Chapter 2 - Opportunity

“Father, may I go to University?” Esther asked.   John Priest glared at his daughter under bushy eyebrows.  “University!” he repeated “is it University now?  Don’t you realize young women that we Shetland Islanders are just peasants; peasants to be loaded onto a boat with no more rights than the cattle I put onto the railway truck today? 

I was only a little fellow but I will never forget the day the soldiers came and drove us from the croft where my grandfather had lived and his grandfather before him.  The old woman sobbed and the children wailed as we trudged down the steep track towards Lerwick and behind us swirled the smoke of our burning homes.  Not that the thick stone walls would burn but the thatch did and the straw we used for bedding.  Maybe I’ll always be haunted by Nana’s cry as they forced her from the only home she had ever know.  My father and uncle had to carry her to the boat.  It was too much for her. We buried her at sea.  That ship took us to Aberdeen but there was no place there for us.  No one wanted us.  So we were shipped off to Nova Scotia, shipped off like so many cattle.  They were cold and hungry times, as we tried to adapt our skills to what was needed in the new land.  Perhaps it was hardest of all for my oldest sister.  You know, a Shetland Island shawl will pull through a wedding ring, and one girl in the family had to keep her hands soft indeed, to do fine knitting that brought in a little money.  She did not learn the ordinary household tasks.  But in Nova Scotia there was no little Shetland Islands sheep and Wilhemina found the rough work she had to do now very difficult.

“But Dad,” said Esther, “This is a different country and I am a New Zealander.”

The sudden rare smile, that the family loved, swept John’s dark face.  “Yes!” he said, “and this year I have sold my own wool under my own brand and no one, NO ONE can sweep my family from the land I have bought.  To own land, that is the answer.” he added.

“The headmaster says I may sit the matric exam this year,” Esther continued.  “If I pass I’ll have a year as a pupil teacher and then go to University.  I’ll go to Training College at the same time.  They’ll pay me thirty pounds a year and another thirty pounds to help pay my board in Wellington.  Then I must teach where they send me for the next three years, but I will be a qualified teacher .....”

John Priest touched his daughter’s shoulder in a rare caress.  “My Esther, Your mother was out working before she was eleven years old, but it pleases me very much that our daughter should be able to go to the University.”  Then with a sudden change of tone he said, “Perhaps our supply of candles will last longer.”  Esther looked at him, startled. “You deserve to succeed,” her father said.   I know how often you have huddled under bedclothes, shielding the candle-light from your sleeping sisters, to study your books till after midnight.  But what does your mother say?”

“University sounds an impossible dream for our working class family,” responded her mother, “but you are my first New Zealand daughter.  Ellie was born on the boat coming out, you know, and New Zealand is a land of opportunity for us ordinary folk.  We’ll be proud if you do get to University.”  Mary looked at her daughter and thought, “How pretty she is with her soft, brown hair and delicate complexion.  But it is the sweetness of her expression that everyone notices.”  She said more to herself than to her children.  I was born in Aberdeen you know but there was no place for us Shetland Islanders.  Our men were fisher folk so my family went to Brunswick to work their fishing boats there.  It was a cold and hopeless land.  Just before my eleventh birthday I was put into service.  My job was to mind a four-year old boy called Ian.  It was autumn and one morning all the women and children took our pails, and went out onto the common, prairie they called it, to pick berries.  Keep together we were told.  Bears or wolves will eat you if you get away by yourself.  Well we picked and ate, and we young ones played a few games when the women were busy talking.  It has been a lovely day, the happiest I had known in that land, but at about 2 o’clock the sky suddenly grew black.  We gathered up all our things in a great hurry.  I couldn’t find Ian.  We searched everywhere.  We called.  There was no answer, no sign of his blue jersey.  Then the thunder came, and the lightening.  We have storms in the Shetland Islands but not like this.  In spite of the howling wind and drenching rain, every man for miles around was out with his lantern searching and calling.  All that long night a group of us kept the fire going; exhausted men came in for hot soup and went out again.  Besides there was always hot water in case the boy was brought in.  Just at daybreak he was found.  He’d gone to sleep in a hollow tree and didn’t even hear the storm.  After that I was sent to do all the hard work round the house.  I don’t think you children will ever realize how glad I was when your father spoke up for me, and promised that when we were married we would go to New Zealand.  “God’s Own Country they were beginning to call it even then and it was warm, especially in the North Island.”  

“How come we’ve got to work so hard then”? grumbled one of the boys.

