Homes I Have Missed

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 142, 18 June 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

Homes I Have Missed

By. A Farmer's Wife

QUITE recently I received a letter from a friend whose husband had accepted a job in a distant town. She wrote to say they were quite settled in a "great barn of a house" containing ten rooms. They were childless, and required only about three rooms, but the house they were in was the only one available, and was cheap, as it was not very modern* "So we had to take it," she wTote, "though we are only using three rooms and another small one we have put a bath in. I do wish I could let you have the surplus rooms." So did I. It was always the way, I mused. The couples with a small family, or no family at all, always seemed to have the big houses, while those with half a dozen children had to crowd into a tiny house with no conveniences. Perhaps one can't have it both ways —few can afford a family and a large house, too. That was one way in which the Government might assist those willing to accept the responsibilities of a family. If they were to present the parents with an extra bedroom for, say, every two children, the family would have room to expand in more ways than one. Looking back over my 30 odd years of married life, spent on various farmß, I have come to the conclusion that I have been singularly unlucky in the homes I have missed —also in the ones I have not missed. Never once in all my travels have I been lucky enough to strike a house with either a bathroom or a washhouse attached. My first home was a two-roomed slab whare. This was fun for a •while, but I was very pleased when we were able to get in timber to build a real house. We built a three-roomed house, but it did not enter our heads to include any conveniences. We were pioneers, and no pioneers had any such luxuries as sinks, baths or water laid on. None of our neighbours had them, and some thought I was trying to bo very smart when I bought a copper to stand in the back yard instead of boiling my clothes in a kerosene tin. When I had three children I began to think a bath and bathroom were perhaps not quite beyond my reach after all. So we bought a tin bath, but before it was fixed up we 6old our farm. The next time I saw my home it had been transformed into quite a large bungalow, and I stared at it enviously, as wo were then in a very sjnall place of four rooms, with a tiny stove in a smoky tin chimney and less handy than formerly. After we left this i't was enlarged also and made into a nice

homestead, as the new owner had a good share of that desirable commodity— money. We next moved on to a large bush farm in the backblocks. The house was a substantial affair, being built of corrugated iron and, though roomy, the last word in ugliness. It was just one large lean-to of five rooms, with two iron chimneys, both of which smoked badly. It was built on a hill, and the wind at times would blow the back door open. There was no shelter over back or front -door, and still no conveniences. We stayed here till compelled to leave on account of "bush sickness," second growth and one or two other drawbacks. Our next home wag old and damp, and shoes and handbags and other things would get covered in mildew, and I first became acquainted with "silver-fish. This was only a lease, and our next house was quite good and roomy, but still lacked what I was by now craving for—a bathroom, a sink and water laid on. However, we left before we acquired these bles&ings, and soon afterwards the house was burnt down and the owner put up a lovely place, with all conveniences! My luck again! By this time the hungry King Country had swallowed all our capital and we took a job on a farm belonging to someone else. The house was not bad, except that it lacked just what my homes always lacked and possessed what all my homes always possessed —a smoky chimney. The kitchen stove was not bad, but the sitting room chimney smoked so badly that at times we could not see across the room. One evening, I remember, I had visitors and we had to put out the fire and make up the kitcben fire and spend the evening round the stove. We stayed here two yean, end the next people who came demanded a new brick chimney and extensive alterations. And got them, too! Our present home is not uncomfortable, but still the most common conveniences have eluded me. I am beginning to think that in some former life I must have lived in a luxurious mansion and not appreciated it. If so, I have learnt my lesson and am sure I have earned a home in the next life. One comfort I have and do appreciate and that is a large, open and non-smoking fireplace. I also have a radio and as I sit by a roaring fire and hear our Prime Minister talking of "comfortable homes for all," I hope—and wonder! I think I'll have to try and persuade father to raise some money to (ix things up before the next election, or I might miss again!

no more; but his prejudices are respected by the inan who works him. He indulges in no fireworks; there is no foolish waste of energy; it is merely a question of a sit-down strike. When Chips has done enough, when he knows that his old legs can no longer be relied upon, then down he Bits, load and all. "He's had enough," says the fanner resignedly, j emoves the load, says "Right you are, old man"—and with a* surly glanoe Chips rises ponderously juid walks slowly off to his paddock. The Man's Part But for the farmer it Is not as simple as all that. No sit-down strikes avail <>u a back blocks farm where 30 tons of fertiliser must be packed to the back paddocks and every pound of it spread by hand. The packing, with its alow and laborious lifting of heavy bags on to the horses' b;>i'ks, is only part of the work; when <.ne load has been distributed through the paddock, the little procession of horses returns to th« shed— probably a couple of miles away—to repeat the process. At last two or three tons have been packed out and the horses

have a respite—but not the farmer. He must cnrrv it, 3Glb or so at a time, round liis neck and climb up and down steep liilis, through new burns where the long, sharp fern-stalks skin his legs and turn him by th<- close of day into an embittered Christy minstrel, and over logs and stu.nps almost hidden by a luxurious growth of thistles. At night lie struggles home utterly exhausted to a wife who tactfully refrains from a smile at his appearance, and turns on the hot tap without comment. Twenty years ago. Chips grumblingly assures the younger horses, there was none of this nonsense. Then a horse carried sensible loads —bags of seed, sheets of corrugated iron, even furniture —did he not, boasts the old horse, once carry a six-drawer chest along a difficult bush track for nine miles without breaking so much as a knob? Such were the good old days when fertiliser was unknown. . . But now it is over at last. Good-bye to autumn, and welcome to winter with i-s months of laziness for old paekhorses—and its feed which is 81 much more plentiful because of all those back-breaking loads that man and horse power have distributed over the farm.