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Chapter III
A Question of Breakfast

"Breakfast," said Jan in an awful voice, "is waiting for us in the Nursery!"

She was standing on the veranda, very spruce and tidy in a new holland frock, and Rob and I met her as we came up from the river, where we had been taking an early morning survey of the countryside.

We had arisen quite early—somewhere about six o'clock—and gone out into the fresh morning air, leaving Jan and Pipi still asleep.

Somehow, with the comfort of a night's rest behind, and the warmth of the sun and the glory of the morning around, all the troubles which had so depressed me seemed to have melted away. It was such a wonderful morning, all fresh and crisp and clear, with the sun shining from a cloudless sky overhead and drawing the sweetness from the great clusters of early roses which covered the veranda posts. Impossible to be miserable or dolefully prophetic when the sweet-peas nodded a cheerful "Good morning" over the top of a sombre macracarpo hedge, and the air was full of the cry of the birds twittering and calling to each other in the plantations which page 33surrounded the homestead. Rob and I flew across the wide stretch of lawn, past the flowering shrubs and the lilacs with their delicate, sweet perfume, through a dark pine plantation, and then over a stretch of yellow-brown tussock-covered land, rough and stony, with here and there a patch of gorse or tangly manuka scrub.

And at last, stretching away in varying tones of grey, we came upon the great river bed, with the water threading its way in hundreds of streams through the rough boulders, dashing in parts with a whirl and a roar over all obstacles, and winding more slowly between the innumerable little islands. Beyond the river lay the bush-clad hills, and beyond these again the wonderful snow-capped mountains, where the sun sank to rest every night, piercing the soft grey mists around with wonderful glory lights.

It was so wonderful that Rob and. I stood for a long time looking at it. All around the sheep nibbled placidly; a belated rabbit scudded across our path; near by a weka lifted his voice in monotonous wail. Under a low, overhanging bank a solitary Konini bush, strayed from its bush environment, shook its scarlet and pink bells in the breeze. Rob and I, climbing down, gathered a bunch of the delicate flowers, which, unfortunately, I lost when we strolled out on to one of the little promontories which the way of the water had cut from the bank. Here a page 34wide, rushing stream separated us from the dearest little island which I longed to explore.

"We might paddle across," I suggested to Rob.

He laughed.

"You couldn't do. it, kiddy Why, the water would soon whirl you to nowhere., These streams are terribly treacherous."

"They look calm enough—some of them," I said. "And there isn't a great deal of water."

"Just wait till we've had a nor'-wester wind, and the snows melt on the ranges. This is a snow-fed river, you know, and when there is a hot wind after a spell of cold weather the water comes down in torrents from the mountain sides. The river rises rapidly, and you can't see many islands then. It rises, in rainy times, too, but it takes a week of cold and one of heat to really bring the waters down."

Rob does talk beautifully sometimes—just like a geography book.

We strolled along the banks until we came to a ford. I should never have known that it was a ford, but Rob could tell by the colour of the water. He said that at most times it was quite safe and easy to cross, but sometimes the river rose suddenly, and several men and one woman had been swept off their saddles and carried away by the waters and drowned.

Just one poor girl! She was quite young, Rob said. I could almost see the waters creeping, creeping up page 35and catching her, whirling her, and carrying her away. Away down to the sea, away from everybody, away from everything she loved.

The thought of it was so sad that it dimmed for a moment the brightness of the morning, and only Rob's voice, urging me homewards again, brought me back to reality and the conviction that it must be nearly eight o'clock, and that I was very hungry and wanting my breakfast.

Then we raced over the tussocks again, scrambled up the bank, through the plantation, and out on to the lawn. Then, as I told you, we met Jan, waiting for us with her news, on the veranda.

