After the Earthquake

More than a century ago, many people from Britain sailed out to New Zealand, to start new lives as farmers or doctors or teachers. It was not a crowded country, and people on farms and in small towns all knew each other. They knew each other's family history, how much money they had, who loved whom, who hated whom...

Children, of course, must not know too much, about what adults do and think and feel. But Walter, who is only six, notices things and likes to ask questions...

The earthquake happened late on a Saturday right in summer and shook the coast, the farms, and the towns for twenty miles, from the sea to the mountains. At the Blakiston home, everybody had gone to bed and was asleep, but the shake woke Mr Blakiston immediately. When it was over, he sat up in bed, lit his candle, and looked about him at the walls and ceiling. He could not see any damage, although the quake had been strong and had shaken the house from side to side for a moment or two.

'Are you all right?' Mr Blakiston asked his wife, who was now awake beside him.

'Yes, dear, but do go and see if Walter is awake. He may be frightened.' She had been frightened herself, waking from a dream of ships on the sea.

Her husband rested on one elbow, staring at the candle and listening for sounds from his son's room. Walter was six and had his own room near the top of the stairs.

'He must be all right,' said Mr Blakiston, hearing no sound in the house. He blew out the candle and lay back beside his wife. 'Still, that was a bad little quake. Yes, a damn bad little quake.' Soon he was asleep again.

In the morning, they found little damage outside, except for the old washhouse chimney, out at the back, which had fallen onto the washhouse roof. But inside the house a thin china vase had fallen onto the floor and broken. At breakfast time, Mr Blakiston brought the pieces of the vase to the table, to show his wife and son.

'English china,' he explained to the boy. 'Very fine too. See that letter D? That's for Doulton, the people who made it.' But Walter was more interested in the earthquake. 'Did the whole house shake?' he asked his father.