Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 256, 19 January 1928, Page 5

Mundane Musings

In My Domain DRAMATIS PERSONAE The Rabbits The Pigeon The Frog The Other Birds The Earwig .. The Cats The Spirit For reasons not of choice, but of necessity, I have no animals. A place without animals is to me a place that emphasises and drives home all the barrenness and vacuity of the word “without.” From the point of everyday living, very few of the “withouts” are as bad as this one. Here is a fireside by which should be purring that domesticated panther, the deep-gazing cat. A garden yawning for doggy-bones which are never planted. And one of the principal rooms in the house of my heart empty and void. From time to time there is a little sound that beats in the hollow of it like a small bird fluttering round in the dark, hitting its wings against the walls that hold it. This is desire seeking an outlet. When it becomes too insistent I brace up and say loudly and with a superior air, “Cats are a nuisance; they’re always having kittens. And dogs tear up a garden like anything.” Then I feel capable and strong and self-sufficient, clear of the bonds that hamper me. Life is not only enjoyment. Lots of people haven’t got dogs * * * This is my domain. A little row of windows that look out over a park like a narrow box at a theatre. The stage setting is a pastoral one with only one jarring note ... the football ground that butts into the greenness that spreads itself at the foot of the tree-dotted domain. In the foreground is a conventional little grass plot, sprigged with hydrangea bushes. A terrace of stone steps is flanked by a low wall, then a stretch of roadway. . . a pohutukawa across the road that has just shed its crimson petals like drops of blood on the pathway, and then . . . my domain. There came, one day, into the domain that I call mine, because my room commands a view of it, -the ghost of that Little Brother of All-the-World, St. Francis of happy memory. Because love and gentleness were so much a part of himself when he was on earth he was deputed by the Powers to visit it always in spirit for the good of mortals *in general. He came in and walked, invisible, over the stone terraces and into my domain. * • * At the window, looking out, he saw a face. Not an unhappy face, but one that seemed to be wanting something it hadn’t got. He knew without asking what need was there. So he called up his friends and talked it over with them. To the birds he said: ' “Here is our sister who has a do-

main all prepared for you. Trees for you to rest in. Some with flowers and some with a leafy shade. She offers you hospitality.” And the pigeon with the city councillor’s chest said grandly: “I will take an apartment in the pohutukawa tree.” And the other birds said: “He’s rather fat and heavy, that pigeon, and he can live in one tree if he likes, but w T e, who dance and sing, will live in all the trees, and not in one set place.” St. Francis, having snared his birds so innocently, turned to the bunnyrabbits and said: “Our sister has provision for you in her domain. There you will find tender grass and other things to nibble, and if you will call on her sometimes you will find succulent lettuce leaves spread under her window for a special party tea.” He let his hand rest for a moment on his heart, and his gaze took the listeners in one by one. The frog gave a jump. “I will do her my famous leap,” he said. “We are a family of acrobats, and no place of amusement is considered worth while without acrobats for a star turn. Also I will take a hand in exterminating those pests which may do her harm.” He vaulted lightly off, intent upon his promise. And the earwig said: “I know her well, for sometimes I have found my way into the house and heard her talk. She said, in her funny husky voice, when her eyes fell upon me for the first time: “Aunt Dolly, I’ve found a really-truly earwig on the sofa. Now I can imagine I’m having the country holiday I want so much.”

“And really,” the earwig continued, “finding me seemed to give her inordinate pleasure.” He looked round proudly and inflated his earwiggy chest.. St. Francis, well content, smiled gently upon his little brothers, the bunnies, the birds, the frog, the earwig, and vanished. He had other appointments. But the cats sat upon the wall and said nothing. Before St. Francis, Egypt was. They were all of Egypt, indifferent, arrogant, superb, with no master but their own desires. If they should choose to love this womas they would. But not because of her need of them. Neither St. Francis nor any other had yet been able to put that over. —H.M. A RESPONSIBLE BILLET A woman holds the post of experimentalist at the Teddington Naval Tank in England. In this tank are tested meticulously correct models of ships to be constructed at various shipyards. The most careful calculations are made as to stresses, strains, speeds and other features, so that the behaviour of th© real vessels may be known. The woman in question is Miss Margaret Clay, B.Sc., and her work consists of observations as to the rolling of ships when laderj with various cargoes, for which a complete knowledge of different branches of mathematics is required.