YOUR CLUB AND MINE AN OPEN PAGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 290, 28 February 1928, Page 4

YOUR CLUB AND MINE AN OPEN PAGE

Each Tuesday afternoon a corner will be reserved for original contributions of general interest to womenfolk. The subject matter is for you to choose—whatever topic interests you may also be of interest or amusement to others, whether it be about your hobbies, experiences, or merely amusing musings about the ordinary round of the day. A book prize is offered weekly for the best effort, which should be brief plainly written, and sent to “Tour Club and Mine," The Sun, Auckland. The prize has been given this week to Miss D. Little for the following article: Brotherly love is supposed to be a very beautiful thing, and I am not tor one moment going to dispute it. But at certain stages in life, to my mmd, this brotherly love is more awelnspirmg than beautiful. I have a distinct and vivid recollection of incidents during school days, in which the sentiment shown me bv my brothers was anything tout beautiful I have painful memories of being made to hold small nuts on the ground with m> fingers, while my elder brother cracked the nut (and incidentallv mv finger-nails) with the heel of his boot! And when I grumbled I was told firmly, that I ought to consider myself highly honoured that I was allowed the privilege of holding nuts for beings so very much above me, to crack I have not the slightest- doubt that my brothers loved me, and probably I was an ungrateful little wretch not to appreciate their demonstrations of love m showing me such high honours. Nevertheless I was certainly inspired with reverence for their fists, and it did not occur to me that 1 might rebel under this lordly tyranny. Doubtless, too, my brothers love me now of course I am considered a “blithering nuisance,” etc., when it comes to escorting me anywhere; and I ought by now to know that I have “nothing above my ears,” but I am a “dear old girl” when there is any dirty work to be done!

In tiie later stages of imaginative youth (those very early teens), I remember one of my brothers trying- for days to bribe me to enter a public telephone box, sever one of the receivers, and bring it home to him it would assist him greatly in the manufacture of a wireless set, he said, and I would enjoy the privilege of using it when my brothers did not want it—

which privilege I was suspicious of. guessing that that time would never come. Fortunately, though of a tender age, I was not “green” enough to commit this act. I realised that though I was being “highly honoured” in being allowed tho “pinch” the thing for him, the aforesaid honour was of a very negative quality, insomuch as I would assuredly be allowed to bear tho blame, too, for the wrongdoing. At a later stage such marks of their affection as burning me with lighted cigarettes, chasing mo round the garden with large, fat, black spiders, etc., all proved clearly to me that this brotherly love business is a mixed i blessing. On these occasions, if I protested against their attentions, I was informed that I should be glad they took any notice of me at all —they would not take any notice of any other “blooming girls.” And I am greatly afraid that the rising generation is no better than in my school days, for onlv the other morning I witnessed a like example of brotherly love. The littlest girl of the family, aged about five vears, was being coerced by her mother, at the garden gate, into accompanying an older brother to school, apparently for the first time. The little one was vigorously rebelling against her unknown fate, and. clinging desperately to her mother’s skirt for salvation. Rig Brother, getting tired of this foolishness, said in invigorating tones; “Make her come, mum, or I’ll knock her jaw in.” Alas for brotherly love! And I suppose such wall continue to be the sentiments of brothers for their sisters for all time. Yet the following mornjng I saw this same big brother taking his little sister's hand, leaning down and talking to her, and showing her something he thought would intest her, on their way to school. As for brotherly between brothers, it seems to me to consist of blackened eyes, gory noses, sundry thumping matches, fights over every conceivable article which either possesses, and a general settling up which occupies a large portion of every day. But to me my brothers’ love for each other was a blessed relief, for while they were demonstrating it they were not “honouring” me. HOROTHY LITTLE.