoe looked at each other. “She used to tell me off, too,” said Laura. “Poor old thing.”

  “Just you watch your tongue, Laura Hoe. Evelyn Dainty’s not a day older than me.”

  Laura looked at me and giggled.

  “So I’m a poor old thing, am I? Indeed. The very idea.”

  I listened to them teasing each other, and I wriggled and enjoyed it.

  When it was time to go, Mrs Hoe cut a huge fruit cake, put half in a tin, and put that into a basket, as well as all the little cakes we hadn’t eaten at morning tea, wrapped in a tea towel. She laid a bleached flourbag on top, several sheets of tissue paper, then the red dress and two skirts and blouses that fitted without needing altering, and some more tissue paper.

  “It’s not too heavy, is it? I’m sure your father likes a bit of fruit cake. Well, men do, don’t they?” She didn’t wait for answers. “You can bring back the basket next time. Not another word. We’re the ones who should be thanking you—you and your father.”

  “I’ll walk you over to the stile,” Laura said, so we carried the basket between us. I climbed over and stood on the plank across the ditch.

  “Mother and I’ll do those alterations, and you’re to come back and try them on. We’ll get them done in plenty of time for you to have something new to wear, your first day back at school.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Why Mr Hoe Wasn’t Too Happy About Des Orr Being an R.C., Why Milly Was Jealous and Aggie Got the Sulks, And How It Got a Little Easier Each Time.

  LAURA HANDED THE BASKET across the stile.

  “Father’s that grateful for how you helped, not that he’ll say. For leading Old Clop; and your father pitching in, too; and Mr Bluenose. He really thought he was going to lose his hay, not having Mr Rust to build the stack.

  “Dunlops’ was finished yesterday, and they were to start on Mr Tiddy’s today. They went off after milking, Father and Jerry still arguing about stackers and tractors—they’re never going to agree, those two—Sam just listening and saying nothing, and very wisely, too. Meanwhile, Mother and I are doing the afternoon milking, till everyone’s hay’s in.”

  Laura chatted away; I knew she didn’t have much chance to talk while her mother was there.

  “Your father said, ‘Harvest home!’”

  “He always says that. It comes from when he was a boy back Home.

  “We’ll be looking out for you in a couple of days, but you’re to come over any time you like. Mother said to me we should have done something about you long before; you’ve no idea how she enjoyed having you in the house, Maggie.”

  Down at the corner of Ward Street, Freddy Jones was sitting on the footpath, digging something, probably a pit to trap a tiger. I’d give him a roar when I got to our gate, show him my claws, and snap my fangs so loud, his ears would drop off the sides of his head.

  I changed the basket to my left hand and back again. I was going to dress up and show off my new clothes to Milly and Aggie. I knew Milly would pretend not to notice, but the moment I lay out my lovely red dress on the bed, she’d try to sit on it and leave hairs all over it. Mrs Hoe had warned me about that. And when Aggie saw all my lovely things, she’d either clap her hands or have a fit of what Dad called the giant sulks.

  I was going to wear a new dress back to school. I’d like to wear the red one, but wanted to keep it for best. Laura was going to show me how to use her machine—a Singer just like Mummy’s old one—so I could learn to run up things, too. When Aggie saw the things I’d make for her, she’d soon get over the sulks.

  Laura had shown me her glory box, a big chest in her bedroom, filled with sheets, pillowslips, towels, face cloths, underwear and clothes galore, all carefully folded and put away in tissue paper, with little lawn bags of lavender. When she opened the drawers, I just closed my eyes and sniffed!

  “We want to announce our engagement soon,” Laura told me, “but Father’s not too happy about Des being an R.C., specially about the children being brought up Catholics.

  “Mother tells him we’re not back Home now, and things are different out here, and he’d better get used to it, but she’s not sure herself, I can tell.

  “‘It’s that Micky Doolan priest, that old Father Silk I don’t trust,’ she says. Des and I don’t care; we don’t want a long engagement, just to get on with our lives.” Laura touched the cross at her neck.

  I wasn’t sure what she meant about Des Orr being an R.C., and Father Silk, but I’d ask Dad. And he’d explain why Mrs Hoe hadn’t passed on Laura’s old things to Mrs Wilson down the pa. I might ask Mr Bluenose as well. He’d had to learn about how we do things here in Waharoa; that’s what he always told me anyway.

  Once I had it clear, I’d explain it to Aggie and Milly. Milly would pretend she wasn’t taking any notice, she always did that, but I knew she was listening because she could never stop her ears twitching.

  I put the basket down for a moment and swung my arms for the circulation, the way Mr Strap had shown me. I picked it up again and carried it in front, using both hands, and just before I could reach our gate and roar at Freddy Jones and show him my claws and snap my fangs and make the ears fall off the sides of his head, who should pop out of nowhere?

  “That’s not your basket. What have you got there?”

  “Just some things.”

  She tried to see, but I swung the basket around.

  “They look like clothes to me. About time you had some new things. And wore a dress. A girl running around in shorts and shirts, I don’t know…What are you doing with your old things? Is it true that Laura Hoe’s parents are going to let her get engaged to that R.C. boy?”

  Both Laura and Mrs Hoe had warned me that Mrs Dainty would be inquisitive, and told me what to do. “Be polite but firm,” said Mrs Hoe. “Just say goodbye and go. It’ll get easier each time.” I thought of that and looked at Mrs Dainty and held my mouth closed, so it wouldn’t start jabbering all by itself, the way it usually does.

  When she spluttered, I told Mrs Dainty about Aggie and the new
dress I was going to make her, and Mrs Dainty got it mixed up.

  “What an unfortunate name to bestow upon a child.” She thought Aggie was one of the girls at school. “Some people have no idea. Now, that basket’s far too heavy for you. Here, I’ll carry it inside for you.”

  She’d look through everything in it. I was so busy thinking about that, my mouth opened itself and gabbled away. It told Mrs Dainty I’d grown out of everything, and she sniffed. And when my mouth said Dad was giving my old things to Mrs Wilson, down at the pa, she sniffed even louder, so I thought of what Mrs Hoe had said again.

  “Goodbye, Mrs Dainty,” I said politely but firmly, and not being rude. I closed my gabble-away mouth good and tight, and ran in the gate, up the path, and inside where Milly took one look and turned her back on me, and Aggie got the giant sulks, and then—while I was putting the cup-cakes in a tin—Milly sat on my new red dress, at least on the tissue paper.

  “I knew you’d do that. You do it every time. You can just go out on the back porch, while I get the fire going and make a cup of tea for when Dad comes in.” I put her out, politely but firmly, not being rude, and she was furious.

  “Why’s Milly outside?” Dad asked, as I was pouring his tea.

  “She’s jealous, and Aggie’s got the sulks. Look, Dad.” I showed him my new red dress, and told him how Milly had tried to sit on it, and he said it was a lovely red and it suited me, Laura and Mrs Hoe were very kind, and it’d be marvellous if I could learn to use the machine.

  “Fruit cake,” he said, when he spotted it. “My favourite. Let’s eat some now.”

  “You can’t go eating fruit cake for lunch,” I told him and put it away in the cupboard, and he pretended to cry, of course. “All right, you can have a bit with your cup of tea,” I said. “But don’t think you’re going to make a habit of it, every time you come home from work.”

  “Lovely heavy, dark, soggy, rich fruit cake,” Dad was chanting, as I let Milly in. Straightaway, she went and sat in Mrs Hoe’s basket, but it was empty, so that showed her. I put the red dress on a hanger, and the rest in a drawer, before she could sit on anything else.