A Big Order

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 188, 6 May 1937, Page 6

A Big Order

The domestic servant problem is acute, but one Wellington family has found a “jewel.” On the first day she I polished the ground floor so highly the head of the household had rubber heels put on his shoes. The second day, the bedrooms were so renovated that when the head of the household came home from lodge he tried to leave because he thought he had got into the wrong house by mistake. The third day, the mistress fell ill and Bridget cooked a meal that would have tempted John D. Rockefeller from his rusks. Everyone was impressed, but no one so much as four-year-old Mary. On the fourth morning, she leaned over tlie bannisters and coyly demanded: “B’idget, please make me an egg!” Tui’s Grief It happened at a tangi. Of course, everyone knows tangis are not what they used to be, what with silk-stock-inged maidens handing rourd tea and sandwiches. Still, silk stockings or not, the Maori is inimitable. No other race an earth can mix modern manners and stone age customs with such complete sai g frold. The pakeha visitors were just a little uncomfortable at the sight of all this luxurious public grief going hand in hand, so to speak, with the latest fashions. They were part'cularly sorry for one smart little lady whose cries of woe were more dutiful than those of any present. Tears streamed copiously down her honey-brown face. She stood like one utterly crushed by misfortune. “Must be a rear relative,” whispered an embarrassed visitor. But at that moment the cries were cut short with startling suddenness and an expression of acute anx’ety replaced dejection in the twinkling of an eyelash. Tbe modern wah’ne whirled on her neighbour and demanded fiercely: “Did you remember tlie sausages?" “Of course was the contemptuous reply. So, that settled, the mourner gave a sigh of deep relief and resumed her noisy weeping with better heart than ever.