Woman’s World

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2075, 16 March 1922, Page 3

Woman’s World

ON EMU CREEK. By Steele Rudd. (All Rights Reserved.) CHAPTER XIII. SOME NATURE STUDY, The school had been opened six months. It was making headway. Shyness and dread of the master were wearing oil! the infants, and giving place to confidence and fidelity, /he hair on the faces of the Digger boys was spreading and taking distinctive colour; the dresses of the bigger girls getting • longer,, and between the lot of them they succeeded in making the school a real live institution that kept the teacher busy. Pie was never out of employment. But Roger Garfield Wimblepip was a teacher! a learned, indefatigable, dignified pedagogue. He was no round post in a square hole. No newspaper reporters or society wife or parliamentary, or lodge, or church influence made his reputation. Plis own hard-worked brains made it. He was a student of Nature, and studied the character of his pupils, and got to know them as he did the A B C before beginning to teach them anything. “A teacher.” he used to tell Titt, “might pass all the examinations in the world and get loaded up with honours, yet not be able to teach worth tuppence. Unless he has been taught to teach or happens to be a born teacher, he’s a professional counterfeit, a fly in the departmental ointment, a hired destroyer of the nation’s greatest asset.” That was why he wavered on the matter of including "Nature Study” in the bill of fare for the Emu Creek School, and couldn’t arrive at a definite conclusion. One day he chose fifteen boys to accompany him along the creek and through the intervening forest country to the top of Nit. Sibley, on nature study stunt. Great crawling jew hazards.! No stunt could have suited or delighted them more. A day out of school together was “into their hands.” They grabbed their hats, poked faces at those who had not been selected, and away they went down the road, the teacher stepping it out in the centre of them like Bonapart© amidst his bodyguard. Instead of spreading out to collect wild flowers and yams and blackfellows’ fruit and lizards and spiders and snakes, and all kinds of creeping things, and bring them to the teacher for scientific investigation and explanation, the boys promptly disappeared into water-holes and among grass trees and up the limbs of gums and coolibahs, and left the master waiting. Pie waited and studied his watch till his patience gave out. ' "God bless my heart and soul?” he mused anxiously; “what’s become of them all?” Then making a funnel of his two hands, he coo-eed, a high-pitched, mournful coo-ee, with a long melancholy tail to it, and placing his ear to the wind, listened. No response came—not a sound could he hear save the creak-creaking of chafing limbs and the flapping of moving bark, dangling in strips from the forest trees. Again and yet again ho coo-eed; but no more than if those louts had all been swallowed up by the earth, was any indication of their whereabouts borne back to him on the breeze. Yet, whilo his throat was getting sore and hoarse, and the perspiration breaking out in beads upon his brow. Tom Dyer and Joe Shuttlewood and Splinter, in the hidden bend- of a steep gully were splashing and wallowing in a murky waterhole not more than a 100 yards away. A little lower down, Andy Drygrass and Bill Billygum and Ned Rudd were secreted in the foliage of a spreading coolibah, chewing grass-tree gum; the rest of the "nature students” were a mile and more away, giving mad chase to anything and everything that had the temerity to start from its hiding-place and run, or fly, or creep, or crawl. They were death on Nature Study, were those bush scholars, with no more Scare or thought for the teacher than ithey had for the man in the moon. | “Listen to old Roger coo-eein’ for us,” Tom Dyer, shaping a mud-ball Ito paste Joe Shuttlewood with, grin--1 ned. ! “If he comes this way.” Joe anIswered, perching himself on a miniajture island adorning the centre of the water-hole, “he’ll see some Nature study.” All three laughed joyously. Then Splinter scrambled up the bank and peeped cautiously over the edge to see what the teacher was U “There ain’t a single jolly bloke left with him.” ho announced, clinging tight to the long grass on the parapet; “everyone of ’era’s cleared.” Joe .Shuttlewood grinned and pointed meaningly to the back view of Splinter. "Has they?" and Tom Dyer stood up and flung the mud-ball he had prepared for Shuttlewood. at Splinter. It went straight and swift, and with a loud smack, fastened Itself on to his bare skin like a parasite in clay. “Oh!” he yelled, and losing grip of the grass, rolled down the bank into the water. The others dropped down in helpless heaps and gave themselves up to ' mirth. I Splinter gathered himself together, jand crawling out of the hole, began dressing silently and sulkily. I “God bless **iy heart and soul!” the I teacher burst out again. “Well! Well! [ Well!” then went off - to search for the absent students. He walked briskly for a couple of hundred yards, and entered a clump of grass-trees where he came upon foot-priqts and moist spots of expectorated chew-gum. Then he coo-ed hopefully, and listened some more. Andy Drygrass and Bill Billygum and Ned Rudd, perched in the coolibah trees, were only fifty yards distant. “Look out!” Andy warned ms companions; "get up higher! Old Rogers cornin’ through th’ grass-trees. 1 can see his helmet.” The others climbed higher, and squatting among the branches like scrub turkeys, listened and watched every movement below. Emerging from the grass-trees, the teacher paused beneath the coolibah, and peered all round, but never once dreamt of looking up. A word, a giggle- ° r the sound of if. breaking twig among the branches.

