Billy and Old Smoko (5 page)

O
ld Smoko could tell Billy was upset, so he asked Maggie, “Do you have roast pork and crackling sandwiches every day?”

“Doesn't everyone?”

“We do!” exclaimed all the other kids.

“Don't you?” Johnny Bryce laughed. “What sort of mum have you got?” he sneered at Billy.

“She must be pretty funny, your mum,” said Phil Ellery who always took sides with Johnny Bryce. Old Smoko snorted, while Billy looked at his feet again.

“What happened to your real mother?” asked Maggie.

“I don't know,” Billy whispered awkwardly. “My stepmother reckons she ran away.” Everyone was silent, staring at him. “But we're going to find her, me'n Old Smoko!” Billy said.

“We certainly are!” exclaimed Old Smoko. “It is a foregone conclusion!”

“Tell you what,” said the oldest Williams girl. “Tomorrow, we'll get our mothers to make us each an extra sandwich, and you and Old Smoko can have them for giving us a lift.”

“Crikey dick!” said Billy. “That'd be a bit of all right!” and Old Smoko neighed with delight and cantered around the horse paddock.

“That's funny,” said Maggie Rawiri. “Old Smoko looks the same length as all the other horses, yet we all got on him okay.” And June Williams said, “There was ample room, but his legs on one side look a bit longer.”

“That comes from living on the steep paddocks under the Kaimais,” Billy told her. “When I grow up, I'm going to have one leg longer, too.”

“You're making it up,” said Harrietta Wilson from down the pa. Billy stared at her blue eyes and curly black hair. Harrietta giggled and looked away.

“Are you giving Billy cheek?” asked Old Smoko, snorting back to join them.

“I just thought he was fibbing,” said Harrietta.

Old Smoko nodded. “That is all right then. Usually, kids who try to get hoha with us, I wring their necks and eat them!”

Harrietta giggled, “I'd be pretty tough chewing! Mum reckons I'm scrawny, and Dad calls me ‘Tea-Tree Toes'.” She opened her school bag and gave Old Smoko another sandwich saying, “Mum makes ours with thick slabs of bread, lots of butter, thick slices of roast pork and crunchy crackling, and lashings of apple sauce.”

“Just the way Billy and I prefer them,” Old Smoko nodded.
He took first bite and chewed with his eyes closed while Billy had the second. “Very tasty, Harrietta,” said Old Smoko. “You have a generous nature, and I regret that I mentioned anything about wringing your neck.”

“She's jake!” said Harrietta, who never held a grudge. “Have another sandwich?” Old Smoko noticed that she handed the sandwich to Billy this time, and that she looked at him with her blue eyes and smiled winningly.

At lunchtime, when Johnny Bryce stood over his little sister, Lynda and told her, “Hand over your sandwiches or else!” Old Smoko appeared, snarling and grinding his teeth. Johnny Bryce got such a scare, he ran and hid behind the shelter-shed till the bell went.

Billy told his stepmother about giving the other kids a lift to school, and she shook her fist and said, “Tomorrow you can charge them all a penny let's see twenty-five children at a penny each how much is that?”

“Mr Strap taught us how to turn pennies into shillings today,” said Billy. “Twenty-five children at a penny each makes two shillings and one penny.”

On the way to school the following morning, Billy apologised and explained to everyone that his stepmother said they had to pay a penny each for a lift.

“She'll be right!” said Harrietta Wilson. “Our Mum said you fellas deserve more than just a roast pork sandwich.” And Old Smoko looked around and noticed that Harrietta was smiling with her blue eyes at Billy again.

Billy put the twenty-five pennies into his school bag.

“Where's my money?” asked his stepmother, as soon as
Billy got home. He made two heaps of twelve pennies and there was one left over.

“Two shillings and one penny,” he said.

His stepmother cackled, “I'm rich rich rich!” One at a time, she poked the twenty-five pennies into a brass money-box, shook them till they clinked, and hid the money-box under her mattress.

