Old Drumble

by Jack Lasenby

  “‘Last time I heard of you,’ I says to Tuppenny Bill, ‘somebody told me you’d had a run-in with the Rawleighs Man up Putaruru.’

  “‘It’s true,’ says Tuppenny Bill. “‘Me old woman give me a hiding, and run away with the Rawleighs Man. I was that pleased to see the back of her, and I hadn’t had so much as a day off from the post-splitting for years, so I thought of going on the swag. Just for a change, like. It’s been a bit of all right, too.

  “‘Mind you,’ Old Tuppenny says to me, ‘there hasn’t been much rain this season, so a man’s slept pretty comfy. It’s not a bad life, you know, on the swag!’

  “ ‘Not a bad life on the swag!’” Andy repeated to Jack. “‘Sleeping comfy!’ I knew Tuppenny Bill was on the swag because he didn’t have any work. He’d lost his contract post-splitting ’cause he hit the turps when his wife ran off, but he wasn’t going to say so. A man’s got his pride after all.

  “Moving round the country as I do, I’d heard of a job going on an orchard near Gate Pa, over at Tauranga, and I put old Tuppenny Bill on to it.

  “He hoofed it over the Kaimais, got the job, and he’s been there ever since; matter of fact, he finished up marrying the widow who owned the orchard. So he come out of it all right.”

  “What about his first wife, the one who ran away with the Rawleighs Man?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t a proper marriage. You know, they just jumped the broomstick.”

  “Jumped the broomstick?” Jack thought to himself, but Andy was still talking.

  “Yes, Old Tuppenny Bill’s a rich man today and, you know, he’d still be on the swag, if it hadn’t been for Old Drumble and his photographic memory.”

  “There’s just one thing,” said Jack.

  “What’s that?”

  “Tuppenny Bill’s hat,” said Jack. “He’d pulled it over his face as he lay there with his feet in the creek, having a snooze under the bridge. How could Old Drumble tell who it was when the hat was covering his face?”

  Andy nodded. “When I said Old Drumble never forgets a face, I should have reminded you he’s an eye dog, one of the strongest eyes in the business. He must’ve looked straight through Tuppenny Bill’s hat, while he was lying on the bank of the creek, seen his face, and recognised it at once.”

  “Old Drumble sounds like Mum!” said Jack. “She only has to look at me to know whether I’m telling the truth or not. She can see what I’m up to through a closed door. And she knows what I’m going to say before I’ve even finished thinking about it. She must have a strong eye, too.”

  “I suppose you could say your mother’s got a strong eye,” Andy agreed, “but I don’t know that I’d go saying it to her face. It’s a funny thing, Jack, but a lot of women don’t like being compared to a dog.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being compared to Old Drumble.”

  “Me neither,” said Andy. “But you’ll find the womenfolk different. They don’t think the same way as a man. You ask your father.

  “Here’s the church corner. Watch, and you’ll see how Old Drumble makes sure there’s nothing coming either way, then leads them out on the main road, and turns them north.”

  Jack watched Old Drumble hold the mob, look both ways and wait till a milk lorry from the dairy factory drove past, then lead the mob on to the main road. Just how he told them to start off, Jack couldn’t see, but the sheep did exactly what Old Drumble wanted.

  Andy followed at the back, with Old Nell and Young Nugget barking and giving the stragglers a hurry-up on to the main road. Andy nodded, winked, clicked the corner of his mouth, and said, “Be seeing you, Jack!” all at the same time.

  “Hooray, Andy!” Jack got that much out, and nodded back, but his head and chin tried to go to the same side, his eyes watered instead of winking, and he got no click. By the time he could see straight again, there was no sign of Old Drumble’s tail, but Jack knew it was there, floating at the head of the mob. Then Andy and Nosy were disappearing round the bend towards the railway crossing, a single bark drifted back, and Jack turned and trotted for home.

  Just as he strode past her place, Minnie Mitchell came out her gate, smiling, and Harry Jitters came fast out of his gate and stood near her.

  “It looks funny when you wave your arms and talk to yourself,” said Minnie.

  “Yeah!” growled Harry.

