FEMININE REFLECTIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 70, 14 June 1927, Page 5

FEMININE REFLECTIONS

MUNDANE MUSINGS

THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD Mummy was getting very much worEd about Sybil. It seemed to her he was beginning to be a very un-■-ruthful little girl, and that since the baby had come, she had altered a great deal, and in many ways not for the better. She couldn’t understand it. and it puzzled her. Of course, Sybil had wanted to know where baby Peter had come from, and she. following traditional lines, had told her the doctor had brought him. The child had gone away and asked no more, but not long afterwards she had been heard playing at “Doctor’s Shops” with a little friend. The friend had come in and asked for a baby. Sybil, as the doctor, had replied urbanely, “I’m very sorry, madam, I’m out of stock just now. You see, the last lot I had got so stale because nobody wanted them. I just had to send them back again. I couldn’t keep them all myself, or I should have had such a large family, and they’re not in fashion now. Not like the pictures on the tombstones. Then you got a lot and sent back the ones you didn’t like.” Mummy had been not a little surprised when she overheard this conversation coming from her little daughter, for it showed her that Sybil thought more about things than she imagined. It was true that they had taken the child with them sight-seeing last summer to an old church, where there was a monument showing a knight and his lady, with six boys arranged behind the father, and seven girls behind the mother. They had read from the epitaph that nine of them had not survived infancy, and she remembered that Sybil had asked what this meant, adding quickly after the explanation, “Mummy, couldn’t we send Peter back, too, then; it was so much nicer before he came.” Someone standing near had made a remark about large families being unfashionable. How children remembered! THE BEAUTIFUL FAIRY The little girl never seemed to want her mummy either now. She was always running about after her daddy trying to help him, pointing out things that “We” had done, or generally that she, Sybil, had made. This wasn’t true, either, for the child had only looked on, as a rule, her father said. She was often overheard, too, telling little friends of wonderful adventures she had, of cream-coloured ponies that she kept in the nursery cupboard, that took her to fairy-land whenever she wanted, and the beautiful fairy who lived in a cave, who sometimes sang to her and on whose lap she sat to look at picture books, how she kept a school, where she had only little girls. Were these dreams, wondered Sybil’s mother? If so. surely the child was old enough now to know the difference between’ what really happened and what she thought happened. She had once tried to argue it cut with Sybil, but the child had oilly become confused and merely contradicted herself over and over again. GROWN-UPS CAN SAY ANYTHING But, Mummy, things I do at night *are just as real, realler sometimes, than all the dull things, walks and dinners we have in the day. What I see in my head is real, just as real as me, ’cos it is me. P’raps you can’t see it. so you say I’m pertending. “But it’s real my side.” “I don’t understand what you mean by real; what do you mean?" “What’s telling stories? You tell me stories and say they’re true. Then I tell you stories and you say I mustn’t; it’s naughty to say what isn’t true. When one's grown-up one can say anything, and it’s true, and things grown-ups do are real. Only when you’re little, people say your thinks are only pertending, and what you do’s not real. What makes things real, anyway?” Here mummy didn’t know what to answer. But an idea was beginning to glimmer into her mind. Could it be possible that to the child-mind real things were anything that was wished for. desired, in fact, like the creamcoloured ponies and the fairy who sang to her? While you tried to pretend things that you didn’t want—like that little brother of hers—were not really true. She was wondering, too, whether she could have been partly to blame for some of Sybil’s confusion over the real and true things. She herself had not given her a real and true answer, by any means, when the child had asked about Peter. Was this what the child had meant when she said. “Grown-ups can say anything and it’s true?” Could it be that the beautiful fairy on whose lap Sybil sat in her dreams was a fairy mummy, who loved her best and sang only to her, as she herself had done before Peter came? REAL AS REAL CAN BE Was the child inventing a phantasy world, according to her own taste, to establish as her own reality instead of an outside world that was proving so disappointing to her? Daddy only laughed when he was consulted about it and said she would grow out of it. But he asked her about it all the same one evening, when he went up to see her after she ' was in bed. “Come now. old lady, you know when you’re pretending and when you’re not. don’t you? You’re worrying your mother with all your ridiculous make-believe, you know. ’ “Sometimes I do. when I really portend. But Mummy doesn’t understand, and often tells me I’m pertending when I’m not. when it’s real as real can be. and I am the little girl that was stolen away by the wicked witch, and given to other people to bring up. and • no j day they’ll fetch me home tc the i king and queen, who are my real ! Mummy and Daddy, and they’ll l e so i awfully pleased to see me. You’ll i come with me, of course, and I’ll tell ; the king how good you’ve been, and we’ll leave Mummy with Peter at home I here, for she won’t want to come to

my beautiful country, because she say it’s silly and only pertending.”

Cook cauliflower face-downwards and it will be snow-white. All the scum will rise to the top and thus will not stain the vegetable, which when cooked can be easily lifted out by the stem.

A sheet of zinc or asbestos, cut to fit the top of your gas cooker, will help you to economise in gas, since several saucepans can be kept at boiling point on this zinc or asbestos plate with the use of only one burner.

