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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 8 (December 1, 1928)

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Two publications which deserve special mention in our Christmas number have reached us. The first is a book entitled “Along the Road,” by—and with—Miss Elsie K. Morton.

Miss Morton has secured for herself a distinctive place in New Zealand literature by numerous special writings over a series of years, dealing with life and travel in New Zealand. Already widely known in the Auckland province by her special articles in the “New Zealand Herald” weekly literary supplement, the present book (which is the first she has ventured upon) will serve to extend appreciation of this gifted writer throughout the Dominion and overseas.

“Along the Road” contains descriptive stories of all phases of life and action within these happy isles. Miss Morton is possessed of a great capacity for expressing the spirit of New Zealand scenery, but perhaps a few little gems prised from the casket may give a better idea of the book than anything that could be said about it.
In “Why Cats Are Proud,” poor pussy is almost deified:
And then the homing instinct. Why is it is so hard to lose a cat, particularly if you want to? Why and how do they always come back? In childhood, I once carried a cat two miles over a country road in a sugar-bag, when we moved from one house to another. Next morning puss had vanished. She was found an hour or two later at the old home. How tired those soft little pads must have been after that long walk over the sharp metalled road; how did she know the way, how avoid all the cross-roads and turnings?
The dog is always praised for his loyalty and intelligence, but what more touching than the following instance of feline devotion? One morning my pet cat was missing. A little later, a small stray cat which had taken up its abode with us, came to the door in great distress, anxious-eyed and mewing. It ran back and forth until we followed it down the garden to a low thick hedge. It jumped on the hedge, still mewing. We investigated, and there, hidden in the thick growth lay poor pussy, shockingly injured by some fiendish trap …. And who shall say it was not pure, unselfish joy that sang in the little stray's purring, as it followed us back to the house? ….

Here is a delightful description, “After the Rain”:

Toward sunset, the murk in the west held pale rifts; gradually they brightened, the pall lifted, and glinting streaks of saffron stole out to cheer the drenched world. The dripping pines rose bleak and black against a patch of strangely brilliant blue, stretched out gold-touched arms to the radiance beyond. And then the eternal promise of the heavens arched the sky, and the fluttering storom-pennants faded down the horizon. With brightening sky came the choiring of birds. Pure and free and clear the song of the lark and thrush and deep-throated call of the tui sounded a pæan of joy from the feathered world, for to the birds the day of rain is ever but a passing shadow.
The voices of running water mingled in a song of quaint and quiet beauty. Far away sounded the boom of the flooded creek, all its music blent now in a full, steady overtone, which dominated, without drowning, all the lesser voices—the drip, drip, of water from the trees, the music of a thousand tiny rivulets splashing, rippling, gurgling, trickling, and then the myriad tiny voices of Mother Earth herself as the water drained and soaked its way through the grass deep into the ground, the curious sibilant whisper of parched soil drinking its fill.

And now a touch of travel with the party that accompanied T.R.H. the Duke and Duchess of York.

A group of little children, standing, hand-in-hand in a sodden field under a leaden sky, cheering as the Royal train thunders by; a slim figure stooping to lay a bouquet of flowers at the foot of a tall white cenotaph; the sound of a thousand voices raised in hymn of thanksgiving as a soldiers’ memorial is unveiled in the sunny beauty of a peerless autumn morning; the blaze of a great campfire sending out warm and cheering welcome to the Royal travellers at the end of a long, tiring, journey—these are just a page 55 few fleeting impressions of the first days of the tour of the Duke and Duchess of York through the Auckland province.

From the moment the great engine, emblazoned with the Royal coat-of-arms, drew slowly away from the crowds at Auckland station, one knew that this train journey was to be something different. All the fittings, the woodwork finishing, shone with a rare and speckless lustre. Not one of the windows stuck, and one could even go out on the platform and stand there without acquiring a light finish of coal dust and grime. The dining-car was an interesting reminder of other days, but never was ordinary dining-car replete with such fascinating pile of silver teapots and jugs, such dainty silver wall-vases, filled with flowers and maidenhair fern. This train must live up to Royal standard, and it did, with never a jar nor a jolt, and a freedom from the oftrepeated “Tickets, please!” that became almost uncanny as the hours sped by. Grey hours they were in the world outside, with drizzle of rain that turned to a steady downpour as we reached journey's end at Roto-rua. on the first day of the Royal Tour. But nothing could have dampened the enthusiasm of thousands of men, women and children who gathered at wayside stations and by the side of the country roads, waiting patiently for that great moment when Royalty should pass. Some of them stood for many hours in the rain, but who cared about a little weariness or discomfort when awaiting a moment that would bring a joy of remembrance to last all through a lifetime?

It is indeed pleasing to note that although the book is but recently off the press, a second edition has been called for, the first having been completely sold out within a fortnight of its appearance on the book-stalls.

A book of this kind is a tribute to New Zealand authorship, and it is particularly pleasing that throughout her writing Miss Morton has found all the colour she needed without drawing upon other countries to supply her with subjects.

“Along the Road” is printed by the Unity Press Ltd., Auckland.

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