“Well, it was a little while before we could get on a ship.  My parents were supposed to land at Napier but the ship was wrecked coming up the coast near Wellington and they landed in the new land with a new baby and nothing much else,” John added.  

“We had the little farm out of Woodville soon, though, and even in the tent wasn’t as cold as in Canada; but the rain was a nuisance till we were able to build a house.  We did most of the building ourselves, but you youngsters all helped in the market garden we established especially when Dad was away designing and erecting his bridges.” Mary said.

“The railways are essential to the prosperity of New Zealand”, said John.  “It took thirteen years of hard work for us all but in 1896 I got my own sheep station here in Ngaturi and I am not going to work off my own place ever any more.  There is a lot to do.”

“We know.” groaned the boys.

Their father ignored them and looked at his daughter, “Go ahead and sit the exam, lass.  If you pass, I can afford to let you go to University.”

In November Esther Priest was one of the students who filed into the examination room at the Woodville High School.  “Time is up,” called the supervisor and she began to collect the papers as the handful of young people carefully blotted their last page.  Nibs were wiped and bottles of ink securely corked before they walked quietly out of the room.  The University Entrance examinations were over in New Zealand for 1907.

With barely time to get their coats, the young folk from “Down the line” walked quickly down to the railway station where the fussing train puffed and clanged as it carried them to their homes.  At Pahiatua, Esther Priest left the train to make her way to the livery stables where one of the stable boys cheerfully harnessed her horse to the gig, and Esther set off for the long drive to her home in Ngaturi.  His hoof beats tapped, “University university,” to the eager girl, but sometimes they seemed to say “If you pass, If you pass.”  

The bright moon was high in the sky as she turned in at the gates of ‘Waima’, but the listening family did not need the barking of the dogs to tell them she was approaching, and long before the horse stopped at the stable door, her brother George was waiting to welcome his sister and unharness the horse for her.  Esther passed well, the 4th highest in the Wairarapa, the paper said, and she was welcomed gladly when she went to the school as a pupil teacher.  She really enjoyed teaching though she shuddered at the loud angry voices and cruelty of some of the teachers.

The reaction in the staff room when the school “dunce” asked to carry her books home bewildered Esther.  Promotion was by ability and though Jed was nearly eleven he was still in the first “infant” class.

“He’s too stupid to learn anything,” that teacher said.  “Anyway he’s hardly ever at school and I’m glad when he’s not there.”

Esther protested, “He works at the grain merchants after school and sometimes they ask him to deliver things on school days too.  His mother and two little sisters would starve without the pitiful small wages he gets.”  And she added, “The sacks of grain are too heavy for a boy.”  The senior assistant interrupted, “Why didn’t you tell me about the trick he played on you the other day?  I’d have thrashed him within an inch of his life and glad of the opportunity.”

“I’d have fainted if it had been me,” the other pupil teacher declared.

“Well, I’m no more fond of mice than you are,” Esther replied.  “It was a boy’s trick.  I have young brothers and you win if you never show you are scared, whatever they do.” 

The headmaster smiled at her.  Little Miss Priest was doing very well, he thought, but she would be a better teacher if she was a little less forgiving.

The year passed quickly.  The Inspectors sounded pleased with her work and the headmaster was as encouraging as he dared to be.  Now she just had to wait for official confirmation of her acceptance to Training College and University.  The holidays would drag, thought Esther.

But as it happened, Esther was too busy to even have time to think about next year.  On the day after Christmas, the ten year old Sam, went down with scarlet fever.  For over a week they feared for his life, and when Jessie began to sicken too, the Mother isolated herself in the sick-room and the care of the household and the baby fell to the eighteen year-old Esther.  Six years before, Janie, the older sister, just younger than Esther was now, had died of this disease and it was a very anxious family that watched and waited.

On the day when they knew at last that Sam would recover, George rode to Pahiatua for the mail, bringing back the newspaper in which the names of those accepted for Training College were printed.  Esther dared not look.  “I’ll finish the washing first,” she said, and then, when the last sheet was flapping in the sunshine, she picked up the paper and hurried to her secret hide-out near the spring.  With trembling fingers she opened the paper and scanned the list of names.  No “Priest.”

“My eyes are dim because I am so tired,” she thought, and she looked again.  Still no “Priest”.  She had not been accepted.