Her expression was such a funny mixture of dignity and resentment that we both knew before she spoke that something was wrong. Rob only laughed when he heard the announcement, but I felt very suddenly the weight of my twelve years. At home we had, all of us, even Jock and Pipi, taken our meals with mother and Dad, and it was certainly humiliating, to say the least of it, to be banished by the uncles to a room that we had always associated with English story books and rather prim and proper children.

"How do you know? Are you sure?" I asked, while Rob laughed again, and Jan took a gloomy interest in my discomfiture.

"Certain," repeated Jan, adding with heavy sar-page 36casm, "And I hope they've got Mellin's Food, for us, and high chairs and feeders."

"After all, you're only kids, you know," said Rob. "What else could you expect? We're not at home now."

"You're to have yours too," said Jan, with a sudden lightening of her gloom. "I know, because Mrs. McPherson told me that only Kathie was to join the uncles for breakfast and late dinner—the rest of us were to pig it in the nursery."

"Did she say 'pig it'?" I asked, trying to associate the expression with the starched dignity of the housekeeper.

"Well, no," Jan admitted, "but that was what she meant. The nursery, mind you, and I'm fifteen."

"All but five months," I added, for I like accuracy, and Jan is apt to lose count of the months when her dignity is in question.

Inside the house a bell clanged heavily, a delicious odour of bacon and eggs floated out to us, and as if drawn by it Uncle John and Uncle Stephen swung round the corner of the veranda on their way to breakfast. Uncle Stephen smiled at us kindly,, but Uncle John roared out that "breakfast was ready in the nursery, and that we weren't to keep Mrs. McPherson waiting."

"There! Didn't I tell you so?" demanded Jan, triumphing over Rob in the midst of her humiliation.

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"Nursery indeed. Where's my rattle? I wants my rattle!" '

"Oh, shut up!" said Rob, kicking the gravel.

"Shut up yourself. I've a very good mind to walk straight into the dining-room and sit down and say I've come to breakfast."

'Td like to see you," I said, for Jan's words are always more desperate than her action.

"What are you waiting for? Why don't you go straight away?" Rob asked unkindly.

"Because I don't choose to," snapped Jan, in answer. "And, anyhow, I'm not—"

"Here's Uncle Dan," I said, catching sight of the tall, grey-clad figure crossing the lawn on the way to the dining-room. "Let's ask him and see what he'll say. Ask Uncle Dan what he thinks."

"Uncle Dan!" Rob exploded suddenly, throwing all his hurt dignity into the words, "Uncle Dan— not from me."

"What shall you call him?" I asked, ever so meekly, because uncle was approaching and I really wanted to know.

"Daniel!" suggested Jan, with an upward turn of her lip.

"Dan!" said Rob forcefully, and at that very moment uncle joined us.

"Morning, kiddies!" he said to Jan and me, and Jan, feeling that life at Kamahi was to be nothing page 38but one long succession of insults, drew herself up stiffly.

"Good morning' she said elegantly.

"Breakfast is waiting for us in the nursery' I said. And uncle's merry eyes sought out Jan and Rob—Jan frowning and Rob carefully indifferent.

"Then why not go and eat it?" he suggested, at which Jan frowned more heavily and Rob drew himself up till he seemed growing before our very eyes.

"I'm sixteen—seventeen nearly," he said.

"And I'm twenty-four," answered uncle, laughing. He put his hand on Rob's shoulder. "Breakfast is waiting for us in the dining-room, old chap," he said. "Come along"

One moment Rob hesitated, then drew himself up straighter than ever.

"Thanks, Dan!" he said; and they went up the veranda together and in at the dining-room window.

Jan and I watched them go, Jan sizzling with suppressed rage.

"Let's have some breakfast too," I suggested, for I was really hungry, and I felt that I could swallow even the insult of a nursery meal if it were coupled with something more substantial.

"I won't. I'll never eat again."

"Oh!" I said, feeling rather hopeless.

"I've a very good mind—" began Jan vigorously.