  “I’m not talking to meself,” Jack told them. “I’m workin’ me dogs!” He nodded, winked one eye, clicked the corner of his mouth, and signalled with one hand to his invisible dogs, who held the mob while he turned back to Minnie and Harry.

  “You know Old Drumble?”

  “Huh!” said Harry. “Who’s Old Drumble?”

  “Old Drumble’s famous all over the Waikato for his astonishing memory. The police use him to nose out the worst criminals. They can try dressing up as swaggers, but Old Drumble sees through their disguise at once. The police wanted him to work for them fulltime, but he said he’d rather be Andy the Drover’s leading dog.”

  Jack shook his head. “I thought you’d have known about Old Drumble,” he said to Harry. “Just about everyone else in the district does.”

  Harry shifted from one foot to the other and said “Gawn!”

  Minnie Mitchell glanced at him. “I know who Old Drumble is,” she said.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Jack told Harry Jitters, “you might not know who Old Drumble is, but you can be sure he knows who you are. He never forgets a face, not even if you try and hide it under your hat. And he never forgets a name either.”

  Harry Jitters stared after Jack as he went up Ward Street. At Whites’ Road, Jack waved one arm, pointed, and Harry heard him whistle.

  “He looks a nut case,” Harry said in a loud voice. “They ought to lock him up in the loony bin.”

  “You’re silly!” Minnie turned her back, shook her curls, and skipped back inside her gate. Up the top end of Ward Street, Jack broke into a trot.

  “You took your time coming home,” his mother said. She didn’t look up from the bench, where she was fitting a piece of twisted pastry around the edge of a pie dish. “I could tell what you were going to ask even before you opened the door. Can you go as far as the railway crossing and the corner of Cemetery Road next time Andy comes through? Well, the answer’s no! So don’t even bother asking.”

  Jack stared. His mother hadn’t just seen through the door with her strong eye—she’d even been able to tell he was going to ask if he could go as far as the crossing and Cemetery Road corner next time. He opened his mouth, but only a sort of “Click” came out. Not the click that Andy made, but a sucking sort of click of astonishment.

  “Close your mouth,” his mother told him, still not looking around at him. “You look as if you’re catching flies. It’s not the end of the world. We’ll see whether you can go as far as the corner of Cemetery Road when the time comes.” She dipped a little brush in milk, and wiped it over the pastry.

  “Gee, thanks, Mum! Are we having pie for lunch?”

  “I didn’t say you could go as far as the corner of Cemetery Road. All I said was that we’d see when the times comes.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Why Jack’s Mother Barked and Snapped

  Her Teeth, How Horses Crawl Under Gates

  and Have Terrible Hangovers, and

  Why Harry Jitters Said He Was Not Ham Snot.

  “NOW, GET OUT OF MY WAY,” said Jack’s mother. She twiddled the twisted pastry, and pressed a spoon around the edge to make a scalloped pattern. Jack looked at the wavy edge and swallowed. He loved pastry. The pie funnel in the middle looked like a little volcano waiting to erupt.

  “Out of my way, so I can open the oven door and get this pie cooked in time for your father’s lunch.”

  “Corker, I love pie! Mum, did you know Old Drumble’s got such a strong eye he can see through things? He saw through a swagger’s hat once. The swagger had pulled it over his face, but Old Drumble saw through it and recognised him at once because he never for
gets a face. He’s got a strong eye, just like you, Mum.”

  “The idea! Are you comparing me with a dirty old dog?”

  Jack looked nervously at the oven door and thought of the pie baking inside. “I didn’t mean you look like Old Drumble, Mum. I just meant he saw through Tuppenny Bill’s hat, like you said you could see what I was up to through the door. And I thought it must be because you’ve got a strong eye like Old Drumble.”

  “There you go again. Telling me I’m like a dog.” His mother growled deep in her throat. “You watch out, John Jackman, or it’ll be the last time you’re allowed to set foot outside the back door, let alone go trotting down the road behind a mob of sheep.” She barked and snapped her teeth at Jack, so he jumped backwards.

  “But Old Drumble’s got such a strong eye, he did see right through the swagger’s hat, and he’s got a first-class memory. He never forgets a face!”

