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.
“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?”