COMPENSATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 21090, 30 April 1932, Page 2

COMPENSATIONS

[Written by “ M.E.5.,” for the ‘ Evening Star.’]

For a moment the visitor thought he must have strayed into a jumble sale. The ■ whole living room of the little house was strewn with clothes of every size and description, but all of a similar middle age. The farmer’s wife smiled as she apologised for the confusion. “I knew someone ' would come to-day,” she said, “ just because it is the change-over.” In answer to his glance of inquiry she went on: “ The change-over from summer to winter. We do it in one leap on the llanges, Yesterday we were still in summer; to-day, you see, winter has come.”

The stranger looked through the open window at blue sky and golden sunshine. “Oh yes,” she said, “ hut it is hero all the same. This morning there is a film of frost over everything, and already the pumpkin vines are dying. Soon the mud will bo here, knee-deep on all the roads, and you motorists will desert us till next summer.” “ And so you are putting away the summer clothes. Is it a regretful process?” _ She smiled cheerily. ‘‘Autumn is the season for regrets, isn’t it? This golden weather is sad everywhere, but most of all in the still, green bush. And our winters are so long; it is good-bye to summer for nearly eight months.” “This winter is going to be a hard one,” her visitor said. “ You _ farmers are lucky.” “Are you going to tell me that we grow everything we need, except a few odds and ends?’’ she asked. “ Oh, yes, it’s true that in summer we have a great deal of our food on the place. But we pay for it. Every pound of butter we eat; every sheep we kill is so much off our already invisible income. And then, if wo want our cows to give us milk and butter, we must feed the land, and at this - distance cartage almost doubles the cost of fertilisers. _ And it is the same with everything. We pay dearly for our stores, dearly for their delivery, if we are so rash as to buy a loaf of bread it costs Is 5d by tho time it readies us. We pay for our mail and very dearly for our telephone, if we are so lucky to have one. If we are so weak as to need a doctor we pay £ls for his services, but we usually ’die instead. Wo pay heavy rates for roads that are impassible in winter; we can’t afford cars, but all summer you motorists cut them up for us, and in winter we pack our stores through ruts 3ft deep.” Her smile robbed the words of any bitterness, but, when he reiterated, “ You have always got your produce,” she retorted “Yes, all but ‘the odds and ends ’ —the small groceries, the flour, kerosene, tea, sugar, clothes, medicines*-and a hundred other necessities. Yes, we have milk and butter, if we feed our cows adequately during the long, hard winters; we have meat because our sheep are practically unsaleable, Wo have such vegetables as we can rescue from the birds and other pests—not green vegetables, for these are unprocurable in the high country till November. Above all we have firewood,” and she indicated tho logstrewn paddocks all around, “ and warmth is a great deal in this climate.”

“ A great deal,” the stranger agreed. “ Many are without it in the city.” “Ah,” she answered, “but physical warmth is not everything. In town there is the warmth of human contacts. If your townsman is poor or ill he has sympathy and help at hand. In the backblocks there is little of this in the winter. It is not that the people are not kind; they are the kindest and most generous in the tyorld in time of need. But the distances are so great that, unless one has the _ telephone, there is almost complete isolation in the bad months. For example, I have no neighbour nearer than five miles, and she is tied, as I am, by small cliildren. On the other side there is a woman four miles away; but she is old and cannot ride, so that often she does not see a woman for months at a time in the winter. In the summer it is all so different. The roads are dry, the paddocks full of grass, and the animals fat. There may not be any money, but there is a feeling of plenty and happiness in the air. But the whole scene changes incredibly in the Winter—no visitors, no friendly faces, only one mail a week obtained with great difficulty, no greenness, no abundance—just mists drifting over bush-covered lulls, grey paddocks, and hungry animals. The suffering of the beasts in this climate-is one of the worst things, but this winter we shall be lucky if there are not hungry children, too.” Her words smote her hearer uncomfortably. “ But I suppose you manage to save something from your summer abundance?” “ Produce—yes. But, whatever townsfolk may say, oven a farmer can’t work, or his children thrive on bacon and onions, potatoes, and preserved butter. _ And, of course, there is no money—literally none at all. Even in the summer there is not a shilling to spare, and no slightest possibility of saving. Our farm this year took about £80 —that is less than a quarter of its normal income. No, this wasn’t exceptional. Our little factory only averaged sevenpenco for butterfat, and cows milk up hero for only seven months in the year, and poorly at that. As for sheep—well, wo have to shear late for the climate, and so we struck the worst sale, and our clip averaged twopence-halfpenny. With lambs at half-a-crown you will see that our “ cut ” has been heavier than the town people’s. And still there are rates and interest to pay. When our “ odds and ends ” are bought, there is no money often for stamps.’! She went on methodically folding and sorting rough but serviceable little garments, pausing to set the kettle over the fire for the inevitable meal that is offered to every chance comer in the backblocks. “ But we all have our compensations,” she resumed. “In the towns you have companionship, lights, and noise, and friendly faces, some little pleasure, and a friendly hand if you're down. Certainly there is desperate poverty, but usually the women, at least the women of our class, know what they will have to manage on. And in the country we have a great deal, many of the essentials and a blessed freedom from conventions and the need to “ keep up appearances.” But there are loneliness and the lack of pleasure and of any money at all. Worries get out of proportion when you’re alone for months at a time; fears lurk round the cornerfear of illness with no hospital at hand, fear of sudden expense with nothing to meet it. Fear, most of all, of the winter. Oh, sometimes I seem actually to sec it, like that “ deep and unknown stream ” in some old hymn, “ lying darkly between, winding down through the night.” She ended on a happier note. “ But there is much happiness, work to bo done, friends, faithful if they have to be invisible, long, happy evenings, and love of the land.” Yes, thought tho stranger as later ho wont his way, that was the real compensation, the deep source of content that upheld the pioneers—there was alwavs love of the land.