SHE NEVER RESTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 208, 2 September 1926, Page 9

SHE NEVER RESTS.

■ THE WONDERFUL HOUSEWIFE. CEASELESS KNITTING NEEDLES. A PUZZLING PICTURE. (By ONLOOKER.) It was a beautifully sunny morning, and in the suburbs the women, having finished the first round in the daily with the household duties, were sitting on the doorstep or on the steps of the front porch, enjoying a bit of what they call leisure, but they were all co bury that it made mc feel quite tired. How is it that women can never sit still ? "Man's work is finished with set of sun, but women's work is never done," sang the poet. Of course we all know the (jibe of the brute whose wife quoted th-t couplet to him. He simply grunted, "I have noticed the omission myself." lz it any wonder some women seek divorce ? But these women in the suburbs that I passed this 'morning— every mother'? , , daughter of them was knitting or owieV ting or whatever it is they do nowadays. Anyhow it was something with needles. Women certainly know how to strike an easy posture- A man would have Lecn sitting uncomfortably on a chair, but nine out of ten of these women were sitting flat on- the verandah, their feet stretched out on the floor, and their backs against the verandah post or the door nice restful position. Plcying about was generally a child of tender years, so that the woman could keep γ-u eye on him, or even answer his ceaseless questions, for knitting is one of those things that a woman can do while looking the other way. Perhaps they choose it because it leaves their minds and eyes free for the restless little bit of humanity on the lawn or on the gravel walk. The Daily Round. But what a mere man cannot understand is why on earth the poor woman can't take her spell without those irritating, flashing, clicking needles? Surely, the average woman who does her own housework has done enough by eleven in the morning to earn a "emoke-oh?" When the bread-winner hurries off to the oQce he has a vague sort of idea thet all the missus has to do is to "tidy up" a Lit, and then loaf until it is time to str.rt getting the evening meal ready. Personally, I have often wondered how the women can go on day after day with the insistent round of household chores? It always strikes mc as being something akin to the slavery of a man with a big herd of dairy cows. Twice a d_.\, for seven days a week, the animals have to driven in, milked, and driven back to pasture. The deadly insistency of it always brings a chill to my town-loving mind. Day after day, seven days a week, and three hundred and sixty-five days a year, with one extra when you can divide the year by four, these patient, wonderful housewives and mothers carry on, doing the work with one hand and minding the kiddie with the other- Father, away ■ in the busy office, is popularly supposed to be earning enough bread and a scraping of jam for the lot of them, but compared with the steady grind of the five-roomed bungalow, with all modern, conveniences, "c.1., water h. and c, washhouse under the same roof, c and t," as the landsmen's advertisements so graphically put it, the toil of the average man is a picnic. Moreover, father always has half a dozen other of his kind to crack jokes with or argue about golf, or football, or the next meeting at EUcrslie, while mother has to stand under an Arapuni of questions from little Willie or little Mary. When father comes home and hunches over the fire with his pipe and his "Star," he gets fed up after about three "Why this, that or the other ?" from his son and heir, and mother has to come to the rescue with "Don't worry dad," or some other of those charming conjugal phrases which help him to feel more of a martyr than ever, and so easily stifle that still small voice which wants to tell him it is up to him to have a heart and not be such a selfish brute. The Enigma. Ten to one it is mother who shuts the windows, puts out the cat, and locks the front door. Some cynic remarked that very often marriage gave a man all the advantages of possessing a priceless servant without the disadvantage of having to pay her wages. Of course, every true woman must have a home to mess about with, and an infant or two to slave for, and a rather helpless, thoughtful sort of individual called, by courtesy, a lord of creation, ostensibly to work for her and protect her, but nine times out of ten he is really more bother than either house or children- But why can't' the dear creatures, when they have the chance, take a real spell at eleven o'clock on a bright sunny morning without those eternal knitting needles? It may be the curse that follows all Eve's daughters i as the result of their mother's indiscretion with the apple and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, but certain it is that there is nothing truer than that poet's, "But Women's Work is Never Done."