FEMININE REFLECTIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 18, 12 April 1927, Page 5

FEMININE REFLECTIONS

YOUR CLUB AND MINE AN OPEN COLUMN Each Tuesday a column will be reserved for original contributions of general interest to womenfolk. The subject matter is for you to choose, but articles should be as brief as possible, brightly written (on one side cf the paper only, please!) and should be addressed *to “Your Club and Mine,” THE SUN, Auckland. A book prize be given each week to the sender of the best effort. This week the prize has been awarded to Mrs. M. M. Calhoun for her article on “Mail Day in the Backblocks.” MAIL DAY IN THE BACKBLOCKS (Written for THE SUNJ Rain, rain, and yet again rain! As 1 look from my kitchep window, my arms and apron liberally besprinkled with flour and my hands busily kneading the family bread. I watch the mountain mists rolling up and obscuring everything further away than my back fence, then receding to show me a line of sad-looking washing on my neighbour’s line, then farther revealing a clump of bush, ghostlike and depressing in its dripping stillness and ever-changing shadows. Fascinated, I watch the white fog, swiftly, silently changing the landscape into a thing of mystery and then as suddenly disappearing to leave the same familiar, sodden view that I see every day. This weary wetness lias endured for days and days, and things inside seem to be nearly as sodden as those outside. My thoughts come back with a jerk and I vigorously pummel my bread. Thank goodness, at least it is mail day! Once each week our sturdy little bush locomotive, familiarly known as the “lokey,” puffs its way down to the wharf with a load of timber piled high on wooden trucks; “bogies,” I believe is the correct term, and wonderfully controlled by a system of rope brakes. I watched it leave this morning—raw, red timber, fresh from the rasping saws, headed by the perky little black engine and the diminutive van commonly called the “Black Maria,” which will bring back the stores and the blessed riiail. I wonder what the mail will bring to us

this week. Only those who have lived in the backblocks know the thrill of the weekly mail day. In winter, when one is almost isolated and the outside world seems a dim, far-off thing, one lives simply from mail day to mail day. We are many miles from a post office in our little saw-milling community, deep in the virgin bush in a little hollow of the hills, a wonderfully beautiful spot in summer, when the sombre green of the forest trees vies with the delicate fronds of the pungas and ferns innumerable overhanging the many creeks which wander through the gullies, sparkling and cold as only mountain streams can be. Then one can be reconciled to living “far from the haunts of men.”

But in the winter —ah! the less one says the better. Dark, damp, forbid-ding-looking bush of a uniform dark g re y_g r een, swollen brown streams rushing madly to the sea and roads which are frequently quite impassable and almost always quagmires of red. clayey mud. The men of the community, wet and dangerous as their work may be at times, have at least the colsolation of seeing a few 'fellowcreatures. even though one becomes so used to everyone else that all seem to blend into the general monotony. It is the women, especially those of us with small children, who grow to hate the sight of the four walls which constitute home —some of us with perhaps a little more means or aptitude live in a greatey degree of comfort than others, but all of us long for a decent footpath on which to wheel the übiquitous pram, a few street lights or an occasional visit to the movies.

But still it is mail day! My bread is safely tucked away to rise now at the back of the stove and I rescue the baby from the flour bin, where he has been delightedly poking pegs, and fly round with the broom. I must have everything finished early to-day, so that I can catch up with the week’s

news in the papers, and—oh, rank extravagance!—revel in my new fashion book, which is sure to arrive to-day. Nobody cares “who wears what” away up here, but still it is delightful to imagine what one would like to have, especially in dainty diaphanous evening frocks and silky, slinky undies that give one wiggly thrills to think about, but which simply wouldn’t wash! That, of course, is one of their chief charms.

My thoughts, my fingers and my feet keep time. I manage to make the beds without addressing the counterpanes which look like large white envelopes, and sticking stamps on the pudding. My small flock has charged to dinner. scattering coats, hats and mud

indiscriminately, and, satisfied, has betaken itself off again to its various duties; the baby is safely asleep and I have almost finished the everlasting “dishes.” Hark! I hear the “lokey” whistle! Eagerly I rush to the front door —why, I believe it is going to clear, after all! The fog has gone and the clouds seem lighter. Ah, there is the smoke, she will not be long now. From all directions the usual crowd is gathering; a few buggies and carts, one or two cars and motor-lorries, numerous Maori women and sundry animals. I must hurry back and finish before she gets in.