“Mum,” Billy asked politely, “what does ‘Bon appetit' mean?”

“Don't you dare be rude to me just for that I'm going to eat your share of the sponge cake I baked for afternoon tea I was going to give you some lovely hard-boiled silver beet stalks for your tea but you can go without so there.”

She watched to see if he cried but, when he didn't, she grumbled, “That brat better not be getting his tucker somewhere else.”

That night, Billy piggybacked his stepmother and father to bed, told them the story of “Cinderella”, and tucked them in.

“I'd have given that Cinderella what for if she'd been my stepdaughter I never did like girls with names ending with an A,” said his stepmother.

Billy's father stopped whistling “Home On the Range” and said sleepily, “But, dear, I thought you said your name finishes with an A… .”

“I'm different!” She snored a few minutes then said, “You'd better not be trying to pull my leg I'll show you what's what tomorrow night I'll have two lots of two shillings and one penny.”

On Friday, Johnny Bryce reckoned he wasn't going to pay his penny, but Old Smoko ground his teeth, and Johnny coughed up at once.

That night, Billy's beautiful wicked stepmother grabbed the pennies off him, poked them into her brass money-box, and shouted, “What's two times two shillings and one penny?” Her mouth opened so wide, Billy thought she was going to eat him like a roast pork sandwich. He looked at his father, but he was pretending to read the paper.

Billy remembered that Mr Strap had taught them how to multiply shillings and pence that morning. “Two times two and a penny,” he said and did the sum in his head. “Four shillings and tuppence.”

His stepmother shook her money-box. “That's what four and tuppence sounds like and that's all you're going to get just the sound of it and don't let me catch you listening too hard or I'll charge you for it how many days in a year?” she demanded.

“Three hundred and sixty-five,” Billy said.

“And what's three hundred and sixty-five times twenty-five pennies?”

“Nine thousand, one hundred and twenty-five pennies,” said Billy.

“I want it in pounds shillings and pence stupid!”

Luckily, Mr Strap had taught them division that afternoon. In his head, Billy divided 9,125 by 240 to make the pennies into pounds. “Thirty-eight pounds, no shillings, and fivepence,” he said.

His stepmother's beautiful green eyes narrowed, and she
shouted, “Thirty-eight pounds no shillings and fivepence in a year I'll be rich beyond my wildest dreams!”

“But school doesn't open every day,” Billy told her.

“What do you mean school doesn't open every day?”

“There's no school on weekends, and there's the May and August holidays, and the Christmas holidays, and then there's Easter, and Anzac Day, and Queen's Birthday, and Saint Patrick's Day, and Saint Anniversary Day, and Saint Labour Day, and …”

“Too many holidays on Monday you can tell Mr Strap that I said he's to keep the school open three hundred and sixty-five days a year.” She shook her fist at Billy, and said, “Tomorrow's the last Saturday there'll be no school so you can do the milking and me and your overworked father can have a lie-in for once.”

“Yes, Mum!” Billy said politely.

Early next morning he took his father and stepmother a cup of tea in bed. His father woke up and whistled “Home On the Range”, while his stepmother grizzled because Billy hadn't made them any toast. By the time he'd done that, and made them another cup of tea because the first one was now cold, he was late getting down to the shed. The cows were peering over the rails, mooing and complaining about having to wait to be milked.

“Don't you realise how uncomfortable it gets for us?” they demanded, as he put on the leg-ropes.

Billy said he was sorry and started the milking machine “Chug! Chug!” and Old Smoko gave a hand. The cows weren't all that happy about the machine yet, and a bit upset
at a horse being in the shed, so they did big green plops all over the yard. Fortunately, Old Smoko was pretty deft with his hands, putting on the leg-ropes, washing their udders and slapping on the cups, and the cows soon learned not to mind him. They went into their favourite bails, chewed their cud, and let down their milk.

As they carried the cans down to the jetty, Billy said, “I've often wondered why we don't go to school on the milk launch. The Waharoa Canal goes close enough.”