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"Breakfast! Did ye no hear the bell?" asked a voice from the background, and Jan and I turned hurriedly and followed Mrs. McPherson meekly down a long, narrow passage to what, as we afterwards learned, was the oldest part of the house. It was a quaint old higgledy-piggledy place with a wide, comfortable veranda running round three sides of the completed building. The "nursery," as I told you, was part of the original structure, and it stood alone, connected with the rest of the building by a long covered-in passage. But it was a dear old-fashioned room that looked out over the orchard, now massed in delicate pinks and whites and vivid greens against the sombre background of the plantations.

The window faced the east, and the morning sun was shining in cheerfully, but Mrs. McPherson had built a fire in the huge open fireplace, which was quite the largest in the house, and which, as Jan said, could easily have accommodated a tree at a time, not to mention a few extra logs and a ton or two of coals. The furniture was a curious assortment—a battred old bookcase, an ancient, curious-looking little piano, some prehistoric chairs, and a plain deal table, now covered with a white cloth and holding a tempting array of dishes.

Mrs. McPherson told me that this was to be our special room, and here we were to do our lessons and play in wet weather.

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"And now sit down to your breakfast like good bairns," she said, while Jan sizzled helplessly. "Eight o'clock every morning, mind, and your uncles expect you to be in good time for each meal. Yell take lunch in the dining-room, but tea in here, of course. The porridge is cooling."

And when she had gone Jan exploded.

She walked round and round the table, and so angry that she really couldn't keep still and join Jock, Pipi and me in the breakfast we were already enjoying. Porridge was good enough for the children. No, not the children, the little weeny babies who couldn't talk properly and could only just toddle. Bacon would be bad for them—porridge and milk was the thing for such tiny tots.

"Have some?" Jock suggested. "There's cream to eat with it, and some preserved fruit."

"No, I won't," said Jan indignantly. "I won't eat another single thing. I'd sooner starve to death. I expect I will starve to death," she added with gloomy relish.

"We might call this the schoolroom," I suggested, trying to smooth over things, but Jan turned in a fresh access of bitterness.

"Schoolroom! That wouldn't be any good. We might call it the schoolroom till we were black in the face, but the uncles would still speak of it as the 'nursery.' I wish we had never come here. I wish we page 41had stayed in Auckland and gone to school. I hate Kamahi. I hate it."

The fender came first, so she gave it a vicious kick, and when she found it was one of the safety kind, which are made to keep children from the flames, it just finished her off.

She flopped into a chair.

"Now we shan't be able to play with the fire," she cried. "And I did want to set myself on a blaze-just to see how it looked."

"You-did that last night. It wasn't a bit pretty, and smelt awful singey."

Jan turned on Pipi then, and in a minute they were discussing the way Jan tied her hair, the creased ribbon she wore, the muddle Pipi always made of her addition sums, and a lot of other things which they had found to quarrel over at odd times.

Jock and I were too much engaged with our breakfast to join in the interesting and very personal conversation. Soon, too, Jan and Pipi cooled down, and Pipi started again on her breakfast. Jan wouldn't have any porridge, but after asking for a feeder and a high chair, and eating two plates of preserved fruit, she felt so much better that she only smiled in a bitter sort of way when she found that there was no tea—just a jug of rich new milk. She was just attacking her third helping, and trying to make up for lost time, when Mrs. McPherson and Kathie came page 42into the room. The housekeeper was showing Kathie round the house, and as it bid fair to be an interesting journey, Jan, Jock, Pipi and I decided to accompany them.

Mrs. McPherson did not seem at all pleased to see us. And, really and truly, she was calling Kathie— just Kathie—"Miss Malcolm" all the time, and showing her where the linen was kept, and consulting her, and asking her what the "children" would like for luncheon.

"Mellm's Food for Infants and Invalids," remarked Jan in a low voice, and though it was a very, very low voice Mrs. McPherson heard her and said, "Eh?"

