Colonial facts and fictions: Humorous sketches

by John Milne

‘It was a sad affair, that was. It was Dickey Adams who thought he could make a fortune out of the Wellington winds. We told him to let them alone.

‘“Look,” Dickey, said I, “nothing can stand against these Wellington winds. You’ll find your blessed windmill up amongst the Maoris the day after you put it up, and they’ll say it was given to them last year by a gentleman from Australia. Don’t you remember that train which was blown backwards right through the terminus, and landed the passengers forty miles in the opposite direction to what they had started?” says I. “Dickey, Dickey, it’ll never do to fight against the Almighty. The Almighty has made these winds, and we must bear them.”

‘But Dickey wasn’t to be persuaded, and it just ended by his being ruined and breaking his heart and then dying. It was just like pulling at a pig’s tail to talk to Dickey. The more you pulled back the more Dickey went ahead.

‘Well, we watched Dickey’s mill being put up with considerable interest. Every stone he stuck in he had dovetailed into those below it, for all the world like a lighthouse. At last he got the top on, and then, waiting for a fine day when the breeze slackened a little, he put up the sails. These he held fast with chains and anchors.

‘At last the mill got finished, and Dickey invited us all up to see him slip the anchors, and give the machinery a turn, just to ease it a bit, you know, for it was all new. Of course we all went, and Dickey was as happy as a skylark. There he was, hopping about and chirping away to everyone about the way he had built his mill. Dickey’s smiles did me good. It was certainly a red-letter day for him. Some of the old hands shook their heads, and called the mill Dickey’s Folly.

‘At last the inspection was over, and then came the loosening. He had had his chains nicely arranged by a sailor man, he said, but no sooner was one cast off than the old thing gave a groan and a heave, and away she went carrying the other three chains with her. My word, how we scattered as the sails went flying round quicker and quicker, and at every turn three great chains came beating on the ground. People down below thought there was an earthquake. By-and-by, as the chains didn’t come off, some of us ventured back, and Dickey said he would go inside and put on a patent friction brake which he had invented, and show us how it stopped.

‘But what do you think we found? Why, we found the blessed sails, with their twenty fathoms of iron tassels, were lashing round and round right in front of the mill door. Of course Dickey couldn’t get inside. “But the wind may shift a bit by-and-by,” said he, and he looked quite cheerful. So we sat down and watched it.

‘All that night the thumping of the chains and the rattling of Dickey’s machinery stopped a lot of us from sleeping. Next morning we found that Dickey, who had been sitting up watching his machine all night, as was natural, was looking a bit anxious.

‘This went on for fully a week, until, instead of being a curiosity, Dickey’s mill became a nuisance, and several who lived near him said they had earthquakes enough about the place without his starting a perpetual one. Next they began to hint that their window-frames were getting loose, and the children couldn’t sleep, and that Dickey’s mill must be stopped somehow. A few who sympathized with Dickey’s bad luck suggested that they need not trouble, it would wear itself out in a week or so. Others, however, said Dickey had built it so strong that it might go thumping and turning for a lifetime, and proceedings ought to be taken against it as a public nuisance.

‘Well, all this ended by the Town Council sitting to discuss how Dickey’s mill was to be got rid of. Some suggested blowing it up with powder, others said we ought to get the artillery to come down from Auckland; but the suggestion which found the greatest favour was to pump on it with the fire-engines and then try if the thing would rust up solid. The fire-brigade had a fine time of it; the more water they pumped into Dickey’s mill, the quicker the hanged thing seemed to go—it just acted like oil.