NOT FORGOTTEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 May 1940, Page 6

NOT FORGOTTEN

EUROPEAN WOMAN’S GOOD DEED. NATIVE GIRL'S ATTEMPT AT REPAYMENT. A Harrismith (South Africa) housewife vouches for the following story. Six months ago she engaged a young native girl for six months at the current wage of £1 per month. At the end of each month the girl, when offered her wages, would ask her mistress to let. it mount up. so that she could get it at the end of her period of service in a lump sum. The day after the service expired the young girl had disappeared, but had left a message with another native. The message was to the efi'ecl that the mistress had. when she was a baby, once brought her into town in her motor when she was seriously ill. She had taken her first to a doctor and then to hospital for treatment, and had paid for both. On her discharge from hospital the doctor had told her mother that had it not been for the prompt assistance of the European woman the baby would most certainly have died. This happened 15 years ago. and the native girl had taken the first available opportunity of trying to repay the European woman for her kindness. However, the native girl was traced, and it was only after a very long argument that she was eventually persuaded to lake her wages, not in fact until her former mistress had threatened to give it all to her father as a present.