AN ARTFUL ROGUE
Ken Bishop © 1994
"I've been burnt out, flooded out and kicked out, but my family have never gone hungry and I've never gone without a beer."So said a man named Jack, who I think: is the most artful rogue, who it has been my privilege to know. I knew him well as he became my father in law.
He was a superb gardener, both flower and vegetable, also a stone mason, and a landscape gardener, among many other things.
He had a verbal eloquence that was unusual in a man that had little education. He was well read, and had a manner of speaking that gave the impression of being an Oxford or Eaton old boy. Those two institutions are very fortunate that he wasn't, other wise Jack would have taken them down, or changed their rules in some way to suite himself.
I met him first, at a station in Waipukurua, when he was gardener, his wife was cook, his son cowboy, handyman and his daughter housemaid at the main house. His wife was a great cook, the sort that could make a banquet for a dozen visitors at an hours notice, out of say half a leg of cold mutton, and a few leftovers. The station staff there were well fed, and every smoko in the afternoon Jack would come over the cookhouse with the vegetables for the evening meal.
He wouldn't pick them before that, "They lose there goodness and flavour," he said. After dinner at nights he enthralled me with stories that were of his mates and his own exploits that were, to say the least, hard to believe, but as time went on, I found to be true in every detail.
At Dannevirk Jack noticed people had a lot of scrap lying around, that had a monetary value. His mind got to work. He borrowed a horse and dray from his sister for a couple of months, and went into business. Business boomed, he sold it all to scrap dealer by weight, all in.
His dray was weighed on the dealers platform scales. Jack would drive in, back the dray onto the scales weigh the load, the scrap merchant watched the scales from the other side of the wall. After awhile the merchant became suspicious of the weight he was getting. Jack had found a way of backing the dray on the platform, so the horses hind legs got on the scales as well. The weight on the dray doubled. This went on for quite a while, Jack was doing well. But all good things come to an end.
The scrap merchant realised things, weren't as they seemed, and watched Jack closely and realised what was going on. Jack was out of business. He sold the horse and dray for 30 quid. A good deal for the buyer. But unfortunate for Jack's sister Annie. She sent word to Jack she badly needed the horse and dray back. When Jack never complied with her request, she drove 30 miles to get it, but by then the horse, cart and money, and in fact Jack himself was gone. Annie was not impressed.
Jack took his family to Napier, where he went into business as a stone mason, many of his stone walls, pillars etc are still standing. Then he got himself a few acres at Green meadows and went into market gardening and stonemasonry as a sideline. But he still had time for a bit of mischief apparently. He always seemed to have several mates of his own ilk around him wherever he went.
At Meeanee a chinaman had a good market garden, he lived in a shack on the propert this was the common thing those days.
Lim was getting fed up with thieves who came out at night and pinched his is cabbages and cauliflower's which were bringing good money' and he decided to lay in the rows and take into account what he was going to do with them when he caught them. Lim was bald headed.
Anyhow that night Jack and Ollie decided to get some cauliflower's, they could keep what they wanted, and sell the rest of at the pub, to get a bit of beer money.
They had a couple of chaff sacks each and were making their/way up the rows in the dark, feeling the cauli's and taking the best of them. Suddenly Ollie said, "Jesus Jack, There's one here with a smoot head and it is warm too" Oh don't worry its probably a cabbage cut the head off and take it too." Lime could understand English.
He sunk lower to the ground and went "Arrrrr", Lim jumped to his feet and said "Arrrreeee" and took off. Ollie and Jack dropped their sacks and knives and took off too, all three in different directions.
Jack and Ollie finally arrived back at Ollie's old car, breathless, and stopped to catch their breath and their wits, after awhile they settled down and Jack started to laugh. "Hell old Lim got a fright, I wonder whant went through his mind. "Ollie said "I'll bet he never got a bigger fright than I did, and the only thing in my mind was getting away from there.
Another mate was Ossie, he was a bit of a crook. He had a clever fox Terrier dog, he called Trixie, who could do tricks. He would sit on his hunches and beg. He would roll over and beg the command of "Roll over."
He would fetch things, such as a stick, a coin, lots of things. He would also come from quite a distance at Ossie's special whistle. Ossie's dog was quite well known at several pubs where he would do his tricks and when someone dropped a coin, even at the other side of a round bar, Trixie would hear it and shoot away and retrieve it, which Ossie always kept. He did alright at that sideline.
