ndergone
before our ultimate object could be attained.

Now, one of the first and chiefest considerations of the pioneer-farmer
is always how he may most closely economize time and labour. It is
particularly necessary for him, because of the scarcity of the latter
commodity, and the consequent pressure upon the first. It is usually a
strictly _personal_ question.

On this occasion the subject was debated at one of our nightly
parliaments in the shanty. Then the Saint broke out with one of those
quaintly simple remarks that used to amuse us so much. He said--

"I don't think it can be right to burn oysters, you know. It must hurt
them so awfully, poor things!"

Of course, we all laughed long and loudly. It seemed too ridiculous to
consider the possibilities of an oyster feeling pain.

"Well done, Saint!" was the general exclamation; "that's a good excuse
to get yourself off a job of humping over the rocks."

The Saint flushed up, and proceeded argumentatively, "Look here!
Wouldn't it be better to burn dead shells?"

"F'what did shells is it, me dear?" asked O'Gaygun, in a wheedling tone.

"Well, there's plenty on Marahemo, for instance."

Marahemo, I may mention, is a hill about three miles back from the
river. It is about one thousand feet high, I suppose, and lies behind
our land.

"Did ye ivver hear the loike av that, now?" roared O'Gaygun,
boisterously. "Here's the bhoy for ye! Here's the bhoy that's afraid to
ate an eyester fur fear av hurtin' the baste, an' that's goin' to hump
Marahemo down to the farrum, aal so bould an' gay! Shure now, thim's the
shouldhers that can do that same!"

After a brief, friendly passage of arms between the two, the Saint
continued hotly--

"Well, all I can say is, it seems to me more sensible to burn our lime
on Marahemo and to hump it down here, than to hump oysters along the
beach, and then have to hump the lime again up from there."

"By Jove!" broke in Old Colonial, "the boy's right, I believe. Shut up,
you Milesian mudhead, and listen to me. Right from the old pa on the top
of Marahemo down to the very foot, there's the Maori middens: a regular
reef of nothing but shell, oysters and pipi and scollops and all the
rest. There must be hundreds and hundreds of tons of pure shell. All
we've got to do is to make a kiln near the bottom and shovel the shell
into it; and there's any amount of firewood, dead stuff, round about."

"Well, but look at the long hump from there