Describing DEBORAH—Who Drank

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 155, 12 June 1942, Page 22

Describing DEBORAH—Who Drank

HEN Deborah was quite small \ / she was never given anything but milk to drink with perhaps an occasional ounce or two of orange or carrot juice, and so it was no wonder that at the age of 12 she should have developed a passion for strong cocoa. This persisted all through her high school days and was a source of considerable anxiety to her parents, who blamed on it the fact that Deborah had a rather greasy complexion and spots, as well as being unhealthily plump for her age- So when on her eighteenth birthday Deborah agreed to drink tea as being a more adult beverage her parents were ov -tjoyed, and encouraged her in her resolve by allowing her to have three teaspoons of sugar in it and to read the tea leaves afterwards, They could not at that early date foresee that this policy would have unfortunate results. In the fullness of time Deborah became as devoted to tea as she had previously been to cocoa and thanks to the amount of sugar she drank in each cup her figure at the aga of 28 was as unsuitable for a bathing suit advertisement as it had been at 18, And though the blotchiness of her schoolgirl complexion had more or Ic3s cleared her liking for strong tea (she always made it very strong, because she liked a lot of tea-leaves-it gave her more scope), had resulted in a regrettable sallowness which no amount of cleansing cream could remove.

One by one Deborah's girlhood friends married and settled down in other parts of the country. She was lonely at home. She wanted to do something in the world, preferably something vital to the War Effort. Finally she left home to get a job in the Big City.

EBORAH enjoyed her work, but after 10 years at home with breakfast in bed and nothing much to do all day she found city life exhausting. Fortunately perhaps she went out very little in the evenings, so when she came back from the office she would brew herself a cup of strong ‘tea and retire to bed in her little flat with a novel and a hot water bottle. But just occasionally. when the fleet was in port she would blink a wistful eye at the bright lights of the city and wish that she could do her share to entertain the men of the forces, It was a sad blow to Deborah when she read in her newspaper that she could have only two ounces of tea a week, And what with sugar being rationed it looked as if soon the one pleasure of her humdrum existence would be taken from _herWhen she unlocked the door of her flat a familiar smell greeted her nostrils. Wearily she went to the kitchen and pulled out from the cupboard a case of apples, It was as she thought. Only a quarter of the case finished and the rest already rotten. Deborah lay wearily on her bed. What had she done to deserve all these misfortunes? She had tried to do her duty. She had always kept the welfare of her country at heart. Obedient to its demands she had left her comfortable home in the country to come to the city and do war-work. And also in obedience to its demands she had since coming to the city invariably bought her apples by the case. But though she ate them stewed for breakfast, baked for lunch and fried for tea, she could never get through a whole case: Yet it would surely be defeatism to go back to buying them by the pound. "THEN suddenly Deborah had a wonderful idea. That very night she went out into a neighbouring gully and collected a large number of empty bottles, (Continued on next page)

A TALE FOR THE TIMES (Continued from previous page)

then ’phoned the local dealer for three more cases of apples. It was five o’clock next morning before Deborah got to sleep, and the smell of fermenting apples still pervaded the flat. It was surprising to Deborah that so many of her friends at work who had hitherto declined her invitations to come up for a quiet cup of tea now made a point of dropping in to see her on the flimsiest of pretexts. And it made no difference when she explained that she was afraid that unless they'd brought their own tea and sugar she wouldn’t be able to give them a cup of anything. They merely replied, "Ok, don’t bother making tea-a glass of anything will do," and Deborah would find herself pouring out a couple of tumbler of her home-brewed cider: And after that she found no difficulty in talking to her new friends as if she’d known them all her life, and they in their turn wondered why they had not cultivated her acquaintance from the first moment of meeting. Now Deborah had little leisure to retire to bed early with a good book. Her life was a constant whirl of gaiety. Those who did not know the secret of Deborah’s social success mafvelled that one who had been always a wall-flower should now be the life of any party she attended. But in spite of all the inquiries of outsiders, Deborah’s friends kept her secret, for they felt that the fewer people who’ formed the habit of dropping in on Deborah the better. Deborah herself felt a new woman. Late nights and a restricted sugar ration had done their work, and gone were her former too voluptuous curves. And the sallowness of her complexion had lightened to a warm olive.

JN addition she had a new interest in life. She had happened to meet at a party a handsome young man rather like Don Ameche, and though she was too busy going to parties in aid of members of the forces to see much of him, she couldn't fail to be impressed by his obvious admiration, And by the time he proposed, she had got rather tired of entertaining soldiers and _ sailors and even of brewing home-made cider, so she decided to accept him. It turned out afterwards that he was president of 4 smallish South American republic, but Deborah said she didn’t really mind, though of course she was a democrat at heart, so they got married and caught the next boat to South America. And Deborah was a great success as First Lady because she did so much enjoy giving little dinner parties and being patroness of various societies, such as the one for the consolation of the wives of ex-presidents. And she enjoyed her. new life so much‘ that she found that her own natural sparkle and vivacity was sufficient, and anyway she was far too busy to carry on any homebrewing. But although she cancelled her order for three cases of apples a week | from New Zealand she was far from being unmindful of her country’s internal economy, and as there was still an apple surplus she insisted on importing three cases of unfermented apple juice instead. ‘

Deborah had seven children, four boys and three girls. She brought them up according to the strict letter of the Plunket System, except that instead of giving them swede or orange or carrot or rose-hip juice, she gave them Unfermented Apple Juice, and such was the success of her system that mew and revised editions of all baby care handbooks had to be brought out,

And although Deborah’s husband was compelled to retire from the political arena quite soon after he had had a disagreement with his Minister for War, he and Deborah managed to live quite comfortably on the profits of the Apple Juice Bar they had opened in the capital’s main street. And they both lived very happily to a ripe old age.

M.

B.