“Ah,” said Old Smoko. “That is a lugubrious story that I will tell you in the next chapter.”

“T
his is the lugubrious story,” said Old Smoko.

“The children off the farms out under the Kaimais used to travel to school on the milk launch, but they behaved so abominably, the manager of the dairy factory declined permission to let them use it any more.

“Then the parents complained that it was too much trouble getting them to school. They ridded themselves of the children. That is why, Billy, you are now the only child on a farm this side of the Waihou River, out here under the Kaimais.”

“You mean they got rid of their kids just because it was too much trouble getting them to school?”

“Tragic but true, Billy.”

“Some people don't deserve to have kids!”

“Some people,” said Old Smoko, “say their children do not deserve to have parents.”

“My real mother wouldn't ever say that! Nor Dad, before he went lackadaisical. But tell me, Old Smoko, how did those wicked parents get rid of their children?”

“It is a lugubrious story, Billy. Are you sure you want to hear it?” Old Smoko shook his head.

“Tell me!”

“With their heading dogs, the parents rounded up the naughty children. Then, with their huntaways, they drove them into the saleyards in Waharoa, penned them, and auctioned them off. Some they sold as slaves to other farmers, and they got top prices for the ones who knew how to milk. Some they sold to a circus which was performing in Morrinsville.

“By then it was getting late, so one pen of unsold children were put into a holding paddock overnight, but they they crawled under the fence and ran away before they could be sold, too. Poor wretches,” said Old Smoko, and wiped a tear from his eye, “they ran back out here, swam the Waihou
River, and vanished into the Kaimais. It was the only place they knew.”

“A truly lugubrious story!” Billy cried. “What did they do on the milk launch? It must have been something pretty terrible.…”

“They took the lids off the cans and splashed milk over each other. Some gave cheek to the skipper, some shrieked, some stood on the seats and would not sit down.”

“That's not so bad,” said Billy. “Not enough for their parents to get rid of them.”

“One unfortunate little girl, Nancy Thompson, fell into a can of milk, and somebody put the lid back on without noticing. She was taken into the dairy factory, tipped out, weighed, separated, pumped up into the drying flumes, made into milkpowder, and exported to England where Queen Victoria drank her in her morning tea.

“Of course, Queen Victoria complained at the taste and said, ‘We are not amused,' and the British government sent a gunboat which steamed up the Waihou River and bombarded Waharoa as a punishment. If you look at the oldest part of the milkpowder factory, you can still see the holes their cannonballs made. The factory manager said, ‘That's it. No more kids on the milk launch.'”

“Did the milkpowder –” Billy began and stopped.

“You were about to ask something…?” said Old Smoko.

“I was going to ask, did Queen Victoria's tea turn red and taste funny, when the milkpowder made from Nancy Thompson was put into it?”

Old Smoko nodded again. “That is the reason Queen Victoria was not amused.”

“I just wondered,” said Billy, his face white. “Old Smoko,” he said, and his voice shook, “we will not just find my real mother, we will find the missing children as well!”

“A noble sentiment, Billy! If they are alive still, they must be somewhere under the Kaimais.”

As they left the jetty, Old Smoko glanced up the back of the farm under the bushed Kaimais. He shaded his eyes and looked again.

“What are you looking at? Oh, Dad must have done some ploughing.”

“That's not ploughing…”

“Then what is it?” To his astonishment, Billy saw that Old Smoko – usually the most impeccable of horses – was dribbling down his front.

He wiped his chin. “Forgive my salivating,” he said. “What we are looking at, Billy, is pig rooting, and that means wild pigs in the back paddock! Do you comprehend what that imports?”

Billy's eyes shone. “Roast pork!”

“Wild pork is darker than tame pork.” Old Smoko licked his lips. “It is also more flavoursome, because of what wild pigs eat. Pardon me!” he said and licked another fleck of dribble off his chin.

“What do they eat?”

