Fresh Woods And Pastures New

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 88, 13 April 1940, Page 3 (Supplement)

Fresh Woods And Pastures New

WE are moving. Why should lovely visions arise of a little white house, green-roofed, where life will be leisurely and gracious, instead of a wild rush of jobs and chores and duties, obligations and exasperations? Why does one always imagine when one goes to a fresh place that everything will be different? Mother will get up much earlier, father will do more gardening, the children will all hang up their raincoats as never before, and we shall all be much more successful and reasonable creatures. As a matter of fact, we have moved quite often enough to know by now that we shall be the same erratic, distracted beings wherever we go. And although it can hardly be the same spider that one sweeps down every day from the corner of the bathroom (or doesn t sweep down, as the mood takes I one), there is sure to be another one, , and that the silver-fish that has always resurrected so marvellously whenever I one goes to the linen cupboard will still be there. Another Country The things that really will he different are the goings-on of the people in that other village, for, after being in Te Tuna for 10 years, we have naturally acquired so much knowledge of the local peculiarities that to transfer to another small place will be like going to a country with a strange language, or to a university which does not recognise one's degree.

By G.DM.

You know the legend about the little ancient city of Soli ? The people there were fajious, or infamous, for the bad Greek they spoke, and when they went out visiting their neighbours they earned the contemptuous name of Solecism, not only for their own distressing grammar, but for all such social lapses in time to come. That's all very well, but I'll wager the superior neighbours were regarded as equally barbaric when they went to Soli. If you came to Te Tuna, for instance, you would make the most frightful blunders, because you would not know who was married to whom, and whom it was safe to discuss in the presence of whom else, and whether that was a reason to be nice or nasty abont their relatives. I know that is an awkward sentence, but so is life at Te Tuna sometimes, and that is what I am trying to express. Why, it would take you quite a long time to learn the vast distinction between Mrs. Smith, Young Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Hefty Smith and "Mrs. Smith." (In Mayfair they do this kind of thing with a hyphen, or perhaps an "e" on the end, but in Te Tuna it is much more subtly done by the tone of voice.) You would not know that it is sudden death to an afternoon to allow Old Lady Granite into the same room as Mrs. Grub, and that it would really be better to invite a couple of angry wolf-hounds, for once, long ago, one of them offended the other, and even the oldest residents have forgotten which of them did it, or how. Nor, poor ignoramus, would you know that to ask Belinda Brown to dance at

a concert without including Percy Toogood's mouth-organ solo on the programme, would be about equal to a couple of Munichs in strained relations (and they both have lots of relations). I can just imagine you plunging into all : these awful pitfalls and spelling social ruin for yourself before you had been in the place a month. Of course, to know all these ins and outs makes life interesting, as it is said to be in a hornet's nest, , or on the lip of a volcano. Would not ! my worldly wisdom impress you, if you heard me say, "We'll be having fish-and- | chips on Friday because Mrs. Penny has ! a new perm?" That would be Soli-Greek to you, but to us it only means: when Mr. Penny sees no reason why he should [ not have a bit of fun too, but his fun involves a lot of his friends, including tlie loca-1 barber, who usually keeps it ' up for a week or so, during which time ! all the boys of the town have to go 1 shaggy, except the young schoolmaster, who is most particular about getting a cut every week, so he goes to town too, and ho always takes our son with him, ' and when that happens, they always s bring back f-and-c for supper. So you ' see how simple it is, when you know. i And in that new place my husband, t who in his masculine way is almost , as polished a Te Tunaite as I am myself, r will have to scrap all his hard-won 1 knowledge about old Ratty Rowland's i afternoon nap, Mr. Guffin's slow re- > covery from the races, Sam Lake's t antagonism for Tommy Coblev and Bill i Brewer, which makes them all want to cut off their own noses to spite each other's faces, and is a great help in mjiking the bidding brisk at a sale, and he will have to start all over again colt lecting the idiosyncrasies of a new set. t And when we go to a social or a dance,

we both know enough to avoid Mrs. Dudley's heavy cakes, and Miss Hummer's doughy pikelets, which look so good on the outside that a newcomer like you would be sure to take one and plunge straight into the bog.

They Won't Know Another thought that distresses me is that in that new place the people will not know my little foibles. No longer shall I be able to ring up the butcher and say airily, "Jlutton," confident that a piece of exactly the right shape and size, allowing an extra slice or two for Uncle Oswald, who is coming to dinner on Sunday, will arrive. No one will know that I like just a drop of milk in my tea. They won't know that 1 am one of those housewives whose battery of tins is practically sure to be empty when a visitor comes unexpectedly, and bring their own lump of madeira for afternoon tea. The telephone exchange won't know my voice. And I shan't know all the proper people to send for to do odd jobs, like scraping out a blocked drain or bicycling after the house cow when she breaks out or scything the lawn when it gets beyond the mower's powers in a wet spring or mending a hole in the roof. I shall quite miss the smoke that comes down the kitchen chimney to tell me when it is going to ran, and the bright patch that appears over the cabbage tree when it is going to clear up again. Quite plainly, we are going from one highly organised society to another. No wonder the aristocrats of small places are so reluctant to pass on to pastures new. I expect the people of Soli cling like prim death to their well-learnt solecisms.