SHORT STORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3662, 20 May 1924, Page 73

SHORT STORIES.

THE WINDOW FACING MAIN STREET.

By

Mattie Comyn.

(Copyright.—For the Witness.) During the first year of my married life, a neighbour persuaded me to join the Ladies' Missionary Society. The Society met fortnightly, on stock sale days, in the township. \, e members were, for t-hel most part, farmers’ wires and daughters, and that day suited us, as we generally came, in to the township to do our shopping, sell eggs, butter, etc. Many a happy afternoon was spent in the elubroom, where we met. The room was lent to us, free of charge, on account of the. charitable nature of the work in which we were engaged —-making woollen underwear for the South Sea Islands. I was a- new arrival in the district, having come from down South, and soon got to know all about the people of the place, as a lively fire of conversation was usually kept going while the work was proceeding. We had a large window overlooking the Main Street. The hall was built on a rise, so we had a splendid view, and very little went on on “our day” in the town that we did not see or hear about. Dlrs Leslie (our president) sat next the window. On one afternoon shortly after I joined the society, she called us all to look at a young couple. “Oh ! just come here,” said Mrs Leslie, “There is that Mrs Young and her husband. He’s carrying her violin, as usual. What a fool he makes of himself! walking next the curb, too. Fancy her learning music; suit her better to be ‘spanking’ cows.” We all made a dash for the window and beheld Mrs Young, a petite, pretty, brunette, and Mr Young, a rather fine specimen of New Zealand manhood. While we were looking, they just turned the corner out of Main Street. “Oh! Is that a married couple?” I exclaim. “I have often seen them in town. I thought they were lovers.” “No wonder you did,” says Mrs Leslie, “And they have been married three years. Bob Young has a farm out our way, and they only keep one cow, and he milks it himself.” I ventured to suggest that “perhaps Mrs Young did not like milking cows.” “She does not,” says Mrs Leslie, “but he should knock all that nonsense out of her. She has a new costume, too, and such a pretty ‘picture hat.’ ” “Oh! there they are again,” as a neat rubber tyred gig and pony turned the corner with Mr and Mrs Young on their way home. “Just look at them! That pony, too, is a fed. of hers. Mrs Young likes driving, and Bob bought that ‘turn out’ for her use. A spring cart and a half draughthorse used to be good enough for him before he got her with her high notions. No one could drive the other horse but Bob himself. My man says that he should have kept to it. She could not then have come in twice a week to hofi music lessons, as Bob cannot leave his work to drive her in so often.” Mrs Taylor, n tired-looking young woman with a shabby coat and skirt, and a hat that had seen better days, gazed at the happy young couple as they re-passed our window. Mrs Taylor went to school with Mrs Young. Elsie May she was in those days. “No style then,” sai's Mrs Taylor. “She ought to learn the violin ! It’s the tin billy she used to play, ‘running the cutter’ for her mother. A great beer drinker Mrs May was, and Oh! you should have seen the clothes Elsie wore those times,” says Mrs Taylor, as she let her mind wander hack to childhood's days. “No pretty costumes, I can tell you—just any old clothes tliat people used to give her mother, and Elsie had to wear them just as they were. The mother never bothered to alter them. Sometimes they were far too big. and again you would see her with a frock above her knees, though I will say Elsie was always a pretty kid, and she looked well in spite of her clothes.” Another gig comes into view with a tall, fair young man driving. He pulls up at our club-room door. Mrs Leslie calls for Mrs Baker, a pale spiritless looking woman who is knitting as if for dear lift 1 . “Here is your hubby, Mrs Baker.” Mrs Baker drops her knitting like a shot, and picks up her baby, who had been sleeping on the lounge. “Oh! Don’t he in such a hurry. You have not had a cup of tea yet. Let him wait,” says Mrs Leslie. “Oh, no ! I must go at once. Jim does not like to be kept waiting.” “Nonsense! He kept you waiting last sale day—don’t you remember? I passed you when you were walking up that hill, carrying the baby, too. waiting for him.” “Oh ! yes,” says Mrs Baker, "He said that just as he was going to start for home, he met Bob Carter, and he had to go with Bob to see a litter of prize pups that he had.” No use trying to keep Mrs Baker; off she went. Mrs Taylor held the baby while the mother climbed into tho gig. It took Mrs Baker all she m “knew” to catch the baby as Mrs Taylor tln-ew it at her, while the horse was starting off in response to a sharp crack of the whip from Jim Baker. “The horse looks to me to be bolting,” I remarked, as we turned from tho window to partake of the tea, which one of our party had been preparing. “No, it is not bolting,” says Mrs Leslie. “The horse is a bit flighty, and

