Friends and Holidays

Southland Times, Issue 21657, 19 March 1932, Page 18

Friends and Holidays

My holiday at Colac was wonderful. How well I recall long walks along the white road, with beautiful shrubs growing in riotous profusion on either side of the road, closing us in a fairyland apart from everything else. Or going home late at night when the naked trunks of once mighty trees reared themselves as tall sentinels, silhouetted against the sky of navy velvet, in which scintillated thousands of stars. Gazing up at them I seemed to feel the quick rush of the air, strikingly fresh, which I knew I could feel were I up there. I could lie in bed at night listening to the call of the owls—sounding more eerie as it rang through the great still forests which clothed the hills—and an answering call from close at hand; seeing the wide empty spaces, while I lay in a room yearning for them. The warm sunshine was gladdened by the cry of the cuckoo, and the insistent rasping of the grasshopper, seeming to come from everywhere, even the deep rippling oats that betrayed their hidden shadows as the fresh breeze stirred their extensive masses. Then there were days when we watched the bay in its beauty. The sunlight dancing on a million spots, the white foam flying, the crashing breakers, piling one upon one, in endless regularity, with always some unusual feature to attract our attention. One special charm of holidays is that one is more apt to make new friends, and.there is always a large number of acquaintances to add to the list. I would be quite disappointed if I returned from a holiday, having failed to have several new friends to, my credit. I have not spent a holiday yet, Cotpih Betty, without having made some new friends. When I look back now, I can see which ones have faded away, and those whose friendship has increased, and it is not hard to distinguish between the two. A verse occurred to me: —

“As the* ships cross and more cheerily go, Having changed tidings on the sea, So am I richer by those I know, And they are not poorer, I trust, by me.” Constance Fox.