I call to a passing Maori and ask her ft she will bring over my mail; the other stores can come later, such mundane matters do not interest me at present. Time enough later on to complain to the butcher that he has sent me topside instead of corned beef, or to discover-that my much-needed bag of sugar has been taken in mistake by a man who lives about ten miles away. Just now my mind is occupied by loftier things.

Here she comes, puffing importantly over the brow of the hill; a halt by the storehouse to unload a few bags of manure and then on up to the waiting crowd at the office doorway. I can see them all from my front door and know so well just how it all goes.

The door of the “Black Maria” opens with a bang, the Maoris crowd as close as possible, about half a dozen dogs are underfoot, and the business of unloading is begun. Groceries, meat, parcels and packages of all kinds are swiftly passed out and distributed Someone rushes the mailbag into the office, the contents are tipped out pellmell and quickly sorted, letters in one pile, papers in another, a few parcels in a third. Everyone rummages for his or her own property and speculates upon the contents of everyone else’s. “Oh, yes, I know she was getting a parcel to-day—that’ll be that flannelette we saw advertised.” “My! only bills for this crowd; he won’t get much pay-

check this month.” “All those newspapers for one man! Whenever does he read them all?” That last is for my hubby, I know. I think nearly half the mail that comes here is for us. Scattered all over the world as our friends are, we get a goodly collection of books and papers apart from letetrs and sometimes from sheer boredom

we send for all the catalogues and free samples that we can find in a magazine.

I wish my Maori friend would hurry, but with the casualness of her race I see her gossiping still. Most of the vehicles have departed now, the “lokey” has betaken itself to the shed and only a few stray people still wander about. The rain has ceased and the sky shows signs of clearing. I glance hopefully at a very small'patch of blue and think of the family washing. Delicate flights of fancy and prosaic household duties are inextricably mixed in my mind.

Ah, at last, here she comes with a goodly pile of mail and a beaming smile above it. I fly to the gate and beam back at her and with mutual compliments—not very fully understood on either side—we part, and I carry my precious load -inside. Now let me look! Newspapers, dozens of them, or so it seems, three or four magazines and a few catalogues—all those aside for a moment. A parcel, oh, goody, what is it? Alas, only some stuff for my hubby, of interest to him, no doubt, but not to me. A pile of letters, a few bills, of course. Somehow these seem to come in all mails and at all times of the month, but still quite a bundle of nice friendly letters, two for hubby—m’m, I wonder whose writing that is? A lady’s, too! I lay them with his pile a trifle curiously and sit down to pore over the family letters and three from old girl friends. A lusty wail from the bedroom breaks into an entrancing description of a fancy dress ball, and I start up hastily, scattering books and papers everywhere. A little later, peace restored, and the infant cheerfully chewing a stamp that has come half across the world and been handled by heaven only knows whom, I return to the attack. My letters finished I begin upon the magazines. My precious fashion book has come and I gloat over impossible-looking females attired in impossible-looking costumes and sight for the time when 1 shall live again in civilisation and in all probability look more impossible still. Magazines of fiction, travel, art and events of the day—l see before me odd half hours of delight in perusing them all. Only a hasty glance now and then a glimpse at the newspapers. I can never keep up with them all when they arrive in such batches. All I can do is to read the headlines and anything that looks particularly exciting or important and glean odd items from hubby.

A sudden gleam of sunshine makes me look up. Thank goodness for some fine weather at last. Everything looks brighter already. My depression ot the morning has gone—vanished with the mail and that vagrant gleam of sunshine.

Regretfully I emerge from the mass of papers, disentangle my small son from several yards of string and set about getting tea. Later, when the small fry are in bed, hubby and I can have a peaceful hour or two and feel that we are not quite “the world forgotten, by the w r orld forgot.” MARJORIE M. COLHOUN.