Old Drumble

by Jack Lasenby

  “I don’t like this,” Jack wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come out. Instead he backed around behind Nosy again, back past Andy, followed every step by Old Drumble holding him with his eye.

  Jack took a quick glance, saw the gate up the side of the hall was open, and moved towards it. Old Drumble seemed to want him to go through it; Jack thought he could hear a voice telling him to go through it; he knew he wanted to go through it himself.

  Jack jumped high through the gate, shouting “Baa!” like a sheep, and Old Drumble came over and lay down across the gateway, holding him inside. Andy whistled, and Old Drumble turned back into himself and let Jack out.

  “I didn’t like that,” said Jack.

  “Now you know what it feels like to be a sheep,” said Andy, “being worked by an eye dog.”

  “It’s a bit like the way Mum works me,” Jack told him. “Has Old Drumble ever worked you?”

  “Who do you think runs the show? I’ve been working for Old Drumble for years!

  “I never wanted to be a drover, out on the road in all weathers. It was his idea.” Andy shifted his hat so Jack saw his white skull for a moment, and then pulled it back down over his eyes.

  “There’s times I can’t do a thing for myself because he turns his strong eye on me and makes me walk this way and that, round this corner, round that one. Take this road, not that one, I hear him saying, even though he hasn’t spoken a word aloud.

  “I told you Old Drumble’s got a map of the North Island inside his head. Just as well, too, because I never had much sense of direction myself.”

  Old Drumble led, the mob followed, and Young Nugget, Old Nell, Nosy, Andy, and Jack followed them. As they passed his house, Jack’s mother came to the gate and said, “You watch out for trains, you hear me now?”

  “I’ll remind him,” Andy nodded.

  Then they were down the bottom end of Ward Street, Minnie Mitchell staring through her gate, and Harry Jitters hiding behind his mother’s white azalea and not coming out till the mob was past. Jack didn’t notice them; he was too busy watching Old Drumble’s tail up the front of the mob, and listening to Andy.

  “Did I ever tell you about the day I found Old Nosy up your mother’s Granny Smith?” Andy asked.

  “Nosy! How could she climb our apple tree?”

  “Same way anyone climbs. No trouble to her. I was having a cup of tea with your mum and dad, and we heard this hullabaloo. It was Nosy up in the apple tree, that one in your backyard. She’d got up all right, but she found coming down a bit different.”

  “I got stuck up the apple tree once,” said Jack. “Mum poked me with the broom handle, and that made me come down in a hurry. Then she gave me a spoonful of castor oil because I had the collywobbles from too many green apples.”

  “Well, you’ll understand how Nosy felt. Cats are great ones for getting stuck up trees. You know how they can climb anything? They’ll get up high enough, and sit there, looking down and howling their heads off, till somebody’s silly enough to bring a ladder, and climbs up and nearly breaks his neck trying to catch the cat, then it’ll leap over him and run down the ladder, no trouble. And then it’ll want a feed and hang around, rubbing against your legs and tripping you over. Cats!” Andy said. “It’s a bit different when your horse gets stuck up a tree.”

  “What happened to Nosy?”

  Andy whistled and raised his stick. Young Nugget cut back and stirred up a couple of sheep. “Like I was saying,” said Andy, “she climbed up into your mother’s apple tree and made a right pig of herself, stuffed herself full, then decided she wanted to come down, but didn’t know how. Everyone in Waharoa came and had a look. A horse stuck up an apple tree!

  “They sent photographers from the Waikato Times and the Auckland Weekly News, but the snaps didn’t come out, or I’d show them to you. Still, there was something about her in the New Zealand Herald and the Free Lance. People said Nosy had put Waharoa on the map.

  “She sat up there most of a week, and still didn’t look like coming down.”

  “What’d she live on? ”

  “What do you think? Ate every single apple within reach by stretching out her long neck, and grabbing them between her teeth. Of course, she was too scared to let go of the branches, in case she fell.”

  Andy was quiet as they came to the church corner, and Old Drumble slowed the head of the mob, made sure the road was clear, and led them out and headed north.