Jan wriggled uneasily, sought for an answer and couldn't find one, and turned to gaze with sudden interest at a shelf of saucepans all in a row. Mrs. McPherson looked at her and snorted; she really did snort—just like they do in books. But nothing more was said.

We went round in a bunch, and Mrs. McPherson showed us the dairy, the store where the flour and currants and oatmeal were kept by the hundredweight, the apple-room where the fruit lay in tempting golden and red heaps, and the ins and outs of the kitchen and outhouses. It was terribly interesting, and we could have gone on for hours, but we began to see that our company was not welcomed, especially when Mrs. McPherson told us to "Play page 43outside in the sun, and not come cluttering under her feet all day."

At first we wouldn't take the hint, but, unfortunately, Pipi's fingers fell into the cream, and Mrs. McPherson saw them there. After that she ordered us off, and Jock, Pipi and I left the procession just as it was entering the store cupboard to inspect the rows of jam-jars on the shelves. Jan wouldn't come with us.

"I'm not going to be ordered around like a chit of a child," she said angrily. "Fancy telling me to 'Run outside and play.' I'll stay here all the morning if I feel like it."

So we left her plodding in the rear of Mrs. McPherson and Kathie, and made our way through the kitchen to the side veranda. From here we could see, over the tops of the trees at the bottom of the garden, the steep hill road down which we had jogged the night before. It wasn't really and truly a proper hill, but the first bank of the river, one hundred and fifty feet high. New Zealand rivers have a habit of changing their courses, and once the waters had covered all the land where Kamahi now lay. But I suppose they tired of the same monotonous course, for one day they left the old bed high and dry and began to hew into the hilly land opposite. Of course, this happened years ago, long, long before the white man came to New Zealand, but the river page 44had never quite settled down again. Every winter the waters rose and covered the low-lying tussocky ground which lay between the river proper and the plantations. Here Uncle John had built a stop bank, which more than once had saved the homestead and the gardens. The flood couldn't pass the stop bank.

"Let's climb to the top of the hill now," I suggested.

"The horses first," cried Jock.

"The pigs," said Pipi.

And as Pipi usually gets her way we went to inspect the pigs which rooted contentedly in a fenced plantation of wattles and gaunt gum trees. Pigs don't particularly interest either Jock or me, but we had some difficulty in dragging Pipi away to the more fascinating region of the pond. Here black swans and white swans, big ducks and little ducks, floated peacefully together, but we were obliged to beat a hasty retreat as two vicious-looking black swans, who were marshalling a troop of fluffy cygnets, seemed to resent our presence and came rapidly towards us, arching their long necks and hissing in an altogether disconcerting fashion.

"The horses next," insisted Jock. "I say, here's Jan!

Jan came across the lawn, a bright colour in her cheeks and a big book under her arm.

"It doesn't suit Kathie to be treated grown-up," page 45she grumbled as soon as she met us. "She's getting unbearable. Why, she came into the library just now and told me I wasn't to touch the uncles' books without asking permission. So I selected the biggest and best bound volume I could find and brought it out with me. I'11 show her that she's not quite so important as she thinks she is. Let's go to the stables."

So to the stables we went, and here Jan was, for the first time since we had left home, completely in her element. She petted the horses and went into raptures over a big red-brown, vicious animal which, ignoring the rest of us, made up to her for all it was worth. We couldn't drag her away, and I think we would have been there now if Uncle Stephen had not joined us, bringing a lump of sugar for the red-brown horse. He looked at Jan as if he could hardly believe his eyes, and then hurried over to her.

"Be careful, child!" he cried. "That horse is vicious."

But Jan only laughed, and she looked so pretty with the excited colour in her cheeks and a deep shininess in her eyes that I could see that uncle was really interested.

"Are you fond of horses?" he asked.