[“Annette invites corrcs pondence on stibjccts of interest to ladies, such as so cial events, weddings, etc., or any other matters s ultablc for publication in “Woman’s World.”]

and those absconders would have been undone. But Fate befriended them. With their hats shoved halfway down their throats, they sat tight and motionless. (To be continued). WEDDING SEDDON—WOOD (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Last Night A wedding that has caused a groat deal of interest throughout New Zealand was celebrated at St. Mary'., Church Merivale, this afternoon, when Miss Beatrice Wood, second daughter of the late Mi 1 . William Wood and oi Mrs. Wood “Hadleigh,” Springfield Road,, St. Albans, was married to Thomas Scddon M.P., son of the late Right Hon. Richard J. Seddon and Mrs. Seddon of "Goldies Hill” Wellington. The ceremony was performed by Canon W. S. Bean, brother-in law of the bridegroom, assisted by Archdeacon Haggitl. Relatives and friends were present from all over the Dominion, including Sir Joseph and Lady Ward and Mr. and Mrs. T. M. Wilford. Mr Flyger, of Palmerston North, is the guest of Mrs Hastings-Moore at Gonville. Mrs D. M. Mclntosh, of Tauranga, is at present visiting her mother (Mrs A. H. Vile), in Linton Street, Palmerston North. Many old residents will learn with regret of the passing away of Mrs Parr, Cootc road, a resident of Napier for forty-seven years. She arrived in New Zealand by the ship Queen of the North in the year .1874. The deepest sympathy will be felt for her family in their sad bereavement. She leaves four surviving children, Mrs K. Cameron (Napier),.Mrs Barton (Wellington), and the Misses Alice and Celia Parr. There passed away at her residence the other day, an old identity of the district in the person of Mrs Ann Still, relict of the late William Still. The late Mrs Still, who was eighty-five years of age, was born in Scotland and come to New Zealand in 1559. She leaves a grown-up family of four sons and four daughters, twenty-three grandchildren and nine great-grand-children. The wedding was celebrated at All Saints’ Church on March Bth, the Rev. H. G. Blackburne officiating, ot George John, son of Mr and Mrs Sydney Franklin, of Palmerston North, and Rita Annie, second daughter of Mr and Mrs George Ward, of 118 Terrace Street, Palmerston North. The bride, who entered the church on the arm of her father, was attired in ivory crepe de chene trimmed with lace and sash to match, with the orthodox veil and orange blossoms, and carrying a beautiful bouquet of white roses and maidenhair fern. The bridesmaid was Miss Ruby Ward, sister of the bride. The duties of best man were carried out by Mr Eric Franklin, brother of the bridegroom. After the ceremony 80 guests proceeded to the wedding breakfast at the residence of the bride’s parents, where a large marquee was erected for the occasion, fii the evening a very pleasant dance was arranged, over 50 couples being present. English papers say-that the lace frock continues serenely on its way, and it finds special favour in the effective cire qualities which show up the pattern with such a delightful sheen lustre. Cire lace, for some quite undefinable reason, has a more youthful look that the dull dentclles, and there is furthermore a marked /feeling this season for such delicate nuances as mist grey,„parma, lavender, biscuit and hyaci’hth. Simple little magyar frocks of these tenderlytoned laces are as simple to make as they are pretty and becoming to wear, and omer elaborate ones are becoming increasingly popular for wedding dresses. THE HOME BEAUTIFUL. To those about to furnish it may be interesting to know that the black-and-white dining-room is becoming increasingly fashionable at Home. To begin with, the room should be sunny. The walls are done in white or the palest shades of cream, distemper being used in preference to paper, which is now out of date in England as a wall covering. The ceiling is papered in a black-and-white paper of a close pattern. 'The paint work should be black with a plain black felt carpet. White tiles for the grate. A black, oak table and small chairs, rush seated (easy chairs and sofas are not now found in dining-rooms) a black oak sideboard without a mirror, also a bookcase to match. Engravings, framed in narrow black frames leaving a wide white margin between frame and picture, are being hung on the walls. The dinner service should be without pattern, only a gold band, or if preferred plain fluted ware would be suitable. Breakfast and tea services of white with a narrow black band and festoons of tiny black flowers look in keeping with the foregoing decorations, which present an uncommon and elegant appearance. Roller blinds are not now being used, short curtains of white or black-and-white cretonne or chintz serving the double purpose.