She had never really considered such a possibility, and she was completely stunned.  “I’d like to hide away for ever!” she thought, but the shrill crying of the baby penetrated even that quite spot, and four-year old Chrissie’s call “Esther, Esther,” made her hurry back to the house.  She did not dare to fly to her mother’s consoling arms, least she bring germs from the sick-room to the little ones, who this time had escaped the dreaded sickness, and it was not till late that night that she could pour out to her God her despair and disappointment.  “Oh, God my refuge and my strength,” she prayed that long sleepless night, and was able to greet the new day with the serenity that comes from the faith that God knows and cares. The father offered no consolation, but commented that sometimes it helped to tackle the job you hated most, so Esther spent the next few days on the smelly and tedious task of making candles.  

On the last week of January, he gave his daughter some money and suggested she drive into town and put an advertisement in the paper seeking the position of governess.  It was a bitter drive for young Esther, and her feet were dragging as she made her way down the street.  The headmaster was coming towards her; where could she hide?  But before she could move he was there. 

“Well Miss Priest,” he said cheerfully, “Are you ready for Wellington?”

“Oh sir, faltered Esther, “I didn’t get accepted.

“What nonsense,” he boomed, “Why, I’ve seen the inspector’s reports.  You must have been accepted.”

But by the time official confirmation arrived, it was too late to apply for entrance to Training College that year, and it wasn’t till the following year that Esther Priest and her father took the train to Wellington to arrange her accommodation and classes.  For the country girl, Wellington was a sheer delight.  With no little sisters or brothers to look after, there was time to read, read, READ.  “There are so many books in the library,” she wrote to her mother, “that I’ll need years and years to read them all.”

Money was not plentiful but then hardly anyone else had any spare either and students were given opportunities to see some of the best shows very cheaply.  Little Miss Priest was popular with the other students and the professors, perhaps as much for her kindness and gentle voice as for her ready smile. 

Like most other Presbyterian young folk at the Training College, Esther attended St John’s Church.  They had a new idea.  Not a Sunday school, but a Bible Class study group for young men and women, meeting separately of course.  No one considered that the women would join in the Easter Camps that were the highlight of the year for the boys, but now and then there were combined meetings or picnics when there was a chance to talk to each other.  One young carpenter seemed to be always taking the lead when there was work to be done or any singing or theatrical items to be considered.

“How handsome he is,” thought Esther to herself.  She knew his name was Fred Williamson.  “His father is a head master ..... I wonder .....” she dreamed.

Two years study was at an end.  It was time for examinations.  Most of the papers were written but there were some oral and practical as `well.

“Why should we have to pass a washing and ironing test just because we are woman?” stormed Beatrice, “the men don’t.  When I am headmistress of a school I’ll have someone to wash my clothes and to do the ironing too.”  Esther was a little afraid of Beatrice.  Probably the most brilliant of that year’s intake of students, she had a devastating wit and her ready repartee didn’t always please her professors.  She had the first garment from her linen bag.  Unfortunately there was a yellow stain down the front and no washing could shift it.  Perhaps this was just the opportunity needed to refuse to grant her a certificate to teach, declaring her “temperamentally unsuited”.  Esther had taken a white blouse, new and plain so that it washed and ironed perfectly. 

“Excellent work”, they said.

Then it was time for the music exam.  Each candidate was expected to sing at least one simple tune.  The examiner tapped his tuning fork.  Esther opened her mouth and no sound came out.

The fatherly professor patted her shoulder, “Now, my dear,” he said, and he gave the note again with the tuning fork.  Esther burst into tears.

“Because you have done well in all the other subjects, we have waived the singing test,” she was told later but she hardly listened.

She was to be posted to Epuna School.  Alexander Williamson was headmaster of Epuna School, Fred’s father.

She went out to arrange accommodation.  The headmaster invited her to the house for lunch.  Before she left that night, Nell, one of Fred’s sisters whispered, “She’s in our ladies Bible Class.  Ask her to stay with us.”

It was a happy year.  Like all headmasters of the time Alexander Williamson did not spare the cane but he was always absolutely fair.  “Stories and recitation come alive when Mr. Williamson takes the class.”  Esther wrote to her mother, “so, I am learning a lot.”

She told of the fun she had with the girls of the family but did not add that she had fallen in love with Fred.  “Then they got married and lived happily ever after, like all good stories say,” Esther wrote to one of her friends.  But not yet!  Not yet.  Even in New Zealand.  “Opportunity seems to drag its feet somewhat.  I can’t get married till my bond with the Education Board is up.  It will be two more years.  In two years time you will get an invitation to our wedding.”