HELPING THE BELGIANS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 159, 10 March 1915, Page 3

HELPING THE BELGIANS.

As. Sirs. Mcßride, the flesh or, trill} said: "The Sabbath afore the Bel jeeus cam’ could hardly be counted asa Sabbath ava,' frae the time the kiidc sknilcd.” But this was not surprising For we in Tillielickt are slow folk, and the first we heard of the coming refugees was an intimation made by old Mr. Tawse at the forenoon service, asking hospitality for 15 persons by Monday night. The results were instant. People who had never made a Sunday call called upon their friends, and were received without surprise; housewives openly counted blankets; and old Miss Bereridge not only wrote a note to Mr. Tawse, but paid a laddie to take it to the Manse. And in the Manse itself unlawful activities were afoot. Mr. Tawse, sighng the while, looked over his old clothes, and his sister, after airing sheets for three beds, sat down to read, not Barrow’s Sermons, but a French phrase-book. For already her part was assigned her —she alone amongst us could speak French, and thus put the Belgians at their ease. (That this was not the language to do we only learned later). By Monday morning (which did not feel like a Monday at all) we learned the part which others were to play. Furniture was pouring into an empty house; the Manse people were preparing to receive a small family; and Miss Beveridge, who had offered to take two women, had their rooms ready, even to hairpins, by noon, arousing the gravest suspicions as to how she passed the previous day. By two p.m. she had dispatched another note to Mr, Tawse, to make sure he had not read ‘‘two men” for "two women.” What she would have done if he had will never be known.

By this time Miss Tawse was making soup for .15 persons, and Ellen Ann Mcßitchie, the little Manse maid (they were always small, because of the insurance), was kept so busy answering the door that she had no time to "clean hersel’ ’till the evening. By 4 p.m. we were all calmer, with the exception of Mr. Tawse, who walked the garden thinking of the baby (which was now approaching), and feeling that the pillars of existence were shaken. At 7.45 he was away to the station, and a crowd surged round the school, where soup was to be served. "There’s Miss Tawse gaun’ in!” "She has a Belgian flag preened on her! ” "It’s her that’s to speak French to them! ’’ "They say she speaks it that well that she might be a Franciscan!” "Did ever!”