Free When Mum Went Funny by Jack Lasenby Page A

start pinching the spuds.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause it’s just the sort of thing I’d expect you to do. Pinch some spuds, and cook them in a fire down by the creek. We used to do it when I was a girl, make a big tea-tree fire, and bury the potatoes in the embers.”
    â€œWe wouldn’t dream of doing it,” said Kate. Mum looked at her suspiciously, but Kate just looked back, eyes wide open.
    â€œKate Costall, you stop that at once!”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou know what I mean, my girl.”
    â€œWhat?” Kate sounded hurt.
    â€œLooking innocent when you’re not. I know all your little tricks, madam.”
    â€œIt’s not fair,” said Kate. “I haven’t eaten any of the new potatoes.” She made her voice tremble, but none ofus took any notice; she’d tried it on too many times.
    â€œI never said you’d pinched the potatoes. I said there were a man’s footprints. Does that sound as if I meant you?”
    Mum and Kate were always fighting. They seemed to enjoy it. The rest of us were drifting off when Mum stopped us. “Well, who else could it be?” she asked.
    â€œPheasants!” I said. “Remember how deep they scratched down to get at the artichokes?”
    â€œPheasants don’t leave footprints.”
    I went to say something else, but Mum shook her head.
    â€œNor rabbits,” she said. “Nor hares. Nor pooks. From now on, you’re to keep your eyes skinned. I don’t want to dig the spuds yet; they’re not really ready, and they won’t keep if we dig them too soon. But bandicooting can bring on the blight, and then you don’t get any potatoes at all.”
    â€œWe’ll have a look, every time we go up to move the steers,” we promised. We’ll ride around and have a look at the spuds, Mum.”
    â€œWhat if they’re doing it at night?” Mum asked. “Mr Wilson lost a whole paddockful one night, during the Depression.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œA gang of men without jobs dug them up, bagged them, and got away with the spuds on Mr Wilson’s own pack-horses. Somebody said they muffled their hoofs with sacks.
‘Four and twenty horsemen, riding
through the dark.’
A lot of hard-up people in Waharoa had a bag of spuds leaning against their back door next morning.”
    â€œDid the police catch them?”
    â€œSpuds are spuds.”
    â€œWhat about the sacks?”
    â€œEveryone’s got heaps of old sacks lying about in their sheds.”
    â€œAnd the tracks?” asked Kate.
    â€œThere were always lots of hoof marks around. There were more horses in those days, of course; not many people had cars in the Thirties.”
    â€œIt must have been fun during the Depression,” said Jimmy.
    â€œIt was pretty miserable for a lot of people. You used to see swaggers on the road every day, looking for jobs, or just mooching along for something to do.”
    â€œMaybe it’s a swagger, the one who’s pinching our spuds!”
    â€œYou don’t see any swaggers these days. They’d be called up, or manpowered into jobs.”
    â€œBilly Kemp’s cousin, Flora, was manpowered into the ammunition factory over at Hamilton,” I said.
    â€œWell, somebody’s got to do the work, now the men are overseas.”
    â€œMaybe the swagger eating our potatoes is a woman!” said Betty.
    â€œI told you, there’s no swaggers these days. No,” Mum said thoughtfully. “I think it’s somebody closerto home.” We glanced at each other. Did she still think we were pinching the spuds? She had some cranky ideas at times.
    We kept an eye on the spuds, but the bandicooting didn’t stop. Mum got so annoyed, one Saturday night she gave us our tea early, and we all went up to the potato paddock to keep watch for a couple of hours. We hid in the loose hay of an old stack, half of one left over from when we had the