PHOEBE MAUNSELL:
We were both lucky and unlucky with the fdrmer’s wife on our list-unlucky because she sent us no photograph, lucky because she gave us a piece of her mind, Here is her answer, slightly condensed: Sir -You apparently have very little idea of the December rush in the country, or you wouldn’t be asking a farmer’s wife "funny questions then. Lean back in your comfortable chair, put your feet on your desk, and Ill tell you just a few of the extras that happen this time of the year-quite apart from running an O.S. in homes single-handed, First, there’s Christmas presents, and we have a goodly list of people to be remembered outside relations and friends. These presents have to be bought or made, packed and posted. Please don’t reply that some of it could have been done during the_ preceding months.. Then there are the usual smoney-making efforts, for which I bake cakes, etc., gather cart-loads of flowers and produce, which I then dispose of to the more or less unwilling public — a very tiring business. Suddenly one remembers that the local school children and various families employed, are due for their bun-fight. Any number between 40 and 50 are fed, entertained and washed-up for. Hardly are the dishes dgied when the boys from the orphanage have their day, and at this very moment we are expecting the Salvation Army to come and sing carols to us. They will be very thirsty. Just to keep me from being bored in my spare time, the raspberries, currants and peas all come ready to be picked and preserved. This week I’m preparing for Christmas Day, which brings all our relatives to eat with us, and the day after we have our usual all-day tennis tournament, to which flock all our friends and families who can beg, borrow or steal the means of getting here, And just to make things complete, . there’s shearing and hay-making when
the weather permits. Which all brings me to the conclusion: 1. That the changes I would like to see would be those that would give me time for a, long, straight, deep think about the changes I would like to see. 2. From headlines, I expect .to see a short period of jubilant peace to celebrate military victory in Europe, followed by social upheavals verging on civil war. (From this pessimistic deduction you may gather that I am tired.)
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 289, 5 January 1945, Page 8
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405PHOEBE MAUNSELL: New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 289, 5 January 1945, Page 8
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