December At Home

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 236, 31 December 1943, Page 2

December At Home

5 de | who are abroad, Perhaps you would like to see us as we are to-day. tated érass is growing thickly on top of the air-raid shelters. In spite of Keep Out notices the children are playing round their doors. The pits we digged for ourselves in our gardens are all filled in now, and we’ve planted. potatoes end silver beet and radishes, No terror has struck at us from the skies, None of us have had to carry our children in fear, crouching low under the hedges. We haven’t had to see the soft limbs quiver or the clear eyes change. Any time we hear an aeroplane we know it’s from Auckland, ‘s or Nelson, or some other place, or else it’s just one of the boys from ’drome that is learning to fly. ; In all the gardens down our street there are roses. It’s been a great year for roses, and they flaunt themselves rather all up and down the paths and under the windows. Women who are going to have babies put on flowered smocks and walk in the sunshine. The girls from the offices don’t wear hats. Their hair is long and fine and curled at the ends. We still love, dance, hate, get divorced. Now that butter has been rationed, we wonder what we're going to do for Christmas. We feel clever if we save a coupon here and there by making one new dress out of two old ones. Summer is on us at last and we buy sandals, and white dresses. and those whose figures cen stand it get into slacks. We aren’t any wiser or better or kinder . And we aren’t any more selfish or hateful or sanctimonious than we were before you went away. We're not changed at all, not the way you will be by the time you come back. Perhaps you feel we're getting all the ha’pence and you're getting all the kicks. Perhaps you're right. But perhaps if you remember the whining bomb and blasting shell And if you could see them The grasses growing undisturbed over the air-raid shelters and the pits we digged sprouting carrots and parsnips and silver beet, you'd feel all right about it. If you could see the women in their smocks in the sunshine. If you could see the roses. If you can realise that children’s eyes out here are still unclouded. Then perhaps you who are abroad will realise why you went . and what we think about it.

Isobel

Andrews