Jim is sucli a furious driver. If they had to drive straight out south it might be a bolt all l-iglit, but that hill will soon steady it. Mrs Baker used to be such a high-spirited girl before her marriage. She used to be a great rider, too, but she never even drives now. Jim does not believe in women driving, and she can never come to town unless he brings her, but Oh! he was in love with Mamie Fox (that was her maiden name). He used to write poetry about her, too—her lovely, raven locks, and her dimples. They are only married two years, too; but all that belongs to the past. No one will mistake them for lovers anyhow.” Before we finished our tea. another of our party is called for—Mrs Aldred. She was really the “belle” of the society, always dressed in the latest style. She was a rather fine-looking woman, tall and dark, and she was a splendid figure, too, knowing well how to wear her clothes. She had been married ten years, and had five lovely children. She thought (as she confided to some of us while we were having our tea) that she would have had a much better time if she had not got married so young. She was just making plans to stay in the town overnight to go to the theatre with a friend, as “The Belle of New York” was being played, and said she would not miss it for any money—when her “Bill” came. She sent out her little girl to tell her father that he could take her and her two little brothers home (the two older ones were at school), and come in for her (Mrs A.) the next afternoon. The little girl came back to say that “Dad wants you to come home and mind us, eoz he is coming in to-night to a smoke concert.” (A “send off” at his lodge, one of whose members was going to Wellington). At this Mrs Aldred went out herself; she returned in a few minutes minus the children. “I soon settled him,” she said, as she got herself a fresh cup of tea. “Fancy me missing ‘The Belle of New York 7 for his old smoke concert. He says that he will come in to it anyhow, as soon as he milks the cows, but I know he won’t. He has my share to do as well as his own, and he will be too tired for flying round when he is done the lot.” “Come and watch Bill Aldred doing his wife’s bidding,” says Mrs Carr, a sweet little woman (she says that all she has to look forward to is our meetings). On one occasion when Mrs Leslie spoke of “disbanding,” she said to her, “Oh! Mrs Leslie, don’t ever give it up. My hubby goes for days on end with hardly a word to say. I would have been ‘down the line’ long ago, if it had not been for baby. Sale days is all I live for. I would come in even if I had to walk the eight miles, and carry baby too. You don’t know what a Godsend it is to me, even when we are all talking at once, and no one listening, it is so different from the days of ‘dead silence’ at home.” We all go to the window and watch Bill Aldred driving slowly away, with his three little children beside him. “The *ows don’t seem to be worrying him much,” Mrs Carr remarks. “He will soon get a spurt on,” says his wife, “when he gets out of sight; he does not like to look too obedient.” “Now that is what I call a properly brought up husband,” says Maggie Currie, a fair buxom young girl (and by the way, a great favourite with the boys). “When I marry, that is how I am going to train my hubby. It's all how you start,” she declares, with the mature wisdom of her nineteen years. At 4.80 the last of the party leave the clubroom. The most of the men had called for their wives and daughters ere this. Sirs Barr (our secretary), went off from the door, not knowing which way to go to look for her “worser half.” “Pity,” says Mrs Leslie when Mrs Barr was out of hearing, “that Matt Barr does not have a special pet public-house. Then she would know where to find him, but he patronises them all. For my part I don’t know how she can trust her life with him, driving home in the state he is usually in, to say nothing of her two little children.” “He won’t let her take the reins, either, and he is like a pig when he has a ‘drop in’—so obstinate. Now there’s Jim Burns. He is good-natured and jolly, when he has drink. Lets Eliza (his wife) drive, and he sits smiling at everyone he meets, but Oh 1 Mrs Burns ’'says ‘there is the Devil to pay next day, when he has a sore head.” I sit musing in the gig on my way home, and I keep picturing that happy young couple, who are still lovers in spite of being married. Is it envy we feel, I wonder, when we talk about that pretty little matron who is fond of music, and is trying to make up to herself for the neglect she experienced during her mother’s lifetime. Mrs Leslie says that she asked her to join our “society.” Mrs Young said that she would be only too pleased to do so, but as we met on her music days, she cannot come to the clubroom, but she makes two shirts a fortnight at home, and what is more to the point, she makes them well, and never fails to bring them in on “sale” days. Mrs Leslie holds her up to the rest of us as an example in that respect, as many of us do not do nearly as much, though we always attend the meetings. In fact Mrs Leslie threatened to ask the owners of the clubroom to frost that Window Facing Main Street, as she thinks that it interferes with our work, but I fancy that the punishment would fall as heavily on herself as anyone. Could we but have looked into the future, we would have seen those babes who slept on the lounge or on cushions in the corners, also all those little girls and boys who played round us while we worked, and took the shirt sleeves and neck bands to make rag dolls, got entangled in the wool as we tried to do our knitting, and got into every kind of mischief —we would have seen those cherubs facing stern realities of war, the

boys to march away to the beat of drum and the swirl of the pipes, the girls to do tiie woman's part—the waiting—our ohl clubroom to be used by them as a workroom to make garments to send to thier loved ones. We would have seen many a tear shed as they watched the soldiers passing the Window Facing Main Street on their way to the station. We would have seen our hard-working president (Mrs Leslie), as she said farewell at different periods to three of her four sons, two of them never to return. He would have seen her as she collapsed and died within an hour after receiving a telegram, which on being opened, was a message “calling up’’ her only remaining boy. 1 paid a visit to the township after an absence of several years. I saw the ohl clubroom once again. It brought back sad memories of days that are gone, of old friends and companions, and the times when we would all get together (when we should have been working), and gaze at all that could be seen from The Window Facing Main Street.