  “You don’t have to go believing everything Andy tells you. He’s a great one for picking up a bit here and a bit there, and stringing them together into a story. It’s all on account of being on his own, wandering along behind the stock and talking to his horse and dogs to pass the time. I never believe half of what he tells me.”

  “How did Andy get to be a drover, Mum?”

  “He didn’t listen to his mother,” said Mrs Jackman. “Like a certain little boy I know. And like all boys who don’t listen to their mothers, he got into trouble.

  “He started following mobs of sheep. First down to the bottom end of the street, then down to the next corner. Then he followed a mob to the next corner, and then over the railway crossing and down Cemetery Road. One day he just kept following a mob, forgot where home was, and never found his way back.”

  “Is that true?”

  “He’s still wandering around somewhere up in the middle of the North Island.”

  “True?”

  “How would I know?” His mother stared at Jack with her strong eye, and he stared back. “Part of it might be true, and part might be made up.” She watched Jack trying to understand that and put on her mysterious look.

  “Andy started droving when he was a boy,” she said, “about the turn of the century. There weren’t the jobs then, the farm wasn’t big enough for him and his brothers, and he was the youngest, so he went droving.”

  “How do you know?”

  “His mother was some sort of second or third cousin to my mother, and I’ve known him all my life. Everyone knows Andy; he’s been a character in the district since the year dot.”

  “What’s the year dot, Mum?”

  “Do you think I’ve got time to stand around talking to you all day? The housework isn’t going to do itself. Ask your father, when he gets home from the factory for his lunch. He’ll tell you some cock-and-bull story about what the year dot means.”

  Then, suddenly, his father was there, and the pie appeared from the oven in a gush of hot air, the edge of the pastry wavy, brown, and crisp, the little volcano puffing steam. Jack’s mouth watered so much, he forgot to ask his father what the year dot meant.

  “And don’t you go getting flakes of pastry all over yourself,” said his mother. “Oh, what’s the use?”

  Jack spent most of that afternoon climbing the lawsoniana hedge around the school horse paddock. Harry Jitters joined him, and they broke and bent the branches at the corner with Whites’ Road till they’d made a hut.

  Once the hut was finished, they tried sitting in it and saying how beaut it was, but they got a bit sick of doing that. So they tried to climb from one lawsoniana to the next without touching the ground, all the way from the corner to the gate into the school horse paddock at the other end. They’d have done it, too, but Harry gave a yell and fell off the top of a tree, grabbed hold of Jack, and they slid down the outside of the branches which dipped and dumped them on the ground.

  “Down the road to the Domain,” said Jack, “that paddock of Mr Lewis’s that he closes up for hay, the lawsonianas are about a hundred feet high.”

  “Out on my Uncle Ken’s farm, he’s got lawsonianas two hundred feet high,” said Harry.

  “Do you think he’d let us slide down them?”

  “He lets me do anything I like. One of his lawsonianas is about three hundred feet high, but that’s a bit too high to slide down,” Harry said.

  “I slid down a lawsoniana five hundred feet high,” Jack boasted. “Out Wardville. It took two hours to climb, and ten minutes to come down.”

  “That’s not a true story, Jack Jackman. Everyone knows lawsonianas don’t grow five hundred feet high!” said Harry Jitters. “It’s not true…is it?”

  “Part of it might be true, and part might be made up,” said Jack, and tried to look mysterious.

  “You just made it up!”

  They crawled under the horse paddock gate, at the end where it was higher off the ground. “You’d think they’d fix the gate,” said Jack, “so it doesn’t leave so much of a gap.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause a horse could get down on his hands and knees and crawl under, like we just did.”

  “Aw! I’d like to see a horse that could crawl under a gate.”

  “I’ll bet Nosy could!”

  “Who’s Nosy?”

  “Nosy’s Andy the Drover’s horse. She can open gates, no trouble. The ones with a sliding latch, she just shoves along with her nose; the ones with a hook, she nudges them up with her nose, too. She’s not so good with the hooks that have got a spring on them, but she’s teaching herself, Andy reckons. He says it’s just a matter of time before she finds out how to hold the spring open with one hoof and nudge the hook up with her nose.”

