The Haystack Read Free Page A

him, I watched the glass containers empty and gobbled my luncheon sausage before the stink of benzine got inside my mouth and spoiled it.
    “Bad business,” Dad said to Mr Gilbert, and to me, “You haven’t crammed that down already? You gannet!”
    I shook my head: if I spoke, I’d choke. And just then Mrs Dainty popped out of the baker’s. Whenever she appeared, I was always doing the wrong thing. I spluttered, and Mrs Dainty stared.
    “Is there something the matter with that child? Shouldn’t she be in bed?”
    “Bit of German sausage going down the wrong way,” Dad said, patting my back. “Lovely morning for the washing. Good drying day, Mrs Dainty.”
    “I thought we stopped calling it German sausage during that wicked old Kaiser’s War,” Mrs Dainty sniffed. “And I do my washing on a Monday. As my mother did, and her mother before her.”
    I wanted Dad to tell her why we’d done our washing today. I stared back, chewed the last of my luncheon sausage, and wiped the splutter from my lips with the back of my hand, as Mrs Dainty said, “I suppose you’ve heard about Mr Hoe’s labourer?”
    Dad looked at her.
    “Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say; and not before time. And going on the swag!”
    “Can’t say I’m pleased to hear of anyone losing his job,” Dad said. “Not with the Depression and so many out of work—” but Mrs Dainty was trotting off, head nodding backwards and forwards like a chook.
    “Why’d you say German sausage, Dad?”
    “That’s what they called it when I was a boy. Then the Great War came along in 1914, and somebody said it was unpatriotic; you must say Belgian sausage because the Belgians were our allies. Some coot even tried to make us call it Dominion sausage. Anyway, here it is the 1930s, and we say luncheon sausage.”
    I looked at Dad. “You said German sausage to annoy Mrs Dainty.”
    “I knew she’d have a go at me for doing my washing on a Saturday, so I got in first. You have to be quick to beat Mrs Dainty. And you can forget what I just said. Do you hear?”
    I nodded. “You know when Mrs Dainty asked what was wrong with me, well, her nose looked like a hen going to peck.” I pecked the back of his hand, to show Dad.
    “Henpecked. That’s what happened to Mr Dainty. There I go again. Why is it you’re always tricking me into saying things?”
    “What’s going to happen to Mr Rust, Dad?”
    “I wish I knew.”
    “What’s ‘going on the swag’?”
    “Tramping the road, looking for work, sleeping out in the cold and wet. No life for a dog, let alone a man who fought for his country.” Dad sounded angry. “And, like a lot of men, he didn’t touch a drop before he wentaway; they learned their drinking in the army. Then they come back to this.”
    I wasn’t sure what Dad meant, but I knew he wasn’t angry with me because he held my hand tight as we crossed the road towards the post office.
    “By God,” he said to himself, “it’ll take a change of government to get us out of this Depression.” I looked around, in case Mrs Dainty had popped up again. Again, I didn’t know what Dad meant, but I knew it was better she didn’t hear.

Chapter Six
Why Waharoa Was a Rip-Roaring Place of a Saturday Morning, and Why I Ran and Got Into the Wheelbarrow.
    T HE POST OFFICE STEPS were the warmest in Waharoa, good for sitting on, so long as Mrs Dainty didn’t catch you. The Maoris from down the pa often sat there and talked. I felt the concrete warm on the backs of my legs.
    In past the private boxes, rows and rows of tiny red doors, each with its own little keyhole and its number painted black. I tried sitting on the bench under them, but it felt cold. Inside the post office, everyone was winking and nodding and saying hello.
    Dad was talking to somebody from the factory—about Mr Rust, I could tell. I rubbed my foot on the shiny brown lino, put my hand up on the tall counter, and Mr Barker stamped the date on it and gave me the strip of sticky