Peace in the Garden?

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23275, 18 February 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

Peace in the Garden?

By MARY CROFTON

rpHOTJGHTFULLY I looked round my garden, quiet and peaceful, all green and white and blue. Lot s see —white for chastity and blue tor temperance, isn't it ? One of my neighbours is a parson s " ut has amazingly retained humour enough to tell a talo against herself. There was illness in her strictly teetotal home and, straight from a Prohibition rally, she went to a hotel to purchase a bottle .of brandy. Not knowing the ropes, 'it was into the public bar that 1 she ventured, but it was hot until, redfaced, she was marching home bearing her bottle, that she realised she was still wearing a large rosette of bhu« ribbon 1 '-'Such a fool I felt!" she said. Now I am all for temperance and purity and peacefulness. 1 long to see the lion lying down with the lamb, always provided —and here's the rubthat I am the lion. What I mean is that the lion has got to be the peacelover. The weak little lamb may be consumed /with longing to run amoJc and bite the lion, but it wont dare' And the mere thought of our countvy acting the part of the defenceless pea°<?loving lamb in a world whore armed lion despots threaten and brawl gives me a sinking feeling in the stomach ! The incredible Father Divine has the right slogan—"Peace —-it's .Wonderful!" I looked round the sunlit garden, at the dreamy blue spires of the delphiniums soaring above the Canterbury bells, at the pansies and the spreading catmint, grej'-leafed and mauve-flow-ered and sweet among the quiet fragrant mignonette, at the long lines of Mrs. Simkins pinks all spilling out their perfume on the summer air. I wonder who was the long-ago lady who gave her name to those white pinks—white pinks! What a. quaint tongue English Is!—with the burst green calyxes. There must have been a Mrs. Simkins; it is not a name one would make up. Possibly she . was a dainty bride in a frilly crinoline, but 1 Seem to see, a large lady iri a white frock of lingerie, soon t6 grow soiled and brown, but intosicatingly sweet in her brief heyday. Enemies in the Sanctuary

As a sort of- thank-offering for the pleasant places in which my lines have fallen I went down on my knees to do a little useful "knife-and-fork" work. The phrase spoils my family's appetite, but it well describes the business of holding up spreading plants with the weeding-fork while the knife seeks out and slaps the lurking slugs and snails. I do not enjoy the job, any more than I like weeding; even in my smuggest

Everlasting Prayer O, God! That war should touch this lovely earth!" That all the promise and the flower of youth Should march away with songs, to gioe The best of all their heritage—in death! Grant thai men may live in lasting peace, ' And nations side by side in harmony; That war may never sear these : golden fields ■ • Of grain, these trees, and holy flow- . ers; ' That the youth of every land may Jfaoti) The fulness and the heritage of Life! —Desiree A. N. Frain.

moments I have never laid claim to su<& virtue. Weeding and cleaning windows and minding sick people and having babies are all uncomfortable jobs that someone has to do if the world is to go on decently, and the less fuiss the better; but they are all jobs that bring their own reward, tool Alas! How easily is peace shattered 1 My grieved eyes lit on a crumpled handful of bloody feathers that but a few hours ago had been a singing bird. This garden .is sanctuary for the birds, feed-, ing-place, music-room, and nursery combined. Tuis sip honey from the flax flowers and the kowhai, blackbirds and thrushes sing morning and evening songs of praise and thanks. The birds have become fearless, and this is their reward. My -sanctuary has proved a Judas. Ginger Mick, the neighbourhood outlaw cat, had scaled the fence and spoiled the same place, while Kim was wooing the butcher. Kim is the spaniel who presides over my garden, watchin the birds with the benevolence of a Buddha froih the corner where he lies in the shade, or sprawls in the sunshine, as the weather dictates. He is a lover

of peace above all things, so ,it startled ' me to hear a low muttering, anxious 'growl from him —the next-street Alsatian, bane of our lives, was halfway through the_ one weak spot in the fence. Luckily there was a strong sharp stake at hand,' and he fled before its menace. An Unwelcome Intruder The gate clicked. Mrs. Murray on her way to town had spied me and popped in 'to say "Howd'you do," show off her newest dress, and incidentally, as usual rub me up the wrong way. She always comes on me when I am hot and dirty, squatting in queer attitudes, or head down and tail up among the weeds and she is always so prinked and polished that she overwhelms me, even though I find secret consolation in my belief that there is not one corner in her house where you could not sow seed and reap a crop. - This morning she looked at me with hardly veiled amusement from under a hat such as Grandmother wore in her girlhood, perched at an angle of which Grandmother never dreamed over a face so pinked :.and pencilled and powdered -?; that Grandmother would have averted her honest eyes from it as belonging to "a painted woman." Times change! Something of thi£ must have shown in my face, for she laughed and touched my cheek delicately with a long pointed finger nail. "My dear! Such a red hot face 1 I always tell people you must have a" wonderfully strong character. If my face shone like that, I'd lose all my self-respect." (Respect, she said, but shouldn't it hare been Love?) " But we all know you never care what you look :!ike!" Lightly she laughed again as she departed. I grubbed out a bit of chk'kweed and followed a thread of sorrel to its least end. Then I got up from my dusty knees-and wandered inside. Hardly of my own volition T. came to rest in front of my mirror. "Never care what i look like?" The. mirror was discouraging. Under my shady hat my face was red and shiny, my dress that had been clean an hour'ago was now crumpled and I had knelt 011 a slug! I looked just what i am, a working "colonial woman.: I opened my wardrobe and one by one took out' the, garments hanging

- Only When Fenc

there, few in number, nothing fussy—gardeners are apt to be coat-and-skirt women —plain one-piece dresses, quickly put on, of wool or cotton, and one or two of dark undating silk. All neat and all, I reminded myself firmly, adequate for my purposes. Why pretend to be what you are not? I wandered out again to the garden, but I was out of tune. If its peace were to be jarred like this, Ginger Micks and Alsatians and Mrs. Murrays were free to invade it as they pleased, instead of the quiet brooding madonnas there might as well be tiger lilies, and the catmint and the mignonette might yield place to eschscholtzias and venindiums and dimorphothecas and day lilies, and all the not light brotherhood from Mexico and Africa which aim to dazzle the onlookers and which hold no hint of peace. Gardeners are like that. We get inside our garden walls and let the rest of the world go by, but it doesn't! It comes shrieking in, clawing open our easy gates with its sharp red nails. This very day I shall seek out men who will come and build me a stronger, higher fence about my garden, with a stout gate that I can bolt to keep out intruders. • 1 ; Now Zealand, too, Is a garden. But how are her fences?