As I went across the paddocks the cows lifted their heads, stared at me, slashed their tails and moved off. I heard the voices of romping children running about in the scrub of their fenceless gardens. Summing up my courage, I took up a position in the centre of the silent main street. Only one or two shops had their shutters down as I stood erect and started to play the violin! I was a good player, and before the first strain of the sentimental operatic selection wailed to a close the doors of all the shops and houses around me suddenly opened, and out came rushing the children, rosy girls and boys, and women and men, who gazed at me in astonishment.
I felt like some Pied Piper of Hamelin; but the Mayor did not turn blue “to pay a sum to a wandering fellow with a gipsy coat of red and yellow” as I fiddled away. The bushmen and the whole population grinned, as though with one mouth of delight, and sunburnt little children rushed up to me with shillings and half-crowns as I moved along and they scampered behind me.
I was well dressed; my grey suit was still new looking and my collar passably clean. I appeared outwardly to have a social standing that outrivalled that of my delighted audience. The vagrancy in my blood made me perfectly happy; and when the old storekeeper tapped me on the shoulder and invited me in, I accepted with alacrity and without a blush the breakfast he gave me. The little children’s bonny brown faces looked in at the open door as I ate like a horse; then they all screamed with delight as I tossed the cat to the wooden ceiling and caught it with one hand. By midday I practically owned the township; for I played in the houses and the children invited me to stop. When I went away and passed up the track the whole population came to the end of the main street to see me go! They all waved their hands as I faded along the bush path.
One never forgets those few hours in life when one has been really happy, and so I have never forgotten that bush township.
Whakarewarewa, Rotorua, N.Z.
To the thousands of literary and commercial vagabonds living under the guise of respectability I give a recipe—how to be happy in vagabondage. First, you must have a firm belief in God and be able to keep the belief to yourself. This belief will help you when each great scheme unexpectedly fails; for if you be a true vagabond your schemes will only benefit others. Ere you go to sleep on the grass look upon the forest about you as your bedroom; examine the moon as though it were your lamp, trim it so that the shadows fall glimmering through the trees on to your face, and keep saying to yourself: “I am better off than anyone else; the world is certainly mine.” In time you will believe this, and people will see the belief in your eyes and respect you. Be kind to little children you meet on the tramp, and write on your brain the wisdom they speak, for they are the cheeriest of vagabonds! Avoid luggage, and throw away your conscience with all your unpaid bills. When you have cast your socks into the bush, place palm or banana leaves in your boots as substitutes: they are cool. I’ve walked for miles quite happily in banana-leaf socks. If you can possibly play a musical instrument, well, take it with you; at the worst you can pawn it. Never worry; and when you have no money keep saying to yourself: “There was no money in the world for millions of years before money was invented.” Have plenty of tobacco with you; and when you sit under the trees by your camp fire recall pleasant memories only; then the birds will serenade you cheerfully; and if you have a good comrade by your side you will be as two kings, your sentinels the stars, your domain extending to the sky-lines around you. Remember that when beggars die, before they put them to bed they wash their feet and place half-crowns on their eyelids so as to keep them closed in deep sleep. If they do that for the dead, what will they do for the living?
As I tramped along the sun blazed down, and I left the track for the shade of some majestic trees. Across the gullies I saw a camp fire burning and a man cooking food on it. I had run across a New Zealand sundowner!
“Hallo, matey, how goes it?” he said as I approached.
“All right,” I answered cheerfully, as he looked at my violin and then up at me and said: “Want some tucker?” I accepted a lump of damper and, as his old dog greeted me affectionately and licked my hand, I sat down beside him. We tramped along together all that day and slept in a gully off the track. He was an experienced bushman, and made up two splendid soft mattresses of leaves and moss, and with the dog’s soft muzzle crouched to the ground, its sentinel eyes agleam between us, we slept, and I dreamed of the Maori girl.