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Charlie was a former bushman and Kauri gum digger, a very shy man, fairly tall and lean, with an impressive moustache. In a fit of recklessness he’d advertised for a wife, and struck gold. His wife was a pleasant, happy, outgoing person whose previous husband had died.
Why they employed me I don’t know as I don’t think they could afford even my small wage, and the extra mouth to feed.
I was to sleep in what had been Charlie’s first residence. It hadn’t been occupied for several years, and was just large enough to hold a roughly built bunk, a small bench or table, and an open fireplace. It looked snug and waterproof, and I was quite satisfied. I felt very happy when I settled in on that first night. The bed was comfortable, there were plenty of blankets, a kerosene lamp to read by, and plenty of good books. I’d had a good meal and pleasant company, and now had privacy and comfort. I went to sleep contented and at peace with the world.
But I woke during the night in great anguish. My body was on fire — itch, itch, itch — I didn’t have enough hands to scratch everything at once. I reached for my torch and threw the blankets back to look for my torturers — hundreds of fleas, hopping in all directions. I’d been sharing the accommodation with Charlie’s dog, who was chained under it at night. Sadly I moved into the house.
Charlie’s cowshed was just big enough to accommodate three cows and the three hand milkers. I can’t remember how many cows we milked but it couldn’t have been very many for it didn’t seem to take very long to milk them.
During the first few days after I arrived we were engaged in finishing off the haymaking in a small paddock, specially fenced off. Unbelievably the hay had been cut with a scythe, turned to dry with a pitchfork, and raked by hand. It was then forked onto a sledge drawn by the biggest horse in the world. Once alongside it was then forked up onto the stack. The top of the stack was fashioned into a cone shape and probably thatched with rushes.
Charlie and I got on famously. We cut and carted firewood, dug rushes, did fencing and many other jobs around the farm. When out the back at lunchtime we would boil the billy for tea. While eating our sandwiches and drinking our billy tea he would talk about old times.
When he built his house, all the timber, hardware, roofing iron etc was rafted all the way from Hikurangi during a big flood.
He spoke of his gum digging days — digging the gum during daylight hours and scraping it by lamplight. He told me of a man he knew who would dig until he had a wheelbarrow full. He would then wheel it all the way from Marua to Whangarei, where he would sell it to buy his groceries, and then return. The gum diggers lived in tents. One rather tall character had a tent that was too small for him. If he stretched out, he had to choose which stayed outside, his head or his feet. This man used to spend all day Sunday making dumplings, one for each day of the week. As he made them, he lined them up around his tent. These were his food supply for the following week.
There were also conversations at night including Charlie’s wife. We discussed many things including the evils of drink. One day they went to town to do some shopping. It was my job to start the evening milking and carry on until they arrived. I had milked a few cows when Charlie’s wife arrived, but no Charlie. After a while I asked, “Where’s Charlie?” The answer was the sort of giggle you get from schoolgirls. Eventually after more giggles she said he’d met a few friends and got himself drunk.
§
One day Charlie lost his temper. I can’t remember the source of his frustration, but his wife had gone home to cook dinner, I was teaching one or two calves to drink from a bucket, and Charlie was about to separate the milk.
His was a small, hand driven separator installed on a slab of concrete, about 4 square yards in size, well removed from the cowshed, and with no roof or walls. Separators were made up of lots of stainless disks in a bowl. You turned a handle to make the discs spin, faster and faster until the thing made a tinging sound to let you know it was up to speed. Then you turned on a tap so that whole milk could flow in at the top and — all going well — cream and skim milk flowed out the bottom. Cream out of one spout and a lot more skim out the other.
But this time, when Charlie turned on the milk tap, as much cream as skim milk flowed from the spouts, which couldn’t be right. Had he put it together rightly? Charlie, with a good display of patience, stopped the bowl from spinning, pulled it to pieces and reassembled it. Once more he wound up to full speed. A period of anticipation… He turned on the tap. Same result.
What happened next was the most amazing, and to some extent frightening, but in retrospect the most amusing, display of temper I’ve ever seen.
Charlie exploded. He wrenched the milk vat clear from the separator so violently that I was afraid he was going to lose all the milk. Then, piece by piece, he wrenched the separator apart. As each part came off he threw it as far as he could in all directions. First the float, then the float container, then the cream spout followed by the skim milk spout. I watched with astonishment, and a good deal of apprehension. Surely he wouldn’t do the same with the separator bowl? He did just that. The screw from the top of the bowl followed the rest. Good god, I thought we’ll never find that again. The top disk was next, then the rest of the disks two or three at a time, up to thirty of them, and then the base of the bowl.
This was accompanied by a flow of language that, although it couldn’t be described as obscene, was very descriptive. I watched but pretended not to. I was busy feeding the calves. Alarmed and yet moved to laughter, which I didn’t dare to express.
A despondent looking Charlie faced the inevitable. The milk had to be separated. Wearily Charlie wandered around picking up the pieces scattered far and wide. Some in soft cow dung and some in a mixture of dung and soft mud. Luckily some had landed in long grass, harder to find but easier to clean up. These fortunately included the small screw top off the top of the bowl. Having found all the pieces he carefully washed them and reassembled the bowl and the rest of the equipment.
Had he damaged the float? Would it leak? Were all the discs present and correct? Charlie’s anger was now just barely under control. With great interest I watched him wind the handle and gradually increase the speed of the bowl. He turned on the milk tap. My interest no longer concealed, I watched. The skim milk and the cream flowed out in the correct proportions. Charlie looked at me and grinned.
§
Charlie loved this horse, the biggest horse in the world. Jess was white, speckled with grey. She had been Charlie’s sole workmate for many years. She was enormous. Harnessed to a large sledge loaded with green ti-tree she would lean gently against her collar and the sledge would move off. Slow, enormously strong, reliable and gentle was Jess.
She was getting old, and to everyone’s great concern she developed dropsy. Day by day her condition deteriorated. Already an enormous animal, her legs and body swelled dreadfully. One morning we woke to find Jess lying on her side, dead. Charlie and his wife were very upset of course, but we soon became aware of another cause for concern. Jess had died on the flat only 40 yards from the house, and therein lay the problem. Maybe a bullock team could have moved her, or a tractor — there were none in those days — but she would have to be buried where she lay.
A hole had to be dug as close as possible to that gigantic back, now swollen in death, so we could tip her into it. Her legs projected from her body like four great tree trunks, a very impressive sight.
Having made all the necessary calculations we set to work. The body itself presented a problem as we had only the one side and two ends of the very large and very deep hole where we could shovel the dirt. A lot of it had to be shovelled twice.
It was very hard and very hot work, and we were very glad that Jess had died on a flat, fairly soft piece of ground. By milking time the job was far from finished, and we went to bed with the prospect of more to come tomorrow.
But by morning Charlie had found a good reason why he should go to town for the day, so I would have to finish job. He was either too tired or too upset or both to carry on. By midday, after much toil and sweat, I’d decided the hole was deep enough, partly on the grounds I’d had enough of digging.
I have been trying to estimate the size of that hole. I do know that in order to put Jess’s bridle on I had to stand on a box, and that on tiptoe I could just reach her shoulder. Would she land squarely in the hole? If not it would be impossible to shift her. If my calculations were wrong there was the prospect of her four huge hooves sticking out above ground.
It took little effort to lift up the lower legs and start the carcass moving — so little that I realised that she could have rolled in on top of me. She landed squarely upside down with her hooves about twelve inches below ground level.
Some day someone will uncover those hooves, and perhaps never know that under them lie the bones of Jess, the biggest horse in the world.