  Jack watched closely this time, and thought he saw how Old Drumble did it. He didn’t say anything to the sheep, just pranced ahead with his tail in the air, and the sheep up the front followed it with their eyes and trotted after him. Not one of them ran the other way but, just in case, Old Nell scampered up the side of the mob and stood there, daring them to even think of it.

  Jack and Andy followed along the main road. A lorry stopped, and Old Drumble turned, split the head of the mob, and the sheep trotted around either side.

  “Thanks!” Andy nodded and winked back to the driver.

  “You get some coots who want to drive through your mob,” he said to Jack. “Haven’t got time to wait. When that happens, Old Drumble pushes the mob together, and blocks the road deliberately. I’ve seen him keep an impatient driver waiting for a couple of hours, specially any clown who starts tooting and revving his engine. Old Drumble, he knows we’ve got the right of way on a stock route.”

  “What happened to Nosy, up in the apple tree?”

  “Without her, I had no horse, so I put the mob I was driving into the school footy paddock. Old Strap, the headmaster, wasn’t too happy about it, but I’d driven stock for just about everyone on the school committee, and they reckoned it was okay.

  “I camped in your back shed, and your father took a few days off from the factory and gave me a hand to put together a stepladder, out of railway sleepers. It had to be something pretty solid, because a horse weighs a fair bit, you know.”

  Jack nodded as if he already knew that a horse weighs a fair bit. “You’d need a big stepladder,” he said. “Did Nosy come down it okay?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  How Nosy Came Down the Tree and

  Got the Giant Farts, Guts for Garters,

  Why Old Drumble Was a Fairly

  Formal Sort of Dog, and Why Jack

  Stuck His Feet Well Out to the Side.

  “WE HAD THE STEPLADDER just about finished,” said Andy. “All it needed was handrails for Nosy to hang on to, so she wouldn’t slip over the side as she came down out of the tree. Then, blow me days, if I didn’t get up one morning and found she’d jumped down out of the tree, scoffed every dahlia in your mother’s flowerbed, gobbled your dad’s cabbages, and chewed up every single one of his onions. Three whole rows of them!

  “Talk about pong! Her breath stunk like a thousand years,” said Andy. “Old Drumble let the mob out of the school horse paddock, and we got on the road again, but neither of us could stand it. Old Drumble made her walk about half a mile behind the mob; he told her she had to keep her mouth wide open, till the sun and the wind and the rain washed away the stink of onions.

  “I’ll tell you what…”

  “What?” asked Jack.

  “Perhaps I’d better not say.”

  “Oh, tell me.”

  “No, you’ll only get me into trouble, telling your mother.”

  “I won’t!”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise,” said Jack. “Cross my heart and hope to die,” he said. He’d heard somebody say that, and it sounded pretty convincing.

  Andy nodded. “Okay. Well, it’s like this: because she’d eaten all those onions, Old Nosy got the giant farts!”

  Jack laughed. “I didn’t know horses fart!”

  “Course they do,” said Andy. “Worse than us. Specially when they’ve got the collywobbles from eating green apples for a week, and then they eat a stack of dahlias, cabbages, and three whole rows of onions. You ask your father. He saw it happen. But not a word
about it to your mother.”

  The more Jack thought about Nosy having the giant farts, the more he laughed.

  “It might sound funny now,” said Andy, “but she stunk something terrible. People ran to close their windows, as I drove the mob past, and they shouted, ‘Why don’t you stand in the creek and give yourself a good scrub!’ Somebody even yelled, ‘Change your socks!’ It was so embarrassing, I didn’t know which way to look.”

  “Even though Nosy was half a mile behind the mob?” asked Jack.

  “Even though she was half a mile back. She honked enough to knock a man off his feet. Once the wind swung round and carried her stench over us, and half the sheep dropped unconscious. It was just good luck that it changed direction again.”

  Jack nodded. “I’ll try not to tell Mum,” he told Andy, “but sometimes she can tell what I’m thinking.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” said Andy, “or your mother will have my guts for garters.”

