Chapter 2

Mrs McGuckin, otherwise known as Fan has the following to say, relating 
to these days:

“Someone told one of us that mother was the prettiest little woman on the 
Taieri when he first knew her. Edward was a fine smart young man too. 
Well, when she was young, mother had good Cornish Cornish head of 
black curls, 8 on each side. She told me that before she went to Australia 
she had thick hair.

But the heat there, and getting into a slow fever when her first baby died, 
made it come out in handfuls, she often wished that she had cut it off, 
although the curls were not that very long. I suppose this is where her 
fancy work and sewing comes in. She had made a lot of fancy collars, 
and knitted white stockings,. The women on the Taieri laughed at her 
and said too much washing, you will feel the cold here and have to 
wear woollens, which she found to be true.

While she was there, there was a Presbyterian tea and social or tea fete. 
Mother thought they said tea fight.  They said that she had to come along. 
She could not understand the Scottish dialect at the time, for it was the 
first time she had heard it. They had paper bags at that time with buns, 
pieces of cake, biscuits, etc in them and a cup of tea handed around. 
The speakers were all Scotsmen of the old school. She thought it was 
slow, and droll the way they talked. “

 Mrs Blaikie has her say now:

When mother complained of the cold winter in Otago, the neighbours said:

    “No wonder when you wear open work stockings.”

    “What should I wear?”  asked mother

    “Woollen stockings,”  they said.

    “Well, get me some wool next time you go to Dunedin,” said mother.

Mother knitted three pairs of long grey woollen stockings .  They were fine 
and soft and the tops were still in use at Heriot, at  Parkdale, although 
new feet had been added more than once.

Until that time, she had never in her life worn or knitted a stocking knitted 
in plain knitting.

Another of mothers stories of this period was how a man working in a 
nearby paddock, when out of a neighbouring house came a man who 
asked what he meant by breaking the Sabbath. For a reply was told that 
it was Monday and not Sunday.

Afterwards the second man's daughter told mother that they had lost count 
of the days, and that on Sunday she had done very much greater bit of 
cleaning up and baking than usual.

Mother used to tell us how the women used to take their bit of wheat, and 
go to such places that had an old grinding machine, and there to grind their 
week’s supply of flour.

She told us how they used to bake oat cakes, big ones with a hole in them, 
and hang them on the wall. I think that they spent some time in Milton. 
It was there that Alf was nearly drowned in the Tokomoriro River. He was 
18 months old and a little playmate pushed him in. The girls father was 
fortunately nearby and fished him out at once.

Father used to tell us that somone said to him just after mother arrived,

    “How did an ugly old man like you pick up such a pretty wife?”

I have heard many a stories of those old days of how he once rode up 
country 70 miles to get a witness in some case, and back the next day. 
 A long ride over rough roads. It was of great interest to me to hear 
about how Cobb and Co took over the Gold escort, which led father 
to buy the government horses.

There were two horses that were lost from father's team one night. 
It was Fanny and Duncan who were lost in a digger's hole. One stormy 
night when father missed the way in the dark, the two leaders fell into 
a diggers hole. They were pulling the next two in also, and father had 
to cut the leading straps, and let the leaders go.

Kind friends made a collection for father to buy himself another horse 
but he would not take it.  Afterwards mother came to light with 60 half 
Sovereigns which she had saved.

She used to always get father to give her all the Half Sovereigns, as 
she said that he was likely to pay them away as sixpence after dark. 
Father thought that she had spent them in buying groceries, but she
had kept them in a little bag, and so they managed to buy one horse 
for which he paid 60 pounds.

Father told us children many stories of the carrying days. One was 
about old Jess, for many years our buggy horse Parkdale. She used 
to get into father's tuckerbox, and eat the bread and sugar. Once she 
made a blunder and ate some salt, and all that day on the journey 
she was looking for every pool of water on the road.’

My brother Jack had to stay at home and look after the family in those 
times.  He was very young, 12 years old when he built the first stable 
at Parkdale.

It was Jack mended our boots, and told us how to tie knots, and did our 
sums for us, although he did not go about the working as the teacher 
did, but he got the right answer.

Once when at Harvey’s Flat, father took a load of furniture to what is 
now Roxburgh. When he reached Raes Junction, he took the Beaten 
Track which let him towards Crookston. After he had found out his mistake, 
he had to go on to water, and landed at Featherstone Bridge, no bridge 
there then, so he probably went down to Olives farm, and down the ridge 
to the old ford in front of Adam Swan’s.

That made him a day late, and the wife of the owner of the furniture 
begged him off with a scolding, saying that it did not matter. Of course 
there was no Crookston, or Adam Swan’s house and those days, 
or anything but a track.

Mrs Barton has the following to say.

‘At the same time that father lost the two horses, he had a mare called 
Kate at home, at the place at the top of the hill. He had put on a leather 
strap with a little bell on her neck so we children could hear the tinkle 
of the bell among the flax. But she was scratching her neck and the 
belt was loose and her shoe caught and and of course she was lying 
dead when we found her the next morning.

She was about to have a foal. She was a grey mare, not such a valuable 
horse, one of lighter make, and getting old.

Mother had to travel 200 miles by coach before she sailed to New Zealand. 
She sold father’s horse and dray etc and set off with three babies, 
the little dog Gyp who was the same age as Mary, and had been given to 
her when they were both 6 months old. I remember when Gyp died, at the 
great age for a dog of 16 years. Gyp must have been very small, a skye 
Terrier for father use to hide it in his two hands.’