But one other sideline that was below the belt was for Ossie to go away with Trixie, to say Waipawa, Waipukurau, Wairoa, Gisbourne, and a lot of smaller towns, show someone how clever he was, and sell Trixi.
Most of the time the buyer bought him for a child. Ossie always found out where the buyer lived, and a week later would go down or up to where Trixie was and whistle, if Trixie was loose he soon turned up, if not he barked and Ossie came back later, sooner or later Trixie came and Ossie took him home, and a few weeks later go somewhere else and do the same thing.
As a rule he got at least 5 pound for the dog sometimes double that, good money, more than a weeks wages. Anyhow Jack got fed up with this trick, and when one of his nephews arrived from a farm behind Pahiatua told him about it, and the nephew bought Trixie home, where he lived his days out to the delight of the kids
Ossie was very upset. The lying bugger gave a wrong address. He told Jack he went around to see how Trixie was "Settling down" and a strange bloke came to the door, who never knew of any dog, and never had anyone visit who had a dog. Ossie really fretted, almost went into a mental decline. What a rotten trick to buy a dog and give a spurious address. There should be a law against that sort of thing. Why the poor dog might be ill treated and fretting. Some people have a strange outlook on life.
Jack built a house on the land at Greenmeadows and did pretty well for a few years. But he had to go past one or two pubs to get his produce to market, and he had a lot of trouble getting home, and when he did he was often broke.
But a big flood solved his families problems the flood ruined his gardens and washed the house away. That was when they were flooded out.
I knew they were burnt out, but can't remember the details.
The family then moved to Matapiro station west of Hastings, which was quite a big place and employed a fairly big staff.
Jack was the gardener there, for tvirs Shrimpton, and there was a big garden and Jack did it proud, and was thought of by Mrs Shrimpton, he was also her chauffeur, on numerous trips around the country.
He built a chapel in the garden and a sunken garden. But even here his devilish ways come to the fore. Things were hard to get after the war and they wanted a door for the chapel.
Jack came to Mrs Shrimpton and said he knew of one but they wanted 2 pound for it.
"Get it" he was told.
His house had an outside toilet, so he took the door off took it down, and put it in, upside down, so the pointed boards were facing down not up as all toilet doors used to be. He collected his 2 pound and the door was there for years, may still be.
On another occasion the hose was beyond it and hoses were unprocurable, Jack soon solved that problem. He and his son painted the old hose with black bitamous paint and sold it back for 2 pound. 2 pound you must remember bought a dozen of beer, and often still had change.
He latched onto another graft, the bulbs in the garden, once marvellous had run out of vigour, Jack told Mrs Shrimpton he knew of a very good vigorous type, that only cost 7 pound for a dozen, the good lady was estactic. Got as many as you can.
Jack went into Mackenzie's department store and bought them for 2 shillings a packet, with 2 or 3 dozen in a pkt, took them out of the packets, disposed of them, and put them in paper bags, and took them over to the old lady.
He reckoned they were as good as any bulbs you could get those days. Apparently the show was magnificent, and on days when they had a garden party or whatever, Mrs Shrimpton told the guests that Mr Millett got her those special bulbs. He reckoned he made over 50 pound the following years with bulbs, remember also his yearly wage was only 200 pound or 4 pound a week.
Like most stations the staff were always ready for a party, they used to have them at Jacks, pretty often, station parties usually started after lunch on Saturday and go all night and all day on Sundays, with different ones sneaking off to some quiet spot for a nap for a few hours. One character dossed down on a sofa in the sitting room, and his snoring, disturbed others. They couldn't wake him up. Most were carousing on the verandas, the kids had a quite old horse, that pulled the trap to school that led him inside to show how quiet he was, and led him over to the sleeper.
The horse stood there, someone put a slice of bread on the sleeping man's chest and neck, the horse reached down (he liked Bread) and was eating the bread and was nibbling the crumbs off the blokes lower neck which woke him up "The poor chap" looked up, and saw the horse chewing and slobbering over him, and thought the horse was going to eat him, sat up and screamed like a banshee, which frightened hell out of the horse, and he shot backwards across the room, and slammed into the wall on the other side, with a hell of a thump, how he never went through the wall altogether was a mystery.
