Will O’ the Wisp

Evening Star, Issue 23687, 21 September 1940, Page 3

Will O’ the Wisp

Written by MARY SCOTT, for the ‘ Evening Star ’

Sho had always, since my first memory of her, been looking for leisure. Not complainingly K as some women do or even impatiently. Indeed, the quality ( that most impressed me always in her character was her cheerful endurance. She did not grumble at being inordinately busy;, she merely looked forward pleasantly' and confidently to a future that would bestow her fair share of leisure. “No one can expect to have spare time while their children arc small,” she used to say.

That was when 1 first remember her, during the years of the Groat AVar. Her husband and brother had gone earlv in the day, and she was left stumbling along with incapable help on her small farm. Since she was herselt a competent stock-woman, some share of the work fell upon her shoulders, and sho laboured early and late to hold the property together and to do her best by her three sons. “ Every woman is busy when sho has young children, was all sho would admit. “ (Besides, there’s a war on. so perhaps one is best to be busy. , When it’s all over. I shall love leisure.”

When at last it was over and her husband had returned—though not her brother—that elusive leisure still escaped her. There were two moie children besides the three sons who were now at school. I can remember that, to my comparative youth, her hie seemed inordinately dreary; for her husband had not come unscathed through those four years, and he was no longer an easy and amiable man. But his wife never dreamt of grumbling at this. “We women must expect to spend the rest of onr lives picking up the pieces. After all, there’s been a war on. When things settle down again 1 shall have leisure.” It did not come in the slump years that presently followed, and the struggle with five children, a larm, and a delicate husband must have been a heavy one. inevitably slie became a buffer, defending her husband from his own depression and his children from the consequences of his irritability and ill-health. Since she was resolute against the sacrifice of her sons to the farm, a fair share of heavy work canio her way. i( The hoys must have a decent education,” she maintained. “Then I hope they may come back mid farm; but it must be of their own choice and' not as the only resort.” Therefore, .she worked and denied herself so that her boys might have a normal upbringing and freedom of choice. In the end two chose the laud and the third went in for commercial aviation. With the passing of that responsibility came the education of the other two children, and this prevented these quieter years from bringing the leisure which her middle-age had the, right to expect. There was no money to spare, so, naturally enough, she carried on the work of house and garden, cooked always for three men, and often for more, mended and washed ami baked—and spoke always of all the time that would bo hers when the boys wore mar-

riod and licr one daughter was old enough to leave school. Life in the country is not easy for one pair of hands under these circumstances, and there was little opportunity for the reading and culture that my friend desired, yet she gave no sign of thwarted ambitions and looked steadily ahead to that elusive leisure.

Strenuous years, but full of interest, with a second farm added to the family property and the hoys living at home and working an adjoining section. With nows farms to break in-and the hundred expenses of hungry land, prosperity lurked 'always round the corner. But it would come, and with it opportunity for the woman of the house to live restlully and fully. Her husband iiad asserted this for 20 years, but he died with the dream still unfulfilled. The blow was followed closely by another-; the aviator son lost his young wife and—inevitably and naturally ou the score that - to 'him who is busy more shall be given —the year-old grandson came to the farmhouse and not to the leisured grandparents who lived in town. Surely now she must realise that leisure was not likely to come until old ago had robbed the dream of its sweetness P But no. “By the time he is ready to go to school I shall have so much time ou my hands that I shall scarcely know what to do with it,” she said. After that our paths lay apart and I did not see her again until a few weeks ago. I know that she was still on the farm, and I expected to see a grey-haired woman sitting with hands folded at last, with books and knitting and all the pharapliernalia of leisure. Instead, she was kneading bread in the same largo kitchen, one eye, as ever, upon the clock, regretting the lack of time to read the latest books, understand the latest problems. The aviator had long been in England, but his child remained with her; the second son was in Egypt, the third thinking up a more convincing lie which would take him into the reinforcements. Hired help carried on the farm, and over the whole my friend kept a shrewd and commanding eye. The truth appeared to bo that she was busier than ever. Under those circumstances it was scarcely surprising to hear that she hoped to have the care of at least two evacuated children. Her grandson was away at school, and and she would enjoy, she said, the occupation and interest that small people about the house would bring. All this she told me without any trace of insincerity, one shadow of regret at the leisure that could never now be hors. “ But why fill up your days with all that work? Surely there are plenty of people who haven’t worked hard all their lives to undertake these children? You were always looking for leisure, longing for time.”

She paused in her kneading and her eye met mine thoughtfully. “And can you guess what happened P I found it, found time at last—and it terrified me. hi those first days —after one boy had joined the Air Force and the other had sailed—l had lots of time. 1 hated it.”