FROM A WOMAN’S ARMCHAIR \

<By MAVIS CLARE.) “Mother,” said Mavis the younger, by way of general introduction, “here’s the crowd!” ... I watched them filing through the hall; boys and girls of eighteen and nineteen and the early twenties. And, as they passed me with a casual nod, the girls h'ardlooking and efficient, the boys seemingly wearing an armour of. withdrawnness, it was all I could do to infuse warmth into my smile. They seemed so unapproachable; so remote from all I had ever associated with Youth. “Thank heaven,” was my secret thought, “for the basement gramophone!” To the basement they forthwith repaired, and for two solid hours they kept up their strenuous gyrations. Presently I should have to go downstairs, play the hostess for live minutes or so, and suggest coffee and sandwiches in the dining-room. I dreaded the forthcoming encounter like any shy “deb” at her first ball. Had not my own daughter warned me that I shouldn’t “cotton” to them? “Don’t put any ‘charm’ over, darling!” had been Mavis the younger’s filial advice. “It’s waste of time. They’re all right; but thev’re not your sort.” Reluctantly I rose from my comfortable armchair, and as I steeled myself to the inevitable, there was a light tap at my study door. There entered

a young woman of some jiineteen summers, unabashedly made up, thinlipped and self-assured. Sans ceremonie, she approached the point. “I happen to be sitting out this turn, and Mavis is dancing, so I thought I’d come up and tell you I’m rather good at making coffee.”

My natural self oozed up to the surface. “Why, that’s very sweet of you, my dear,” I said. Then trembled for my momentary sentimental lapse. “Don’t you believe it,” came the laughing response. “Sweetness isn’t in my line, but I can see when anyone’s whacked to the wide. I told Mavis you looked tired out. You just tell me where the things are, and I’ll see the lions are fed.”

Hours later, when I went downstairs, the gramophone was still going. But in the kitchen, other activities were afoot. The washing-up bowl was in full play. “We’re doing it in relays,” said the coffee expert. “This is the last lap. Nothing broken, lady!” I kissed my hand to Youth and all its unknown quantities. Modern Youth? . . . Bless its heart! A POTTERY NOTE At a trifling cost, some really lovely copies of antique Medici and other “art” pottery can be acquired by the housewife with a flair for such filings. Flowers look all the lovelier in a perfect setting, and the colouring of these plaster imitations of the genuine article is. in feminine parlance, “a dream.” The trouble is that the vases are porous. But that does not place them out of court as flower receptacles. One woman of my acquaintance utilises anything from a plain glass jam-pot to the slenderest of glass specimen tubes—according to the shape and size of the ornament—to hold the blossoms and foliage. Completely concealed inside the work of art. they fill the bill to perfection. Gun-metal grey is the approved fashion for smart daytime stockings: and a very “slimming,” elusive shade of greyish mauve for evening wear.

MRS. PEPYS’S DIARY

! MONDAY.—To drink a dish of tea I with Mr. Pepys’s Aunt Lettice. and ! here do create a good impression, since i [ do indeed consider her windows and ; mirrors to have a better shine to them ; than can be said of most. So doth she beg me to write here of her manner of achieveing same, and that to use naught but linen for the duster with which you would finally polish them; linen having no fluff to it, and so the result very pleasing to the eye. For this purpose doth Mr. Pepys’s Aunt Lettice save all her linen scraps. And so. congratulating her again, I think my tea well earned by me on this occasion. TUESDAY.—For sending to Mistress Bassett, also to remind her in good season, do write out a recipe, well tried, for the making of cowslip wine, the time of gathering cowslips being near at hand, and this a great pity for anyone living in the country. For making of it allow 31b. of sugar, 2 lemons and also I gallon of cowslip pips, they being the flowers when separated from the stalk and the seeds, to 1 gallon of water. Now to boil your water and sugar together, and when they have cooled to the heat of new milk pour over your cowslips and the peel, thin, of your lemons. This wine to be fermented with a little fresh brewers’ yeast spread upon a slice of toast; 1 tablespoonful of yeast to 3 gallons of liquor to serve you. For the rest, keep your wine in the cask until it be done with fermenting, and in bottles as long as you may, two years not too long if you can manage it.

WEDNESDAY.—Now, with my own hands did make a most excellent savoury for our eating this night. The manner of it to put £ pint of milk and h I>int of stock, or water if you have no stock, into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Now sprinkle in 4oz. of semolina, stirring all the time, and so to simmer until it be all smooth and thick. All of margarine goz. and so to cook for 5 minutes longer, and again to stir all the time of the utmost importance. Next remove the pan from the fire and add l£oz. of grated cheese and 1 egg well beaten, also a very good seasoning of pepper and salt, and of cayenne a dash. When your mixture be nearly cold, place in little heaps of a pyramid-shape upon a fireproof dish, well greased. Sprinkle with l£oz. grated cheese, and little pieces of margarine, soz. to suffice. Coat your pyramids with breadcrumbs and bake in a good oven. If any should choose to use this dish for luncheon to pour a good tomato sauce round about it to make it very suitable as I think.