“Only the best of tucker. Huhus, grubs, worms, berries, roots, lambs, dead birds, rotten eggs and younkers that have fallen out of nests, wetas, hedgehogs, rats and mice, and old
eel, possum, and deer carcasses.”

Billy coughed. “Does wild pork have crackling?”

“A fat maiden sow has crackling such as you have neither heard nor tasted!”

“Why don't we go pig hunting? Johnny Bryce reckons he goes out with his father every weekend. Johnny Bryce reckons his father's got the best pack of pig dogs in the Southern Hemisphere. Johnny Bryce reckons they have so much roast pork they get sick of it.”

“In my youth,” said Old Smoko, “I did a little pig hunting myself.” He looked down modestly. “Throughout the Vast Untrodden Ureweras, I was known as a champion finder and bailer. And a holder, too.”

“What's a finder and bailer? And a holder?”

“They are all pig dogs. To start with, Billy, there are two kinds of finder: wind and track. A wind finder can pick up a pig's scent on the air, up to half a mile or more away; a track finder picks up the scent on the ground. The former runs with his head high, scenting the air; the latter with his head down, scenting the pig's tracks.”

Old Smoko looked at Billy and explained, “Finding is when you scent and chase a pig, barking your head off. You stop and bail it with a different sort of bark, steady and regular.”

“And holding?” asked Billy.

“Holding is when you go in and grab the pig by the ear or tail. Or you hold him along the side of his jaw, so he is unable to turn around and hook you. If he breaks and runs away, you bite his testicles.”

“That,” said Billy, “must be painful.”

“It is for the pig. He squeals and sits down, or backs into a stump or under a bank, only his head showing. No one likes facing a boar pig head-on.” Old Smoko jerked his jaw. “Whoooff!” he said, “Scoff! Scoff!” – a grinding, chopping noise.

“What's the scoff for?” asked Billy.

“The tusks are set in the boar's bottom jaw. In the top jaw, above each tusk, there is a stub of bone known as the grinder. Every time the boar's mouth closes, the tusk comes up, rubs itself sharp on the grinder, and makes a noise like ‘Scoff!' A good pig hunter can tell a boar pig's age and weight just by the sound of his scoffing, as well as how angry he is.”

“It sounds scary,” said Billy.

“Real jokers,” said Old Smoko, “find it exhilarating!”

Billy thought and said, “Not for the boar pig though?”

“For the boar pig who rips the dogs and gets away,” said Old Smoko, “it is exhilarating. He torpedoes off through the bush, goes home and struts about on his hind feet, beating his chest and boasting. The other pigs sit in a circle, holding up their hands and admiring him – or her, as the case may be.

“Are sows dangerous?”

“A sow can stitch you up the leg like a big sewing machine. They have very powerful jaws from grunting so much.”

“Say you've found and bailed a pig, and you're holding it?” asked Billy. “What next?”

“That is where you play your part,” said Old Smoko.

“Where – I – play – my – part?”

“You stick it!”

“Stick it?” Billy's voice went very high.

“With your knife!”

“But – why not shoot it?”

“Only sissies carry a rifle,” said Old Smoko. “Besides which, shooting is often dangerous for the holder.”

Billy tried to whistle “Home on the Range”, but his lips went dry. Instead, he asked very casually, “Is it dangerous for the person doing the sticking?”

“If you have a good holder, one in whom you trust, you sneak in from behind, lift the pig's back feet off the ground, turn him over, and stick him through the heart!” Old Smoko dropped on his knees, flipped over an imaginary boar pig, and stuck it. “Take that, swine!” he shouted.

“It sounds dangerous….”

“Not to one who knows his business.”

“What if the boar is too heavy to lift off the ground?”

“Then you are almost certainly in trouble. Especially if it is a Captain Cooker.”

“What's a Captain Cooker?” Billy asked.

“A descendant of Captain Cook, a savage dog-scoffing boar pig who hooked New Zealand out of the sea – on his tusks.”