  “I’ll try not to,” Jack promised, “but is it okay if I tell Dad?”

  Andy nodded. “Jokers are more understanding,” he said.

  Jack climbed on the fence. Up there he could look over the heads of the mob at Old Drumble who’d stopped at the railway crossing and was looking first up the line and then down it in the other direction, making sure there was no train coming. As Jack watched, he stuck his tail up again and trotted ahead. The sheep followed him over the crossing and took the turn to the right down Cemetery Road. Old Nell moved up again, making sure none of them tried to head left around the factory road.

  “Mum wouldn’t know if I just went as far as Dunlops’ gate with you,” said Jack.

  “I wouldn’t try it on,” Andy replied. “She’s probably watching us with her strong eye, all the way down Ward Street, straight through the church and the plantation, to where we’re standing here.”

  “She can tell what I’m thinking through a closed door,” said Jack.

  “That’s the sort of thing I mean. Uncanny, that’s what it is!” Andy gave a whistle, and Old Drumble dived through the fence between the road and the railway line, trotted back, wriggled under the fence beside them, and looked up.

  “Jack’s about to head home,” Andy told him. “How about shaking hands?”

  Old Drumble sat and raised his front right paw. Jack gave it a shake. “Woof!” said Old Drumble.

  “That’s the way!” said Andy. “He’s a fairly formal sort of a dog, Old Drumble. Hooray, Jack!”

  “Hooray, Andy! Hooray, Old Drumble!”

  Jack watched Old Drumble wriggle under the fence alongside the railway line, run along the track, jump through the fence again, and take the lead down Cemetery Road.

  As Nosy passed Jack, she snorted at him and blew through her nostrils. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” he told her. He sniffed but there wasn’t any stink of onions, just the pleasant smell of horse and fresh-chewed grass. He stood a few minutes, watching her go, then thought of something and laughed out loud.

  Mr Sunderland, pedalling home for lunch, thought he was laughing at him and said something that Jack didn’t hear. Jack looked both ways, crossed the railway lines and the main road, and trotted back towards the church corner. From there he could see Harry Jitters and Minnie Mitchell outside their gates, so started working his invisible dogs.

  “That’s a noisy huntaway you’ve got there,” said his father’s voice.

  “Dad! I went with Andy and Old Drumble all the way to the corner of Cemetery Road, and Old Drumble shook hands, and he told me about the time Nosy climbed our apple tree and ate all the Granny Smiths and couldn’t get down…” Jack ran out of breath.

  “Did Old Drumble tell you all that?”

  “Andy told me, but Old Drumble shook hands and said goodbye. And Andy told me how Nosy got down the tree after you’d built the stepladder out of railway sleepers, and she ate all your onions and got the giant farts.”

  Sitting on the bar of the bike, holding on to the handlebars, Jack felt his father shaking. “What’s funny, Dad?”

  His father laughed aloud. “I wouldn’t go telling your mother about those giant farts. She mightn’t think it was funny.”

  “Why doesn’t she laugh at the same things we laugh at, Dad?”

  “It’s different for women, I suppose. They don’t find farting funny, or they reckon they don’t.”

  “But everybody farts, Dad. You told me so.”

  “All the same, your mother doesn’t approve of it. So watch your tongue.”

  “Dad, how do you think Nosy climbed down out of the tree?”

  “The same way you come down a telegraph post: held on to a branch with her teeth, felt with her back feet till she got a grip of the trunk, wrapped her legs around it, then let herself down backwards, a bit at a time.”

  “How do you know she came down like that?”

  “At first, I couldn’t work out how she’d managed it, so I climbed up and had a look, and there were her tooth marks round the branch. I got my own teeth round it, and felt for the trunk with my feet, hung on with my arms like Nosy must have done with her front legs, lowered my feet further down the trunk and took another grip, brought my arms down a bit, and shinned down like that.”

  “Did your teeth make marks around the branch, too?”

  “Same as Nosy.”

  “I’m going to have a look when we get home.”

  “You won’t find them. We both bit so hard, our teeth ringbarked that branch, and it died, so I sawed it off, next time I pruned the apple tree.