THURSDAY.—My maid Jane sending a salad to our table not drained of water and so to spoil it utterly, do provide her with a piece of muslin, bidding her to place her salad loosely therein, when it be well washed, to gather together in the hand, and to swing round and round for a minute, when all the moisture will be absorbed by the cloth or shaken out, and this more seemly than that it should remain on the salad to ruin the dressing of same.

FRIDAY.—To render it as palatable as may be, do decide on scalloped fish for our eating- this night, and for this do buy a large cutlet of cod. Myself do bake my cutlet in milk, then while it be still warm do bone and flake it fairly fine, seeing that there be no bit of skin to it. Next to make a white sauce of 5 pint of milk, 1 oz. of flour, loz. of butter and a little pepper and salt. Stir your fisli in your sauce, butter well some scallop shells, drop some of the' mixture in each, sprinkle over with breadcrumbs, put small pieces of butter upon each and bake to a gol-den-brown in a quick oven. For a variety grate a little cheese and sprinkle it over your scallops before baking. Also add to your white sauce a few capers, or if it please you better a few shrimps, or a hard-boiled egg, finely chopped, or a dash of anchovy sauce. SATURDAY.—For our eating at dinner upon the L.ord ? s Day, do decide upon a sweet called a primrose pudding, this X think very suitable for the time of year. The way of it to coat a mould or basin thickly with butter, to decorate same with the stoned halves of raisins, to moisten 4oz. of ground lices with a little milk, to boil nearly 1 pint of milk and to pour over your rice with a little milk, to boil nearly turn to your saucepan, to sweeten well and cook for four minutes. When this be cooked slightly put in 2 eggs well beaten, a little flavouring of vanilla, pour into the mould and steam in a gentle manner for 1 hour, when no more to do but to turn out and serve very hot indeed. SHUTTERS, GREEN AND OTHERWISE The title: "The itouse with the Green Shutters” has always seemed to me one of the most inspired. It conjures up a vision of a most attractive domicile (for surely its front must be cream and its door flanked by bay trees in green tubs!), while there is something about the very word “shutter” which suggests a sense of pleasant mystery. Not sensational mystery, but just that slight reticence which is so valuable a feature in houses as well as in humans. Most house-fronts are of the obvious type. Few possess character, and still fewer are picturesque. But give them gaily-painted shutters, and let these shutters be for the most part laid flat against the wall—at once you have something distinctive, something that appeals to the imagination. They are like well-shaped eyebrows, punctuating the face and giving expression to the eyes—in this case, the windows. Do not be afraid of colour for your shutters. Those who are familiar i with the villas of the coasts of No rth - | ern France and of Holland will admit the effectiveness of shutters, painted in blue and yellow, green and orange, purple and mauve. Sometimes a quaint geometrical design varies the expanse and occasionally there are primitive patternings after the manner of the decorations of j gipsy caravans. The scope of inveni tiveness in shutters is not limited. —M.L. AFTERNOON TEA MUFFINS ! Grate enough stale bread to fill a j teacup: soak this in one teacupful of i warm milk. When the bread is quite i soft, add two well-beaten eggs, half a 1 teaspoonful of salt, one tablespoonfM j of melted butter, and enough flour to ! make a thick cy-op batter: finally, j add two teaspoonsful of baking powj der. Hali-fill cake tins with the mixture and bake in a miiok- Vivph

If your arms are too thin, feed them! That is all they need, to fill them out and round off sharp corners. Pure olive oil, gently massaged into the arms every other night for a week or so, will work wonders. Employ a rotary movement, taking in every portion of the arm in its turn, and massage very gently. If you do it at night you can allow the oil to stay on and rinse your arms in the morning. You will, incidentally, discover that the oil has removed an abnormal amount of grime! Oil has the power to do this where soap and water fail, and the fact that the pores are thoroughly cleansed, so that the skin can breathe properly, accounts for the result —smooth, young, round arms. Be sparing with the oil and stick faithfully to the treatment which can be repeated at intervals as often as is necessary, so long as the olive oil is the purest and the best you can get. G. M. A.

WATERTIGHT SHOES

The woman whose family includes j an ardent gardener, or a golfer, hears ' many complaints about shoes which j look stout and feel heavy, and yet 1 cannot be trusted to keep out the j damp. There is no virtue in a thick ! sole if the leather is porous, or if the ; seams are faulty. Shoes which can be guaranteed water-tight are very expensive, and even these are not always as satisfactory as one would expect. It is good to know that any ordinary stout shoe can be made absolutely waterproof at very small cost in money or trouble. Get four ounces of mutton suet and three ounces of beeswax, and shred them finely into a clean jam-jar. Add I two ounces of resin and half a pint j of boiled linseed oil. Stand the jar in a saucepan of water, and heat the 1 mixture gradually. Stir with a stick occasionally, and be very careful that ; it does not drop on the stove, as the oil would flare up. Remove from th*--fire when thoroughly dissolved, ai.d use when just warm. See that the ; shoes are quite dry and clean, and j then brush the mixture into the soles ! and uppers, and particularly into the j seam where they meet. The shoes will be ready for wear in 24 hours, ar.d will always take a good polish in the , ordinary way.