Then shot out the open door and over the veranda scattering bottles, glasses and bodies all ways, when had gone, someone went over to the sleeping beauty, but he had passed out with fright. The noise of the horse slipping and sliding, and his hooves thumping made a real racket, which brought everyone alive again, and the party carried on.
These parties were a great affair Jack was an accomplished Pianist, he could play classical music flawlessly, and was great at a farty for playing sing-a-Iongs. He knew all the Popular songs and had quite a good voice)he was entirely self taught. He was an amazmg man.
So the parties were generally held at Jacks that suited him? as the others brought the grog. The station cookhouse supplied the food. His wife and family and staff cleaned up afterwards, he probably sold the bottles afterwards as well.
At one party which was going well as usual, one of the married men was induced to come, his wife was a very prudish women, and abhorred drink and drinkers, also any of the worldly pleasures, apparently. They never had any kids.
The old chap being a non drinker was very soon pretty tiddly. The station lads all pretty hard cases, got him talking and pressed more drinks into him. He got brave and told them all sorts of his problems marital and otherwise. Most were very interested as he was a lonely little man, and a very private sort of a person, his wife had him right under her thumb, but he was going to go home soon? tell her off, and might even leave her, unfortunately for his ambitions, the mixture beer, wine and a few gins got the better of him and he passed out.
This was a problem, no one wanted to take him home. So Jack and two others hit onto a scheme. He was a very small chap, someone went away and got an empty wool pack, then put him in it, which he fitted in easily, they sewed the pack up around his neck, put him in a wheelbarrow took him home, and the three of them lifted him up on to the veranda, and leaned him against the door jamb, took the barrow away, Jack banged loudly on the door, and all took off, around the corner and watched, a lot more were watching in the shadows too.
His wife a very formidable women, opened the door and saw her lord and master out to the world. She was not very impressed at all, and let out some very unladylike language, and kicked the wool pack and husband over, then kicked him over the veranda onto the lawn which was 3 or 4 steps lower. Quite a drop. Loudly telling the world at large what a louse he was. She had a loud voice and anyone within 500 yards would have heard her. Then she walked in slammed the door and the eavesdroppers heard the bolt slam home. Now here was a problem, there was a frosty feel in the air, and the poor little bloke was locked out, so the wheelbarrow was brought back and they took him over to a nearby shed, cut him out of the pack, laid some horsecovers down, and put a few more over him, and left him to sleep it off. The party carried on. Next morning the lady came over, quite concerned and asked if anyone had seen Hubby. Everyone looked concerned, one wag said he had last seen him walking up (the road, and he'd said he wasn't coming back. Liar.
However, someone did sight him about 11 o'clock soaking his head under a tap, having a big drink of water, and slagging back to the shed. When he looked in, he was snuggled up in the horsecovers again.
At about midday, it was found the beer had nearly run out, this wasn't good. After a good consultation, a hat was taken around, and Jack and two others went off to the Fernhill Hotel to get another keg.
Time passed and they never turned up, about 4.30,3 others decided to go and look for them. They weren't broken down anywhere, and when they got to the pub, there was the car, along with about 10 others. Although it was Sunday, the publican had to make a living, so the seekers of Jack and his mates, made their way into the pub.
There was a piano playing and a group, of people singing their hearts out. When they got inside, there was Jack in his element playing and singing, and everytime his glass was emptied it was quickly filled again. Everyone was enjoying themselves and Nobby and his Cobbers soon got into the swing. The sing song carried on, the publican realised he was doing well the pub was full by now, so he got the cook to boil huge pots of small potatoes (pig spuds as they were known) with plenty of salt sprinkled on them. These were welcomed by the crowd, quickly eaten and the salty spuds did nothing to dissipate their thirst so more spuds were cooked, at about 10.30 the publican was getting a bit tired. Then the telephone rang, the publican answered it, and spoke loudly "On Their Way You Say, OK I'll get rid of Them.'The cops are coming." The word spread quickly, glasses were either quickly drunk or left as they were, everyone very smartly took off. The cops never arrived however.
Next day when asked about it, The publican said "Who the hell said the cops were coming.
"'Mrs Smith rang and said Bill's parents were arriving and asked me to send Bill and his brother home, but I never had a chance to tell them, everyone assumed the cops had rung up, serve them right for listening in on a phone conversation.