  “You’re making up stories again.”

  “Andy said he left Nosy closed in for the night once, and she unhooked the gate, let herself out, went to the pub and got a skinful of beer, came home, let herself back into her paddock, and hooked the gate closed behind her. Andy wouldn’t have known about it, but somebody told him he’d seen a horse drinking in the pub the night before, and they had trouble getting her out the door at closing time. She reckoned she hadn’t finished her beer, but it was after six o’clock, so they threw her out.

  “Andy had his suspicions, he reckoned, so he went to sniff her breath and smelled tobacco on her coat.”

  “Aw, everyone knows horses don’t smoke!”

  “I didn’t say she’d been smoking, did I? Pubs are always full of smoke, so her coat stunk of it. But she’d been boozing all right, because Andy could still smell the beer on her breath next morning. What’s more, Nosy was crook with the piss and no use for droving for a couple of days. Horses have terrible hangovers, because they’re so big.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Everything Andy says is true.”

  “Anyway, there’s no pub in Matamata ’cause we’re a dry area,” Harry said, “and my mother says it’s a good thing, too.”

  “I didn’t say Matamata. It was over in Morrinsville. They’ve got several pubs, as well as the saleyards, so Andy often has a droving job over there, and that’s when Nosy opened the gate and got herself plastered, see!”

  “Huh!” Harry grunted. “My mother says I’m not allowed to say ‘plastered’. And you said ‘piss’, and that’s swearing.”

  “Who are you going to tell?”

  “I’m going to tell the vicar on you.”

  “I’m not scared of your silly old vicar. Anyway, next time Andy comes through, I’m going to help him drive his sheep all the way over the factory crossing and on to Cemetery Road.”

  “You are not!”

  “Am so.”

  “Not.”

  “Am so.”

  “Am not.”

  “You said it! You said you’re ham snot!”

  “I am not ham snot!” said Harry Jitters and ran for home, while Jack Jackman did his puku dance in the middle of Ward Street and cried, “Unga-Yunga!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Why Jack Jumped Like a Sheep, />
  How Old Nosy Put Waharoa on the Map, and

  Why Andy and Jack’s Father Put Together a

  Stepladder Made out of Railway Sleepers.

  ANDY BROUGHT SOME SHEEP through, the following morning, and Jack pestered his mother till she said he could go as far as the corner of Cemetery Road.

  “You watch out for trains at the factory crossing,” Mrs Jackman said. “Look both ways and, if you see one coming, you make sure you wait for it to go through before you cross.” She had to call the last words after him, because Jack was already running out the gate.

  “Can Old Drumble work cattle beasts just with his eye?” he asked Andy, as they crossed the Turangaomoana road to collect the mob. “Mum can work me through a closed door, just with her eye.”

  Andy nodded. “Old Drumble’s eye’s that strong, he can work anything.”

  “Anything?”

  “Chooks. Goats. Pigs. I once saw him shift a loaded wagon five chains down the road, just using his strong eye. But that was for a bet, and he felt a bit dizzy afterwards, so I told him to lay off in case it made him crook.”

  “Could he work me?”

  “You wouldn’t like it if he did.”

  “Yes, I would. Please, Andy—make Old Drumble work me with his eye?” Jack grinned, excited.

  They were standing by the hall. Andy made a little chirruping sort of whistle, nodded, and did something with his hand. Jack looked around to where he’d nodded, and saw Old Drumble staring at him.

  Jack went to look away but found he didn’t want to shift his eyes. He forgot Andy: he forgot the mob: he forgot Nosy. He stared back at Old Drumble who stared at him, lay down without taking his eyes off Jack’s, kept his nose pointing straight at him, and crept forward about one inch. Then another.

  Jack found himself stamping one foot at Old Drumble, the way he’d seen a ewe do it. Old Drumble hunched himself forward another inch. Jack backed away, but Old Drumble moved with him. Jack backed around Andy and Nosy, and Old Drumble came after him. For a second, Jack took his eyes off and ran, but there was a flash of black and white, and Old Drumble was there ahead of him, his eye fixed on Jack, daring him to move.