BY THE TIME the old dunny hole was filled, I could see the bottom of the new hole glistening with water.
“Come up,” I said. “You might sink.”
Dad laughed and went on filling the bucket.
“What if it’s quicksand?” I felt like crying again.
Dad took his time climbing up the ladder and, even when he’d got out of the hole, I couldn’t help him pull up the last bucket. I felt sick, angry, and scared all at once.
Mr Harsant came over to give a hand, pointed at the different layers of soil and said, “You can see how the district was all swamp in the early days, but since they dug the drains earlier this century it’s dried out and sunk. That sand down there looks as if it was once a riverbed.”
I rubbed my face against Dad’s hand. I didn’t want him sinking out of sight in some underground river.
We finished the dunny on Sunday. The rimu was so hard, we had to drill it, and that took ages, turning the little handle. The roof and walls were the corrugated iron from behind the bottom shed.
“We’ll have to do without a door till I can knock one up next weekend,” Dad said. I tried the new dunny first, and found nobody could see, because of the big poorman’s orange; the sun shone in and made the seat warm.
Freddy Jones kept on, but no one took any notice now. Mr Bryce and Mr Cleaver teased me a couple of times, but I didn’t mind, especially when Mr Bryce told me a story about the Birchall boys out Walton. They were supposed to be using a splitting-gun on a log for firewood, but they acted the giddy goat and blew up their dunny instead.
Mrs Dainty came in for her paper, heard the end of the story and sniffed. “It sounds very irresponsible. I was never allowed to play with matches and candles when I was a child.”
I thought of poor old Mr Dainty and made a picture of him in my mind blowing up their dunny with a splitting-gun, then running away to be a swagger, sleeping under hedges and haystacks, cooking himself a feed of sausages with gravy and mashed potatoes, and laughing and laughing.
“I’m glad you think it’s funny,” said Mrs Dainty, looking at my face and stalking off.
We were still having frosts, but Dad reckoned there were signs of spring.
“Before you know it,” he said, “the cockies will be closing up their paddocks for hay, and next thing it’ll be summer.”
On the way to school, the dew glittered on the cobwebs between the fence wires—white diamonds stitched on lace. I wondered if the spiders knew about spring, and thought about the ones that burned to death when our old dunny went up.
As my old clothes got too small for me, we washed and patched them, sewed on missing buttons, and pressed them. I asked Dad if he was keeping them to look at when I got older.
“There’s too much wear left in them, just to throw out.” He put them into a sugarbag with my old shoes that he’d cleaned and polished. “I thought of giving them to Mrs Wilson, down the pa.”
“Peggy Wilson’s only in standard one, so maybe she’ll get her feet into my old shoes.”
“Maybe.”
“Dad?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Dad, will they like taking my old clothes? You know…”
“With her mob, Mrs Wilson’ll be only too pleased to get them.”
“If you could only see your face. But I know what you mean about giving them to somebody down the pa. You’re wearing somebody else’s hand-me-downs yourself, aren’t you? You’re grateful for them, but you don’t have to go feeling bad about it. The main thing is to have the clothes.
“Mrs Wilson’ll drop in some blackberries and mushrooms next autumn. She did it before, when your mother used to pass on her old things. We’re not giving your old stuff away; it’s more like swapping.”
I still felt a bit funny about Dad giving my old clothes to Mrs Wilson.
“Dad says it’s because they live down the pa,” I told Mr Bluenose. “He says that’s why it seems different.”
“You are both right. It is different.’ Mr Bluenose looked very serious. “The Wilsons are Maoris. But your father is right, too: all that matters is having the clothes, not where they come from.
“You have no mother to make your clothes now. Perhaps somebody will help you and, if they do, what matters is the help, not who gives it.
“Of course,” he added, “it depends how the help is given. If being helped makes you feel bad, perhaps you are better off without it. If you can afford it.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant.
“And something else,” said Mr Bluenose, “if you feel good because you are giving something away, then it is probably better not to give it. Is that what made you feel uncomfortable, Maggie?”
“Perhaps.”
After talking to Mr Bluenose, I didn’t feel quite so uncomfortable. I wore my new shoes and hoped Peggy Wilson would have my old ones, but still didn’t see her wearing them. Then it got warmer, and everyone started going barefoot again. Maybe, I thought, Peggy was keeping my old shoes for next winter.
Our Christmas plum tree flowered white, and Dad said he’d noticed them all around the district.
“Talking of flowers,” he said, “do you notice all the new farmhouses are going up nearer the road these days? You can see where the old places were by the bulbs that come up in spring. Look at McKenzies’ up the Matamata road, the line of the drive to where the old place stood before it burnt down, halfway up the farm.”
It was like Dad said. The sides of the old drive were lined by clumps of snowdrops and daffodils, curving across the paddock to the big walnuts where only the brick chimney stood. Looking at it made me feel sad.
When I went down to Mr Bluenose’s now, his early plums had finished flowering. I wished the apples would hurry up with their buds and cover the cut-off branches.
Mr Bluenose shook his head. “Apples are the last to flower; when they do, spring will really be here. Already there are young birds, fledglings, trying their wings.
“That Bagheera, all winter, he caught many rats, but now he is catching young blackbirds and thrushes in the orchard. I hoped they would see him coming, but they have not yet learned about black panthers.”
“Is he hungry?”
“Even well-fed, a hunting cat like Bagheera still kills. It is his instinct. He kills, glares around, and leaves the bird uneaten.”
“I’m glad Milly’s a sleeping cat,” I told Mr Bluenose, “even if I am afraid I’ll find a rat in the wheat barrel.”
Mr Bluenose smiled. “We each got the cat we wanted.”
“Milly caught a mouse,” I told him, “but she played with it till it got away, so she pretended she meant to let it go. Dad says if we get another rat in the bottom shed, she can jolly well sleep down there till she catches it, but I like her sleeping on my bed.”
“Now it is warming up,” said Mr Bluenose, “the rats and mice are not coming inside, but cats still like it. Even the reliable Bagheera sleeps in the sun.”
School broke up, and I walked home with Freddy Jones, Billy Harsant, and Ken and Jean Carter. Freddy and Billy sang, “No more spelling, no more sums, no more teachers to whack our bums.” Jean said she was making a pompom out of old bits of wool to give her father for Christmas.
“What are you giving your father?” she asked.
“I’m knitting something.” I didn’t say a scarf, because Freddy would throw off at whatever I said. “Milly always wants to play with the wool.”
“Remember the long holidays last year?” said Ken. “They went on for ever.”
“My mother said we won’t have the infantile this summer,” Freddy told him. “She says it only comes every few years, something to do with the water.”
“Our mother’s making us hats that come down the backs of our necks,” said Jean. “She says it’s something to do with the sun.”
It was the flush, the time of year when carts and lorries were bringing milk into the factory from first thing in the morning till last thing at night, so Dad was working long hours. The grass grew tall in the paddocks shut up for hay. I finished knitting my present, and Mrs Harsant cast off for me.
“I’d love to show you how, but haven’t the time now, Maggie. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.”
She was always on the go, Mrs Harsant.