ROLLING STONES LTD. GATHERS NO MOSS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 514, 17 November 1928, Page 24

ROLLING STONES LTD. GATHERS NO MOSS

NOR DOES THE FIRM SEEK TO DO SO ... TWO LIVELY GIRLS FROM AMERICA WHO ARE WORKING THEIR WAY ROUND WORLD, TAKE A BRIEF PEEP AT NEW ZEALAND

(WRITTEN lor THE SUN by VIRGINIA E. ANTHONY.) STONES, LIMITED,” is the self-bestowed and 1% rather humorous title of Miss Elsie C. Rummel and Miss Virginia E. Anthony, two college girls, who recently arrived in Auckland. They are working their tv ay round the world. Six months in Alaska, two years in Hawaii, nine months in Japan, a similar period in China, visits to Hong-Kong and Manila, a brief spell in Sydney . . . and now New Zealand stretches ahead of them. In the following article Miss Anthony tells “how it's done.”

For to admire ayid for to see, For to "behold this world so wide, It never done no pood to me, But 1 can’t stop it if I tried. — Kipling. | ' j j

UT we're not trying to |

stop, and it has done us some good, otherwise the above lines are our semiofficial motto. The real motto can’t be divulged

except to honest-to-goodness initiates, and there are only two —selected, elected, and collected five years ago. We've had applications by the score for adraissiou to Rolling Stones, Ltd., but ihe corporation is as tightly closed as your hotels at six, or maybe more so! Our company is going strong, although it has been near bankruptcy iu its life. It almost seems as though the steamship companies were in league to try to make us go home; but first we must see and admire, and we find plenty here in New Zealand to cause us to do both. Having been here but two days at the moment of writing, this may sound like a snap judgment. Judging from the pictures we’ve | viewed, and the accounts we’ve heard, however, we have some of the world’s ' best scenery before us on our con- j templated “hike” to the Bluff. In | our own country we once travelled i 1,001 miles In five days with the aid ! of kindly motorists, at a decided saving to our depleted purses, and as they say history repeats itself, we artliving in hopes. We don’t care to go finite so fast this time, though, as the country deserves more attention and admiration. We have a month to "do” New Zealand, and we wish to get off the beaten tourist track as much as possible. We dislike being labelled “tourists.” who seem to think more of their own comfort and country than of the sights they are able to see, and therefore we stop and work whenever we can, so as to feel a part of the little world we’re in for the moment. Nothing gives you that feeling of belonging to a place as to have laboured in It—not necessarily by the sweat of your brow, but by your willingness to take whatever comes; and so in our day we’ve been waitresses, stenographers, tutors, sales ladies, children’s nurses, but seldom ladies of leisure. The harder ws work the more fun we have—odd but true—and yet we can loaf and enjoy that, too, for a time, until we begin to think Where the next passage money is to come from, and then we have to rustle a job aud dig. in. We’d like to work on a sheep station in New Zealand for the experience. You will notice I don’t say for the money. “Where have you been?” has been asked us so often that I react as auto-

maticaliy as a “mamma” doll when the right button is pushed, and I can be thinking “Mmmm—what a stunning frock that girl has,” while I’m glibly reeling off: Oh, not many places yet, but we hope to circle the globe—so far, just the western coast of the United States. Alaska, Honolulu, Japan, China, Australia. We’ve worked in each, and so feel part of them. Australia is the climax in point of time, but not in point of remuneration and interest, as we found Sydney too much and yet not enough like-home to fascinate us, as the other spots have. We also discovered that a working girl pays more to live and receives less to live on there than in any place we’ve yet been, and so we merely flew in. looked around, liked the people and the scenery, and flew out again. “Where is the working girl’s paradise?” you ask. The Orient —particularly China —where one gets good money, good hours, good ser-

vice, and good time, provided one has a good supply of patience to wait until a position turns up, and things move slowly in that land of many yesterdays. more to-morrows, and uncertain to-days. Where are we going next? Java. India, the Holy Land, Europe, and England, and we fear we have enough to see to wear out one pair of eyes apiece and still miss half. Many girls ask us how we find work when we land, total strangers, in a strange land. It is surprising how quickly word goes -ound that two Americans are looking for employment. and almost before we know it we find ourselves pegging away, trying to be penny-foolish and poundwise. We look up the employment agencies, if any, and call on the leading business houses, and tell every-

one we meet that we are out to keep the wolf from the door, and if they know of a good strong stick in the shape of a job please to arm us with it. There’s a deal more kindness and consideration in this workaday worlc than you might think at first glance, where everyone seems intent on hit own little mess of pottage. The friendly contacts we have made in our journeyings are treasured equally with the memories of the beauties of nature we have seen, and when we are “old. and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire,” we’ll take down the Book of Memory and glow again at the friendliness and sweetness of human beings whom we passed and greeted like ships in the night. We were warned not to come to Australia and New Zealand because most hearsay, we find it false. Nowhere, except in Alaska—which is a pioneer country, too—have xve been treated more cordially. We are thinking of purchasing some New Zealand blankets or steamer rugs to take with us on our Milford Track “hike.” Why? We think the charge for the rest-house bed and board is a bit high for the family exchequer and since there are no snakes in this second Ireland, we figure we can sleep out “under the wide and stai-ry sky” and save our shekels and add to our experiences—which is our pride and joy in life. He had heard of New Zealand rugs and scenery long before we knew how and when we could get here. But we’re here and while we may not say what Ceasar did. we hope to do it anyway. No, you can’t get us to say which country we like best, because, like people, they are all different, and we find something to like in each. Japan's scenic beauty is of high order, and we received good wages, but the H.C.L. had to be contended with there as in Australia, but we were better fortified against it. We did no washing, ironing, mending, cleaning etc., because our amah did that for us, and we came as near to being pampered darlings of fortune as the movie stars are reputed to be. In China, living was less expensive and salaries very adequate and we would have saved quite a pile of money had not the old silks and embroideries tempted us beyond our powers of resistance. We can and do (because we have to) resist the appeal of new clothes every time we think we want them —and you know how often a woman believes she hasn’t a thing to wear, even though a bulging wardrobe testifies to the contrary; but the gleaming satins and embroidered silks of old palace tapestries, lama coats and mandarin skirts touched us in a vulnerable spot—heart and pocket book, and the rolling stones gathered moss in the form of Chinese “dungshee” (things) which are at once our joy and our despair. Because, like birds of passage, we must travel free of impedimenta, and luggage is neither a thing of beauty nor a joy for even a day when you are on the wing. We could have sold our treasures many times over, but we bought them for ourselves and we mean to keep them for those same selfish people, unless the hand of fate squeezes us so dry that we simply have to give (Continued on Page 25).