FROM MY WINDOW.

Shannon News, 15 January 1924, Page 3

FROM MY WINDOW.

THE GREATNESS OF SMALL THINGS. (By “Etei*.”) 1 ‘The little things of iii e i love — A song, a word, a smile; An how’s of happy .blue above, 'Neath .Which I walk the. while; For at the best, though be our state The peasant’s or the king’s, This file is a mosaic, great, But made from little things.”

I suppose that, as in real mosaic work tne little pieces are needed to fill in the,larger designs, so we cannot despise the day oi small things. When you glance back at past experiences do you not often, wonder why some tiny occurrence has formed itself indelibly in the mosaic ol your life while the more important happenings are nearly obliterated’' It may b 6 one sentence out of a whole spech; one paragraph in a hook; or on© little unexpected revelation 01 character in a friend, that alters your judgment of him entirely. * * * # » Little grains of powder, Little dabs of paint, Make a lady’s face . Look as if it ain’t. How swift we are to judge people by small externals 1 They may be making a big effort to impress us favourably, while all the time we have judged them by some tiny trait that perhaps they do not know they possess.

We judge others by their walk; accent in speaking; mannerisms; expression of the face; even movements of their hand© or choice of clothing. I have seen one woman wearing an old morning frock with dignity while another woman in new black dresa, appeared to be lacking the first principles of refinement.

Have you never judged a person’s upbringing by the way he seats himself o-n entering a room? It is by a wisp of straw that we find how the stream runs. If children are taught to ibe courteous and their natural, best selves, it will become second nature as they grow up. The training of them is. a great responsibility when we remember that the mind of a child is like cement in its plastic stage: when the smallest impressions, good, bad and indifferent, become indelible and cannot be erased from the finished cement of later years. * * « * *

Do not make the mistake of airing your best Douiton china only for the grown-ups’ afternoon tea and ‘ giving the children cracked ware when they come to pay a formal call; or you will be weighed in the balance and found wanting, as was the lady who entertained a little .girl at tea one night-. Afterwards the mother, ias guardian of the child’s health, asked what she had had for tea.. ‘‘Bones on a cracked plate” was the outspoken reply. The kiddie did not know that those despised bones were covered with what used to be white Leghorn chicken; nor did she. consider that cracked plates have an .unaccountable way of turning up where least wanted.

WJiy do mothers intelligent babies in perambulators, with their backs to the view, of all that is going on in this interesting world, >and facing .only the handle and escort? , When a Kiddie attempts, to turn the proper way around to find out the cause of interesting sounds; he finds, instead in this land of freedom that he is strapped to tlhe seat by a patent “clutch-me-tight,” and by the time he lias (tried to. liberate himself, thereby earning a reputation for restlessness, the interesting sound has ceased and his mentality has lost another opportunity for development. Such a position must be as exciting as when one pours out lemonade irom a bottle whose cork was removed ten minutes previously: the strength and sparkle have departed. Or it may be compared with an old-l'ashioned magic lantern performance when the operator makes a mistake which elicits the chorus from the onlookers: “Upside do-o-wnl ’’ *****

Speaking of iemonade bottles. reminds me of a little domestic tragedy ivvthich occurred in a railway train, travelling from Napier to Wellington, once upon a ,time. Remember, tragedies do not necessarily consist of murders, "fires, and floods, but often of (the small things in every-day life which confound the mighty and lesser beings.

A man and his wife were travelling, and the hot weather experienced, caused the lady to feel very thirsty. They lhad not .reached the proper refreshment station, but the stopping place at that moment had a hotel across the street from the station ; so off hurried the man for some lemonade. He brought -back a bottle with marbe still in place, but unacpmpanied by a tumbler. This, Ihe explained, was beoaus he would have had to buy the tumbler as there was no time to return it. The wile evidently w a s unreasonable enough to consider that even in a dire emergency, which the other passengers could see had occurred, she could not descend to the small boy way of drinking it from the bottle. She put on an injured air, explaining that she could not possibly do without 'a tumbler. This incensed the husband after his hurried run on her behalf, and Ihe added fuel to the fire by saying: “You would if you were at home!” The wife .wag silent but ohl the eloquence of untold wrath that appeared in her face! Placing the poor inoffensive bottle On the floor of the carriage she allowed it to roll where it listed for the remainder of the journey, until it sounded like a lost soul in search of .unattainable rest. I hope the guard was young enough to save the situation later on. I was wicked enough to hope that the lady felt very thirsty; for any well-seasoned traveller knows that, however much one dbpects, the veneered surface of etiquette is allowed to be scratched sometimes. That hus-

band must have had “a bad quajrter-of-an-hour for the next few days. I am sure any of the passengers would have forgiven the exercise of primitive measures in this instance—yea, ever have been willing to pat the lady’s back if .she threatened to choke. * * *

A beautiful sight was witnessed* lately when, about a dozen women were preparing. gifts for a .sale of work: Most of the women were middle-aged, and all had passed through sorrows—who is exempt? and Time naturally had marked their brows a little with his foot-prints. But when they opened one parcel to mark its contents, their faces became transiormed to those of little children, and pure enjoyment filled the room. The parcel contained four dollies beautifully dressed with frills and furbelows and miniature hats in the very height of fashion'. To an interested onlooker the sight was inspiring , illustrating as it did, that the kingdom of heaven is not far away when it takes so little to make us children again. One woman explained apologetically that she still loved dolls, but no apology was needed, not even when one knew that some of them already had grown-up families, while others were the mothers of smaller children who still need ed to be darned and patched. * * * * *

In the Hot Lakes district between Taupo and Wairakei the Waikato river wends its way over obstacles that form it into rapids. These you may view on the Taupo side from a tall cliff; OH by-.crossing a bridge to the Wairakei side you, may clamber to a wooded islet and be close enough to the rapids to breathe the very breath of the song that they sing, which is a reiteration of their own name: Ara-tia-tia. In one comer of the rapids there used to be, and may be still, a backwash under tile cliff), in which were imprisoned some pieces of spare timber that had drifted down from a bridge recently built in the vicinity. In their efforts , to escape from this corner the pieces of-wood looked almost like living, sensient beings—cheery optimists at that—for they would not ihe beaten, but after each rebuff would put forward another effort, only to be thrown back into their corner by the swiftly moving counter current.

Circumstances proved altogether too strong for them and their lot in life appeared to be a continual effort to regain their liberty, yet a cheery acceptance of things as they were; until Nature the great Alehenist should give them their liberty by changing their solid bodies into ethereal ones. Until then they- were willing to keep on keeping on. Which is an allegory. i