At the start of author Penelope Fitzgerald's short story "At Hiruharama," the Tanner family is preparing to leave New Zealand. But to leave the country, the couple must first sell their assets, including their beloved home and land, with the help of a family member who is a lawyer.
To explain how a family member came to be a lawyer, Mr. Tanner (who narrates the short story) explains to readers how his grandfather immigrated to New Zealand from Great Britain. Mr. Tanner explains that his grandfather was an orphan in England when he was one day sent to live with a wealthy family in Auckland, New Zealand. He was sent there with the promise that he would become an apprentice in a trade. However, Mr. Tanner's grandfather quickly learns he was sent to the wealthy family to be their servant and take care of the tasks they did not want to do. Tasks like preparing and serving food, tending to the horses, and chopping wood.
One day, while on an errand run to a dry goods store, Mr. Tanner's grandfather meets a young woman named Kitty, who also came to New Zealand from Great Britain. And like Mr. Tanner's grandfather, Kitty was promised to be a governess but is instead treated like a servant. Love blossoms between the two. After only a few weeks of knowing each other, Mr. Tanner's grandfather tells Kitty to wait for him for three years so that he could save up enough money for them to marry and lead a happy and fruitful life together. Kitty agrees and asks Mr. Tanner's grandfather to write a letter to his sister. Mr. Tanner's grandfather, however, can't write.
The short story moves forward several years and shows Kitty and Mr. Tanner's grandfather living together on a farm in a remote area of New Zealand. There, they plot their future lives together. They are poor and don't have enough money to buy the plot of land they are living on. However, the previous tenant of the property abandoned it, leaving it to them.
From there, the couple builds their life together. They start a massive garden and raise nearly 200 chickens and several pigs. The couple also utilizes a spout which allows them seemingly unlimited access to the water that lay beneath their feet.
Several years later, Kitty lets Mr. Tanner's grandfather know that she is pregnant (with Mr. Tanner's father, as readers can intuit). Mr. Tanner's grandfather drives into town to meet with a doctor, who tells him that he has no way to know if the couple will be having twins. Mr. Tanner's grandfather has a long conversation with the doctor about life and how he should conduct it. The doctor also tells Mr. Tanner that he should ask the doctor to assist him once the child comes.
Mr. Tanner's grandfather runs another errand, this time going to the post office to send a letter to his sister. However, he realizes that he cannot read or write and asks someone else to write the letter for him (Kitty had told him that the two would not get married unless she learned to write). Mr. Tanner's grandfather returns, and Kitty goes into labor. The doctor, in turn, is called out to their residence. But before the doctor arrives at the Tanner residence, the babies are born--and Mr. Tanner's grandfather had delivered them.
Brinkman, the Tanners' neighbor, is at their residence when Mrs. Tanner is giving birth, hoping that he will be cooked a meal. Brinkman never realizes that he will not be fed that night and stays in the house, smoking his pipe and thinking that someday he will find a wife that will love and cherish him. He also hopes that the Tanners will feed him one day.