Jan patted the red-brown horse which, ignoring uncle too, was still gushing over Jan. She was not shy, nor awkward nor embarrassed now, and she page 46answered brightly and happily, and was both interested and appreciative when uncle conducted her round the stables and showed her—showed Jan, mind you!—all the latest improvements and labour-saving devices. Jock, Pipi and I followed, as usual, in the rear, but we began to feel a little bored and longed for something more interesting. Suddenly uncle paused before a small black pony with soft eyes and a shiny coat.

"You can ride Paweka to-morrow, Jan," he said. "I will give you a lesson first thing in the morning. No time like the present."

Jock gasped, Pipi and I went nearly green with envy, but Jan threw her arms round the pony's neck and looked like taking uncle in the same embrace.

"A pony—to ride," she cried, with quite a choke in her voice. "It's too good to be true. I've always longed and longed and longed to ride, and never had a chance before. And that dear ducky little Paweka. She loves me already, the darling. See, uncle! She's like a picture of an Arab steed we had in a—in a— in—

"Well?" asked uncle, smiling.

"In—a—nothing. I forget." Jan drew in her breath sharply, and the bright look faded from her face. She glanced around nervously.

"N-nothing. We-we'd best be going, Ngaire. L-let's explore the woolshed."

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"There's no hurry," said uncle, trying to draw her out again, but Jan was her old shy self once more, blundering around awkwardly and reiterating at intervals:

"We ought to go. L-let's go, Ngaire, and explore the woolshed."

But she didn't go and she wouldn't go, and she only went when some of the men came back and uncle ordered us off. Even then she wouldn't come with us, but waited in the shade of a solitary broad-leaf till the men left the stables and Uncle Stephen returned to the house.

Then she set off at a run stablewards again.

Presently she came flying back, clasping something tightly in her arms.

"The book!" she cried, quite overcome and speaking in short, gasping sentences. "I put it down on a feed box—forgot all about it. Then when I was telling uncle about the picture of the Arab steed I remembered. It was awful. It's Uncle Stephen's book—his name's on the first page. I was scared to death he'd see it—it seemed to stick itself out, trying to catch his eye. It's a bit chaffy inside. I'd better shake it out."

Jan shook out the chaff, also an odd leaf or two.

"Put it back," advised Jock. "Whatever would you do if anything happened to it?"

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"I'll come up to the house with you, if you like," I offered.

Jan set her mouth.

"And have Kathie crowing—not much! Besides, what's going to happen to it? I'll keep it out all day. It looks interesting, and now I've got it I might just as well read a bit."

We explored the woolshed—a big red, rather fusty-smelling building which stood alone among the tussocks at the foot of the first bank. After that we strolled as far as the orchard, and from there to where the men lived. Here the cook was preparing dinner, and an awful-looking Maori was peeling the potatoes for him. Uncle Stephen says "awful" is "worse than slang" and "quite unpermissible," but in this case it's the truth. He was awful; he made cold shudders run up and down my spine. His face was tattooed horribly, and when he smiled it drove terror into my heart. I didn't like him at all, though I tried to hide my fear, and the terrible part of it was that he didn't seem to take a fancy to me either. He asked me very suddenly, "What you frightened of?" And I couldn't say "You, because I've heard you have mad fits and dance a haka, and rush round with a tomahawk and want to kill white people."

It might have set him off on the spot.

The others laughed at me.

"It's all nonsense," Jan said. "The uncles don't page 49believe a word of it. They say it's just a rubbishy story. Tairoa's as sane as any of us—saner than you are. And he's been at Kamahi over twelve years, and never had a mad fit yet."

"People wouldn't say he did if he didn't."

"It's only old women's tales. Uncle Stephen says so.

"Uncle Stephen might be mistaken."

"Uncle Stephen couldn't be mistaken; he's ever so learned. Do be quiet, Ngaire. Here comes the cook."

