VILLAGE VIGNETTES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 286, 22 August 1918, Page 3

VILLAGE VIGNETTES

— g, _ 1 SKETCHED IN WAR TIME

(By "E.\V:R." in the "Manchester Guardian.'') I. —Prejudico, The okl fanner lives jii a cuttagc now, aiul has ceased tu work, Do letl from a i-ick a few .years ago, and is lamed lor lilt. 1 saw him at lus collage-gate jackelless, as is his wont, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his bare anus renewing their mahogany, colouring in the hot sunshine. As we. talked two of the newLand Lasses passed by—bonny, brown faces they had beneath their soft lints; smock coats eiotned them from shoulder to knee, brown leggings and thick-stled boots beneath tho coats. "A pair of beauties they be," the old farmer said, with an emphasis that expressed stern disapproval. "Have you spoken to them?" I asked. "Not me," he said; "I couldn't abide talking, to 'em. Brazen-faced I call 'em. Why, if my old mother had seen 'em in that get-up she'd have chased 'em with a mopstick, and sarve 'em right!" "Is it only because of their dress you condemn them?" "[ knows nothing about 'em, except what I sees with me own eyes, and that's good enough for me." And then I knew that he was looking at the Land Lasses not with his • own eyes at all, but with tho eyes of the mother who lived in days of prudish prejudice a hundred years ago. ll.—Pluck. The-squire's lady gave me an old-timo greeting. She asked me the old, old question "How long will the war last?'' and 1 countered it with, "Yon anxious about the boy?" ' But .she wasn't. Proudly she answered;'"Oh, he's all right; had his horse shot dead twice and still in tho thick of it. It's Lilian who worries me." "What about Lilian?" "She's a V.A.D.; gone into a hospital and is scrubbing floors. Vows_ she'll'do six months of it; and she might have gone to Australia for a trip. Sho has scrubbed lioors for two months; it will ruin her hands, and I've told her so." "And what did Lilian say ?" "She wrote me that it has ruined •'her hands already, that she doesn't care a rap, and that she is going on with it." ) 111.—Contentment. The cough of an engine floated through the hawthorns. I'found it in a rick'yard. Such a busy scene. Three Land Lasses on a forty-ton hayrick pitching forkfuls of hay from one to tho other, and the' third one feeding it down to a baling machine driven by the engine. A fourth guidiiig the baling wire, tour men in khaki loading the bales on lorries.

It looked hot work in the blazing sunshine. The dust of the hay settled on everything. Sun's heat and dust, and the hot cough of the engine and the rumble of tho baling press. "Disagreeable job! ladies?" I said. "Not bad," ono laughed. "Dust'rather trying, isn't it?" "It all washes off." "Must make you. very tired." "It does; but (singing) 'When you comoto the end of a perfect: day' "—a pause, and then, roguishly, "'Such sleep." IV.—Toleration. I passed the rectory at the hour of" morning service. Tho organ droned through the open church door; through the thick box hedge I heard- the click of croquet balls. A gap in tho fence showed me half a dozen men in blue playing croquet—within sonnd of tlio church organ. Jfy hair rose on end, for I thought of a dear old lady, tho wife of the rsutor of long ago, herself uow sleeping in the churchyard, who gave me a terrible wigging once for returning from church with the whooping and tally-ho-ing of a schoolboy's imaginary fox chase. After tho service I met the rector. "Croquet at tho rectory on Sunday morning!" I commented, still amazed. "For the wounded—yes," ho said. "There are twenty hospita.l beds in my bouse, you know,, and. the doctor says tlio men must piny whenever the fancy takes them. I don't like it, but in a soldiers' hospital the doctor rules and tho padro obeys. They think I'm a good sort because I.don't make a fuss. Because it helps them to mend I just tolerato their games, oven during ilio hours, of service. They'll be tired later on and let mo read to them. The padro has to be a strategist in war lime. V.—Camouflage. 1 chanced to be m the village post office nnd an oldish farmer's wife came in with a parcel. When she had gone I noticed two words printed »n thick lottera of ink above the - address. l "Good heavens!" I said, "the meat shortage isn't so bad an fill thai, .surely?" y The postmistress laughed; \ "That's Dame Brown's patent for snfe•ty," she saiu. "The old lady 6ends her soldier grandson a pot of rabbit every week, 'the pot got 'lost' sometimes in the journey, and she hij upon the idea of labelling the' contents. Ivvery week sho calls, and always those two words arc boldly printed on the wrapper, 'Potted Iwlt.' The parcel never niiscnrries now."