COUSIN BETTY’S LETTER

Southland Times, Issue 22074, 22 July 1933, Page 18

COUSIN BETTY’S LETTER

-QUOTATION FOR TO-DAY— Thou fill’st the solitude. Thou art in the soft winds That run along the summit of these trees In music. Thou are in the cooler breath That from the inmost darkness of the place Comes, scarcely felt. The barky trees, The ground, the warm, moist ground Arc all instinct with Thee. —Bryant.

My Cousins, On Sunday morning I wakened early with sweet bird-songs pouring in through my window, and such a feeling of Awareness that on an instant all my senses were alert, and I lay and waited, I did not know for what. Expectancy held me in its firm, crisp grip. I was prepared for something thrilling to burst upon me, something magnificent and wonderful. But soon I knew I could not stay there long; the birds were insistent, and in their voices some glorious message was struggling to be translated into the language of humans. Singing silken strands drew me out of bed and over to the window. What a heavenly morning. . . . “Earth has not anything to show more fair. Dull would he be of soul who could pass by —” the sight of hard swelling bulges on my lilac tree, proclaiming that here was no skeleton but a sleeper stirring into wakefulness again. It needed little imagination, too, to realize that the Spring-smelling earth was as busily alive as a piece of Stilton cheese. Spiky green shoots were everywhere signposts of daffodils and I had on a wrapper quick as a dandelion, and out into the sunshine. The polished ivy leaves beamed on me benignly, the glasshouses glistened superiorly but quite good-humouredly .... A sunray caught the gleam in my eye and wooed it downwards .... Yes, Yes, Yes, my cousins—the First Crocus! The dear thing stared up at me unblinkingly, impertinently, willing me to look down on it with its yellow-golden eye. Oh, the power of that eye, my cousins, the naughty flattery of its intense regard, the promises, the assurances, that streamed up to me in a myriad golden motes .... My heart dissolved in a flood of rapture, and when it steadied again I felt it, too, was yellow-golden. I thought of my Little Southlanders, “Amidst the cool and silence” of this Sunday morning, spilling their yellow-gold not only over the whole of Southland but into the nooks and crannies of other provinces as well—The yellow-gold of cheerfulness and usefulness and endeavour. Indeed and indeed we pondered together deeply and for a long time, that First Crocus and I . . . . Somebody asked me last week in a letter what had happened to the plays the seniors were to have drafted by mid-May. What has happened to them, my cousins? Now it is mid-July, and are any of them completed? Shall we set a fixing date, say the last week in August—then the Spring will truly have come to add its magic finishing touches to the solid work begun in the Winter. Meanwhile please let me have news of them. I am glad the “Peggy” squares are growing and growing. How many quilts are we going to achieve?

My dears, good morning to you. When a stray sunbeam comes your way, treat it gently, Little Southlanders-all-over-the-earth, because it is a message words cannot convey, and it springs straight from my heart.

P.S.—What a lot of things I omitted in my letter because Little YellowCrocus drove them out of my head! In the first place, so many Little Southlandcrs write to me asking how many cousins there are altogether, and always my answer is vague—“l don’t know—There must be quite a lot” —that Lhave decided it would be quite a good idea if we had a guessing competition to find out. Send me in. your answer by Tuesday, August 1, and there’ll be a special prize for the one who’s nearest. I hope you have noticed how many enrolments there have been during the last few months—on an average of seven or eight a week —we’ll carry the competition right up to the number enrolled by next Saturday, July 29. I also -wanted to draw your attention to Cousin Desmond Stone’s new serial—he tells me there are 28 chapters, so I have decided to give the Mind Sharpeners a rest for two months, partly to make room for it, and partly so that you will be fresh for them when they appear again. By the way, Connie Jellyman has reached her third 50-mark prize this year. Isn’t that splendid!

P.P.S.: I have had an inquiry from one who wishes to help us, about the size of the quilts—they are for single beds, of course, and need be no standard size. They should be backed with cretonne, which forms a 2 inch or 3 inch border round them. —C.B.