The cook brought us each a huge slice of spotted dog, but I couldn't eat it; it stuck in my throat. All the time I could see Tairoa watching me out of the corner of his eye, and I was glad when Jan and Pipi—

Oh, by the by, spotted dog isn't really- dog, you know. Not at all. It's a kind of plain plum pudding with currants scattered about in it, thrown from Mount Cook, Rob says. Very nice it is too.

Tairoa liked Jan just as much as he didn't like me. He presented her with a small, curiously carved piece of greenstone, rather like a charm, which Jan is treasuring still, and which she means to hang on her watch-chain when she gets one. But he didn't give me anything except a very ugly smile, which I didn't appreciate at all.

On our way to the river we paused before the page 50store where Uncle Dan was dealing out provisions in three months' supplies, which some of the men were taking on pack-horses to the shepherds on the far back boundaries of the estate. I could imagine how these shepherds, who had been isolated for weeks in the silence of the mountains or the remote distances of the plains, would welcome the arrival of the men from the homestead.

We would willingly have stayed and helped uncle in his work, but he, too, seemed hardly to desire our company, so we left him packing currants and went on our way, skirting a field of young barley, through the orchard, into the gloom of a pine plantation. Here it was dark and cold. Even at midday the sun could only penetrate the thick roof of green in little scriggles of light. Beneath our feet the needles lay several feet deep, forming a wonderful carpet, soft and springy, and strong with the spicy aroma of the pines. You know the sweet pine scent, don't you? It cuts right into you and makes you think of big spaces where the wind blows fresh, and wide hillsides and open plains.

The small plantation at the end of the orchard opened into a larger one which ran to a bank, about twelve feet high, which had brushwood piled high and fitted tight into it.

"The stop bank," said Jock, as we prepared to descend, not by any means an easy matter.

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Warned by my early morning experience, I manoeuvred carefully, and landed at the bottom with hardly a scratch. The others, however, were even more unfortunate than I had been on my first trip, when Rob and I had negotiated the bank together. Jock came down in a series of leaps and bounces, with an exclamation at every leap and a cry at every bounce; Pipi caught in the fence at the top, and hung there till I let her loose; and Jan——

Well, Jan ripped her dress from top to bottom, bruised her face, knocked both her funny-bones, and came down head foremost, bringing all the rest of the bank with her. We had really to dig her out at the bottom.

I always think it wiser to leave people alone when they bump their funny-bones, but Pipi hasn't much tact. She asked, ever so sweetly, if Jan had hurt herself. Jan picked herself up slowly and glared at Pipi, though there were tears in her eyes—her funny-bones were hurting her so.

"Hurt myself? Oh, dear no! I just came down that way because I liked it; because it struck me that it was a nice, convenient, quick way. I—I—don't be more stupid than you can help, Pipi, I—oh— o-o-oh—Ngaire—Jock! Where is it? Where is it? Don't stare like a set of owls. Where is it?"

'Where's what?" That was Jock, but he hasn't any grammar.

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"Uncle's book. I had it in ray hand when I started to come down the bank, and I let it go when my face got into the brushwood and I banged my funny-bones. Ngaire, what shall I do? Suppose it's spoiled. Oh, do help me to look for it."

We set to work, and presently Jock dug out the big morocco-bound volume. It had got a bit squashed and had opened itself so that the clay could get nicely settled between its leaves; otherwise it was quite unspoiled. Jan nearly cried when she saw it; but we dusted it with our handkerchiefs and then wrapped it in Pipi's overall and my skirt, and took turns of sitting on it to flatten it out a bit. It really looked quite respectable when we had finished, and Jan said she would put it in a dark corner of the shelves, and we all hoped that it wasn't a book the uncles were fond of and read very often. But Jan said she was sure it was their particular favorite; that they read a chapter every day till they got to the end, and then started at the beginning and waded all through it again.

She didn't seem to care much about the river now; she said she expected it was just like other rivers-all water. So we left her to wend her way home, accompanied by the book, and made our way across the tussocks as fast as our legs could carry us.