AMBITION

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

AMBITION

By MONICA MATHESON

Moira was a dreamer —but then* aren't we all? "as the popular song continually asks. Yet somehow, Moira was different from other girls, even during her schooldays. While her companions played boisterous games, or sat in groups knitting and chatting, she would sit alone, chin cupped in hands, gazing at a gnarled old tree or a young hedge clad in fresh green leaves, and dream of fairies and elves and all the other wonderful things that put the sweet, detached expression into her wide, brown eyes. But in the schoolroom it was a different picture. All her dreaminess fled with the ringing of the lessons bell, for Moira was going to train to be a teacher, and she had an ever-present vision of herself as headmistress of a large girls' school. If that came about, she could give her dainty little mother all the luxuries she craved but could not afford on her widow's pension. And the dear, proud way she refused her relatives' grudging offers of help— Moira loved her for it, but oh, how she hated to see her mother go without. Still, she could work, and one day all her dreams would come true, and she would repay the loving kindnesses of the twelve short years of her life. Work! not at all irksome with that aim in view.

The years of training passed very quickly, so that at 20 Moira had been allotted a school. Not a class, but a whole school! To be true, there were only 16 scholars attending it, and it was situated in a very small town, but it was a start and the dreams were still intact. We will watch Moira as she descends from the train at the little, dusty, red station, and turns quickly to give a hand to her mother, a frail lady whose dark hair is now sprinkled with several threads of silver-grey. Moira is tall and very straight, with soft black hair tucked beneath her little hat. She smiles into her mother's tired eyes as she takes her arm.

"Isn't it just too lovely for words to come in the spring, mother? It seems just a new start all round. Oh, I know I'm going to love it here," and her excited eyes glance rapidly around, flickering over each new object, yet taking in each one with a wealth of detail. The broad green stretches of rolling ground, with hedges and fences snaking over them; the placed brown-eyed cows huddled together in a pen near the station, probably awaiting transportation, and the little town —Moira nearly laughed at the tininess of it, but she saw the etationmaeter approaching and smiled at him instead.

Two days later Moira was introduced to her future pupils in the little wooden schoolhouse, a quarter of a mile from the town. Ten girls and six boys, their ages ranging from five to 16, were sitting solemnly at two long tables across the room. As each one came up to shake hands Moira smiled encouragingly at them and spoke a kind word. Moira soon learned the characteristics

of each child and did hfer best to help the slow ones, and encourage them all to ahine in work and play. And it was not long before her ambitions seemed to fade a. little as she planned marvellous futures for "her children." Jbhnny Tate would be a writer, and Lawrence Carter a clergyman; Alan Webster was o-oing to follow the sea, and his sister, Doris, would surely be a secretary. So she chose their positions in" life, and before she realised it, they were miraculously changed into these dream people. A bronzed seaman knocked at her door one day, arid she was truly amazed to recognise little Alan of the cheeky grin, and the propensity for practical jokes. And lots of the girls were marrying the neighbouring farmers, or going to the bigger towns to live. Bnt still more and" more little ones were coming to this school, which had r.ow been greatly enlarged. One day as

Moira stepped from the train after a week-end. visit to her relations in Auckland, she suddenly closed her "eyes and pictured the view as it had been when she first alighted there 15 years ago. How changed it all was! The tiny town (which had hardly deserved that name theii) had now grown to quite respectable dimensions. There were four grocers' shops, and even a picture theatre. That night, Moira sat at her window and looked out at the trees left from the green forest that had so bravely flourished 15 years before. Just a little clump, iiot more than 20 in all, but they wore her own. She had bought the iand upon which they stood, with all her earnings. And now she was facing the future. She saw that her dreams could never come true. She would not be able to qualify for more tlian a country school now, and she was too old and too poor to take another

and more modern course of training. Her mother was very ill —the doctor could offer no hope for her —so Moira resigned herself. "I can watch the futures .of my dear children —perhaps one of them will have a big school one day. And I have my dear trees. I will save, and build a dream cottage amongst them, to welcome tlie childien when they come to see me, grown-up £.ud successful, or tired as tliey may bo. And I will have three or four spare rooms, with Mrs. Martin to look after it all. Oh, and a garden! I must have a garden with a hedge round it like the one round the dear old school in Auckland." Dreamily she at the tall trees, fast darkening in tlie gathering twilight. Ihree or four stars twinkled above' the hill. She rose, and slowly walked into the other room to sit by her mother, whose night of life had come indeed.