THE OLD WOMAN PREPARES

Evening Star, Issue 25168, 6 May 1944, Page 8

THE OLD WOMAN PREPARES

[Written by Mary Scott, for the • Evening Star.'] She would have laughed at the notion of being in any sense a romantic figure. "A. middle-aged farmer's wife—whoever would find anything interesting in that?" she scoffed, when I once ventured to suggest that there was material for a story in her life. Yet her experiences and her manner of meeting them always seemed to me typical of many backblocks lives and many back blocks women. • Not highly coloured; no heights of ecstasy or despair; but theu, how few lives are. like that. Most are monotones, town or country.

But perhaps she had had more than her share of meetings and of partings. Particularly of partings. It must, of course, be so in the country, if children are to be educated and parents live far back. From the time hers were quite small she had had to endure that divided life, the pain of sending them from her far too early, of missing so much. And of course they had been rather injured about it, complaining. " I can't see why we have to go away when you could teach us at home;" or, more truculently, " Why's education so important? I call it a lot of rot." And again,, subtly, "Really you need us here. You're far too lonely. We've heen educated enough." This last from an 11-vear-old.

So that their parents' lives had been a sort of chess board of term and holiday. Not that either felt the solitary times wholly black; occasionally, indeed, they seemed, at least for a few days, oases of peace. But people can be very lonely in the backblocks, particularly if they happen to live in the middle of the unchanging, green bush, with no varying colours, no distant horizons. And, as the children grew older, the holidays seemed happier every year, so that the partings grew only harder, not easier—" although we certainly ought to get used to it," the mother would sav in her sternly practical way. She was, she always maintained, first and last a \ practical woman. 1 remember how loudly she proclaimed this when I called in one day years ago. It was an unfortunate date to choose, for. not then regulating my own life by school holidays, I had not realised that the children had departed that morning. Finding chaos in the usually tidy house, I apologised: " How stupid of me to come when you must be feeling miserable and want to he alone." This she pooh-poohed. " Miserable? What nonsense! I'm far too practical a person to indulge in private griefs. Besides, there's washing--to. be done. Masses of dirty sheets. The copper's boiling, and you must just come out and talk to me while I do it." Then she smiled grimlv and said: " And. if you're looking at my eyes, let me inform you that' we're having stew for dinner, and onions always make them like that." 1 remarked mildly that I had said nothing about her eyes, and she laughed, saying there was no fool ,like an old fool. But it was not till we were hanging out the slieets that she said suddenly: ''Well, as you've been really tactful and not tried to sympathise, I'll let you into a secret. The minute the children turn that corner on their way back to school I light the copper fire. And do you know what runs through my head? It's an old tag from some poe.ni of Bret Harte's: ' The old woman? Well, she did washing, and took on when no one was nigh.' Whore does it come from? I don't know—l only remember that the couple had lost airtheir money land.that was the wife's way of accepting the situation. After all. it's most women's lots, isn't it? I mean,, we've got to be practical and not sit'down and mourn." 1 thought of the quotation again some four years ago when I found her once more bending over the wash tubs. Nor, on this occasion, did she even attempt to mention that her eyes were suffering from onions. What need? 1 knew well enough that her boys had left the daj before, and not all the partings oi which her life had been so largely composed could make that one any easier. But her " laugh was stib gallant as she said: "Well, even wheii they go off to war. they leave washing behind them—thank goodness—and the old woman hasn't time to take on till it's done." I took the wringer handle a word, and presently she said: " .V>ver mind. Some day you'll come in and find me extra busy and I'll be getting ready for their return, and when that day comes you can write the story you've been planning for years—and" you can call it ' The Old Woman Prepares ' —because I shall be old by then. War ages one quickly." It was true; but yet always she found in work—humble, practical' work—her Comfort and her salvation. Her husband was the same; the <farm must be kept in production; food must be sent to England; the land must be held for the bnvs' return. So they worked on, and I could always gauge the quality of the overseas news by the type of work I found her doing. Crete meant the making of an asparagus bed; Kl Alamein decided her to dig up a new piece for her vegetables; when one of i the hoys was wounded she found her greatest comfort in wheeling huge barrowloads of manure. " What a good thing to be a practical woman without imagination," she would say; " Bret Harte must have meant me when he wrote about his old woman." So when one day I came in at the gate and found most of the furniture m the back yard, I knew something tremendous had happened. Good news or bad? My step faltered and I dared not go one;" but she came out to welcome me, and one glance at her face was enough. " The boys are coming home. Take one end of that carpet, like a dear." On such an occasion even the most practical woman may be allowed to shed tears—provided they be tears of joy. But it didn't interfere with our carpet-shaking. " There's a terrible lofc to do. You see,. I haven't been bothering lately to make jam or bottle fruit —not just for the two of us. Now I've got to start and do it all in a hurry. No time to sit and get excited." Then,- as we gave the carpet a last twist, she 6aid to me: " Well, the day's come. You can have your story, and mind you call it 'The Old Woman Prepares.' " So I have cajled it that, although it is somewhat of "a libel. For the old woman is not so old after all. Indeed, she seems to grow younger every day.