  “Hello, Harry! Hello, Minnie!” Mr Jackman called.

  “Hello, Mr Jackman!”

  Jack didn’t look at Harry and Minnie, but rang the bell to let them know he’d helped Andy drive the sheep all the way over the railway crossing to the corner of Cemetery Road, and shaken hands with Old Drumble, and he was getting a double home on his father’s grid.

  When Harry ran a few steps after them, Jack craned his head around for a look.

  “Keep your feet out,” said his father’s voice. “You don’t want to go sticking your toes into the spokes.”

  “What would that do, Dad?”

  “There was a little boy up in Matamata getting a dub with his father, and he stuck his toes in the spokes and they were all chopped off.”

  “Crikey! Did it hurt?”

  “You bet!”

  “Did he die?”

  “The quack stitched up where the toes had come off, and he got a job as a teller in the bank, where he can sit on a stool all day because feet without toes aren’t much use for walking.”

  Jack watched the road ahead disappearing under the front wheel and stuck his feet well out because he didn’t want to work in the bank.

  “What did they do with the toes?”

  “He went back on his crutches and had a look, but somebody said a dog had eaten them.”

  “Old Drumble wouldn’t eat my toes.”

  “Keep your feet out of the way, and he won’t have to.”

  Jack stuck his feet even further out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  How Jack Nearly Got His Mouth Washed Out

  With Soap, Why Mr Jackman Decided

  He’d Just Have to Take His Punishment,

  and Why Jack Couldn’t Climb Down

  the Way that Nosy Did.

  “DAD,” JACK ASKED, “do you think Mum will let me go down Cemetery Road with Andy and Old Drumble, next time they come through?”

  “So long as you don’t tell her about Nosy having the giant farts, she might let you go. And I’d keep it to myself, about the way Nosy came down the apple tree.”

  “Why?”

  “Your mother doesn’t believe horses can climb apple trees.”

  “But she told me once that Nosy ate all her dahlias.”

  “Everyone knows horses love dahlias. But imagine what would happen if Mrs Dainty found out that someone had seen a horse sitting up in Mum’s Granny Smith, helping itself to the apples…”
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  “What?”

  “You know Mrs Dainty. She’d go down to the post office, and the store, and the baker’s, and the butcher’s, and tell everybody how your mother had a horse up in her apple tree. Within a few hours, there wouldn’t be another woman in Waharoa who’d give your mother the time of day.”

  “I’d show that Mrs Dainty!”

  “That wouldn’t help your mother.”

  “It’s not fair!” Jack’s voice rose high.

  “It hasn’t happened yet, and it’s probably not going to.”

  “I know! What say we open Mrs Dainty’s gate and let Nosy into her place? She could climb Mrs Dainty’s Golden Delicious and eat all the apples. And everyone going down the Turangaomoana Road would see a horse up her apple tree, and then not a woman in Waharoa would give Mrs Dainty the time of day.”

  “It’s an idea; but keep it up your sleeve in case we need it. And remember, not a word to your mother about Nosy and the giant farts, not unless you’re looking for trouble.”

  Jack slipped off and opened the gate. His mother stood at the back door. “About time, too! I was just about to come out and look down the road for the pair of you. Another five minutes, and I’d have taken your lunch off the table!”

  “Mum?” Jack said. “Next time, can I help Old Drumble and Andy take the mob down the end of Cemetery Road?”

  “First it’s just down the bottom of the street, then it’s just as far as the church corner, and then just to the railway crossing. There’s no satisfying the boy!”

  Jack looked at his mother.

  “We’ll see,” she said. “And what cock-and-bull story did Andy fill you up with this time?”

  “He didn’t tell me any cock-and-bull stories, Mum. He told me about how Nosy can climb trees, and how she comes down them.” Jack looked at his father, who looked down at his plate and shook his head ever so slightly.

  “She climbs telegraph posts, too.” Jack looked desperate. “Once she climbed a lawsoniana five hundred feet high and slid down the outside.”

  “I’ve never heard such rubbish in all my life. Where does the man get such ideas?”