Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 206, 19 November 1927, Page 19 (Supplement)

Mundane Musings

Chatelaine

There is the hotel mind, the mountaineering mind and the house mind. Then comes life to play malicious tricks. It sets the chamois on the office stool, sends the pantry mouse to the mountains and immures the hotel addict in double and single-fronted villas. To me, vocationally houseminded, yet pleased at times to see this and that and the other capital of the world from an hotel window", has been given—I touch wood—the most exquisite joy of expressing myself for the moment as chatelaine.

When my major-domo, coming this morning and placing the breakfast tray on my knees, announced the fact that the window-cord in the dining-room was broken, I said to myself, “That may be true, but I have enough potatoes in the storeroom to carry me through December.” As each pebble rattles down the mountain side heralding an avalanche which threatens the roof-tree, I shake fear from my eyes, and walk round the estate proudly and efficiently. Landed proprietors are always having these set-backs. Broken sash-cords and leaky roofs and fused wires and grass that grows while you look at it, these are all the attestations to one’s seigniorage. And if certain stress of fortune trouble one, it shall only heighten the effect and give one the leading part in the drama. The mortgage on the farm, and I am the movie actress with the pleading eyes. Property falling into disrepair, a land-owner taxed out of existence, yet clinging passionately to his land. Grounds not kept up—here an idea comes to me. Shall I not throw the place open once a week and restore it through the money paid regularly by the trippers? Until that thought becomes an act I am living a hidden and heavenly private life. Shut in securely by the grey and most assurely grimy walls of my little keep, I spin for the future. Patiently—and impatiently—at my loom each day I weave a web of words that shall give me cover from the biting cold of empty coffers. Gladly when this is over for the day, I walk round the rooms and gloat. Here is the guest room, bare and empty, to be got ready for the coming guest, a week-end one, who will talk my talk with me and keep to her own place in the morning, weaving as I weave, and for the same reason. A Coal Nucleus

The cellar must be prepared for the coal which has not yet materialised. One-sixth of a scuttle lies intact, and there are some boxes that shall be split up for kindling. I have priced the crocks for the making of my elder wine, but. as I write, there is a trembling in the tree. It's that dam pigeon eating the berries again. Waiting for the w-'e that is not yet made, the stone Aielves of the little wine cellar under the stairs are giving house room to 10 pounds of apples carefully placed so that no one apple shall touch the other. . From the meat hooks m the larder hang small paper, bags with herbs drying in them. And if you should think that I am making a great fuss about nothing. I’ll show you where you're wrong. Apples in a wine cellar are no more than happens to anyone who shops at shops. I have, on a tree, an apple growing. It it not my tree, and the owner and I are strangers. But the apple hangs so far over my wall that, in a court of law, there is no question but that any judge would give the apple to me. Living Ahead And if that should not be enough to grant me a farmer’s licence, I have a nut hanging in the branches of my own nut tree. Why a tree as spacious us this should produce only one nut I do not know. Perhaps I am no, sharp-eyed enough to pick out the pale from the dark green. Or perhaps the birds that come marauding from their fastnesses in other trees have taken all but this one, whicn trembles like a pendant on the end of

the slender branch. But here hangs my nut, silk-sheathed and safe. And I am a farmer bold, five minutes from town. And a chatelaine proud, with apples laid down and heibs drying and potatoes stored and wine tc be brewed when the crocks come home. . . . In the meantime desire shall create the wherewithal to procure that which one desires—at least l hope so. If the blue-bag refuses to dissolve, put it in water over the fire for a few minutes. If it is not convenient to wash the head, wring a towel out of hot water, wrap round the hair and leave for a few minutes. Repeat two or three times, then use cooler water once.