COUSIN BETTY’S LETTER.

Southland Times, Issue 20172, 7 May 1927, Page 22 (Supplement)

COUSIN BETTY’S LETTER .

MY DEAREST COUSINS, Well, I really do think that we should ask the weather-man to resign his office, so that we could take control of his work, don’t you? After the perfectly miraculous exhibition we gave last Saturday of our powers in that direction, I don’t think there can be any doubt about whether we are capable of controlling the weather or not. Do you realise that on the stroke of 10 o’clock last Saturday morning, just as we all began smiling, the sun shone out, and shone all the week-end! I’m awfully proud of that, aren’t you? Here’s what one Cousin wrote about it: Isn’t this a beautiful day? Old King Sol couldn’t resist our smiling efforts, so see how it pays to smile, for isn’t this a treat after all the bad weather we have been having, and the birds are all singing just as if it was spring-time. So we must take their example and sing, too, and not let Jack Frost and King Winter damp our spirits. I hope the weather stays like this for a long time now for there’s plenty of water and mud out this way. And here’s another:— That five minutes’ smile of your Little Southlanders, seems to be what the weather-man was waiting for. He must just love to see us smiling, for at times, yesterday, I was absolutely warmed by his rays, and mother declares her nose was burnt while she watched the football match from the front of the grandstand. The weather-man must be trying to outshine your little band of Cousins, Cousin Betty, for the sun is beaming gloriously over me, through a north window, as I write these few lines to you. I hope you were haring a holiday yesterday, Cousin Betty. And those are from quite different parts of Southland, too! I can see we’ll have to try the same thing again one day soon. Now, here’s another letter I want you to see, from an honorary Cousin in Wellington. It should interest all of you:— Dear Cousin Betty,—Did you have a nice Easter? It’s cold here, and to-day just at dinner-time it rained and we could not play hockey or basketball, but we played ping-pong, which although not at all strenuous provided a great deal of amusement. I suppose I thought you must be a thoughtreader, not telling you what school I go to. It is the Wellington Girls’ College and lam in the Fourth Form, and love it. It is so different from the Primary School, rather the ideal of school life one reads about. We have different teachers for different subjects, and English is lovely. We have two labs, and they are as interesting as science can be. The corridors are wide, and in the central hall we hold small school concerts, meetings, assembly, etc. Our room is the biggest in the school. We have botany, sewing and cooking rooms, but not very much ground, only two tennis courts, a top green, the garden (on which stands a house which serves as a pavilion where the sports things are kept), a hockey green, and the gym. The school has its disadvantages, being in a very smoky locality and near the railway station. The author of the “Dominion Civics,” “Geography of the Pacific,” and “History of the Pacific,” teaches us, which is a distinct drawback, as authoresses are inclined to be superior people. Of course I am only an ordinary school-girl, going to a lovely school, living in an ordinary suburb, taking an ordinary place in school work and games. Brooklyn is a suburb amongst the hills as it were, for, starting from Wellington we go up a hill to Brooklyn, and up another hill to our home, and hills surround us at every turn. A cousin of mine who came from Australia, could not realize that houses could be built on such slopes, and that so many hills could abound. We live with open hills behind us, rolling billows which do not stop until the blue sea can be seen. They are poets’ dreams, for bush nestles in tiny hollows, bush covers big slopes as though to apologise for the bareness of the rest of the slopes. They are places which I love, and mushrooms are not all that lure you to rise in the early morning and roam over them. When red streaks the sky it also lights up every hill in Wellington, gives each one a different tint and steals the dew from the sobbing grass. Perhaps I am getting too prosy, but I would love you to roam over “our” hills. We always refer to them as ours although literally they aren’t, I suppose, but when you have wandered over them and loved them for nearly fourteen years, well, they do in a certain degree belong to you. So you see, my Cousins, it would be selfish of me to take up any more space this week, with these letters using so much room. But next week I am going to tell you all about the concert, when it is to be, where it is to be held, ’n’ everything. Then, won't we just have to work! Cheerio! l/V,