FAREWELL LETTERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2883, 23 June 1909, Page 91

FAREWELL LETTERS.

Dear Dot, — After an absence of two or three year 3 I once more come back to take my place among your band, but I've just come back to say good-bye, as the dreaded ege limit has over-taken me, and forbids further correspondence as an ordinary writer. I have given up trying to realise that I really am 20, and; to feel like a grown-up young lady. It seems but yesterday that I was only nine years old, when I penned! my first letter to tout page. I can vrell remember how eagerly and anxiously I a,warted the coming of the following issue of the "Witness, and how proud and" happy I was to see my letter put in in full There was no condensed column in those days, and the good old editor had not even

' clipped a piece out of it with those cruel editorial scissors. That is just 11 short summers ago, and as I loak back over the | vista of years I can scarcely credit that I I have actually lived 11 years since first I wrote to Dot, and asked for names for the two latest additions to niy iamily of dolls. vCora and Belinda were the names supplied, and Belinda is still in the land of the living, although she ha 3 had to battle for an , existence among my younger sisters and ' brothers, and is consequently somewhaT dilapidated and weather-beaten. Ah! how happy and careless of the flight of time are we in our childhood's days. But time goes ■ on relentlessly, and le?ves his traces on all of us. We are mdddle-aged ere we get time to realise our youth has fled, and | we are no longer in the spring time of life. In other 20 years I shall be fair, fat, and forty. Ugh! tile bare thought • sends a cold, creepy shudder down my back. I can't picture myself at forty. Still I suppose as the years roll on w-e gradually j become reconciled to our inevitable fates, ■ and one can never really be old, till one ' feels old, is that not so, Dot? Just here I fchexe flashes across my mind ?, few lines ! from one of A. Banjo Patterson's poems, and '< as they .just voice my sentiments and suit ~"the occasion, I shall jot them down : ; " The fields of youth are filled with flowers, The wine of youth is strong. Wha-t need have we to count the hours? The s-ummer days are long." And further on in the same poem occur the j lines — as well as I remember tham: j " And soon we find to our dismay, That we are drifting down Th* barren slopes that lead away Toward the foothills grim, and grey That lead to O'd Man's Town." And so it has been since the beginning of ! the world, we cannot cheat that grim moni ster Time ; we must submit to him. My sister, New 'Chum, who, with yours truly, used to write regularly to the page, crossed the Rubicon to swell the ranks of benedicts two years and two months ago, and now has a dear little girl, who calls me ''Auntie" in a lisping childish tongue. Tihai. alone ought to be enough to make me feel old. After my sister got married I found life in the back blocks rather dreary and lonesome,- so I took my departure and camea little nearer to civilisation. And now that winter is making itself felt, I rejoice that I am no longer on the farm, and have no oews to milk. Mother used to say that if any one took one of us he would need to take the two, as we were always inseparable, but when the time came the one was taken and the other left. 1 do no toften see a Witness here, but must arrange to get one again befoio S.S. Week comes round. When I first commenced -to take an interest in D.L.F. affairs such well-known writers as B. Or 8., Fairlie, Con, Devonshire Dumpling, Laddie, Harry Farrar, Dicky Donovan, Hairy, Trixie, Boy, Sybil Scribbles. Alys, Cynthiia, Marguerite, Zisga, Mona, Rirubecco ; Jes3ie C, aud others contributed to the page. Now most of those famous writers whose names | are household words in all D.L.F. circles, have long since passed out of D.L.F. -dom, and we have but their memory left to cherish. One consolation we haye — there are always numerous new writers, their numbers never seem to decrease ; yet among the present-diay L.F. there are none whose letters oan equal the epistles of those : named. My two little sisters write to the page; they are taking up their pens as j New Chum, and I lay ours aside. I can j think of ns more to write; my heart is ' full, but my head, alas! is empty. But i before closing, I want to tell you all, my D.L.F. comrades, that I regret the necessity to sever my connection with Dot's Little Folk, and in years to come my D.L.F. days shall ever be a bright spot in the past. Perhaps I may greet you all again when O.W.W. conies ones more, so goodbye till then. May the dear old page ever flourish and grow fat is +he sincere and heartfelt wish of — Yours very truly, LAURA. (Emily Forrest Campbell, Mount View, Pukepito.) [There is no doubt, Laura, that it is a weakness for us to feel we are growing old, or rather regret we are growing old. It is a strange thing- that when we are somewhat older than you are now we begin to measure the future by what great things we oan crowd into it, and not by years. I think those lines of Browning's, though used so often, will still bear quoting. — "Grow old along with me : The best is yet to be — The last of lrfe, For which the first was made." Still, I think your letter will bring a pleasure of sadness to many of the old writers, and especially to those who^e names you mention, for you have struck a chord which will bring back to many those old and happy days. However, we must not be too t-erious, because once a D.L.F. always a D.L.F. Comrades, give her your good wisles —DOT.] Dear Dot, — I once more take the pleasure of writing to the page We are getting 1 very rough, weather up here this past week, and there is no appearance of its clearing up yet, so there is plenty of mud about. We have not had much frost so far. I don't like getting up on the cold, frosty mornings at all. Dear Dot, I am going to tell you about a long drive I bud a while back. There were two trap loads of us; we started away trom my cousin's at 11 o'clock, and after driving about 15 miles we stopped, and had a picnic. After having lea and a stroll around we resumed our journey, and after travelling another 18 miles we reached our destination, feeling a bit tired, but we quite enjoyed our long journey, and we were favoured with a lovely day. I was up at the bush the other day fern-hunting, and I got some very nice" ferns, which I brought home and planted. The bush is not nearly as nice now as it is in the summer. I have read a good many books. The names of some of them are " Hannah." <r Elsio Vernier, ' " Sheila," "Madoap Violet," "Social Sinners," "Across the World for a Wife," "Redcourt Farm," "East Lynne," "Marcella, ' and a lot more. Dear Dot, things are very quiet up here, but the young people hold quadjrille& every fortnight, so that livens things up a bit. De-ar Dot, this is my last letter to the page, as a L.F. Ere I see this in print I will have reached the retiring age, so I will close with wishing the page every prosperity in the future. With love to all the L.F., not forgetting yourself,— Yours truly, SIM'S MATE. (Annie M. Dickson, Scott's Gap.) [You kept your vital news to the very end, Sim's Mate — news that came to me as a surprise. Two retiring in one week is more "than enough. And what shall we wish you? First, we will ask you to appropriate the lines w have quoted for Laura, and then we will send you on towards your twenty-first mile stone alone, but with the "God speeds" of the hundreds of D.L.F. that read these words. Is that not so, • comrades ?— -DOT.J