TWILIGHT MEMORIES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 74, 20 December 1929, Page 8

TWILIGHT MEMORIES

CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES AT OLD PEOPLE’S HOME WHEN THE PAST LIVES AGAIN (By H.L.C.) Old people, like children, love Christmas. On Wednesday night, the inmates of the Old People’s Home had their annual Christmas tree. That is the once yearly that they are young again. . ■ , Fragile old women, with their hair done, in the styles of the past, each receive a little bouquet One smiles, and raises the posie to her nose. ShO smells, lowers it, ahd'looks at it again with sparkling eyes. Her mind pictures a similar presentation many years ago. A young man is curtseying before her, with the lovelight in his eyes. In his hand is a posie like the one she holds now. Flowers never change. A light touch on the arm. The neighbour •; whispers, “Look at mine.’’ But the dream has been swept away. " ' ■ “

A lady visitor sings, and ohce- mdre the eyes glisten.' The sentiments strike a responsive chord. Again the gallant’ suitor is before her. She hears the words and her mind follows them. “Heaven Mine,” sings the entertainer. “My piece of Heaven,” says the voice of one who lives now only in the old lady’s memory. The programme continues. 'A pair of bagpipes ■ fill- the room with a volume of sound. Warm smiles of approval reward the players. A little girl .begins a jig. At the back of the room a white-haired and bearded figure rises to his feet, the better to see the dancer and her work. Once he had a bairn who danced like that. But that was long ago. And now he is alone, aged and needy. For -a few hours the old people can remember, and the gaiety prevents painful memories. 1 An old lady with a blue jumper starts to beat time, delightedly as a visitor sings: “There is Somebody Waiting for Me in an Old Cottage Down by the Sea.” Perhaps she waited in the days that are gone.

Every face in that room is an autobiography. Here is a typical “granny”; there, a wom/i whose lined face tells that she has had but little of the joy of living. Care and worry, and a ceaseless battle against the hard, cold world, have been her life-long lot. Somewhere else a man, now descrept, still has the clear-cut jaw of a man who has faced obstacles and overcome them. Life’s struggle has left its imprint on every one. Each has done his or her duty. We are profiting from what they have done, and now. when their day is over, when the sun has set. and the night approaches. they must not be forgotten. Paper hats, when handed round, brighten the scene. The lady with the blue woollen jumper and silk ’kerchief around her neck, now sports a purple and orange cap. The room loses some of its innate dowdiness. Father Christmas comes, accompanied by Mother . Christmas. He takes a parcel from the glittering tree, passes it to a man whose mouth, concealed by a scrubby white beard, mariners: "Thank you.” He opens the package, which contains some little thing which will lighten his existence, and pulls crackers with his neighbour. Getting a “squeaker,” he puts it to his lips and blows. It is the impulse of boyhood. He might have done the same thing nearly ninety years ago.

The present was dead, but the past was living again.