LONG AGO STORIES

Taranaki Daily News, 23 March 1935, Page 21 (Supplement)

LONG AGO STORIES

KATE GIVES A KETTLE-DRUM. When merry, black-eyed Kate returned to her boarding-school after the holidays, she took with her—hidden in her box—a quarter of a pound of tea. “I intend to give a kettle-drum,” she laughed that evening in the dormitory. “A kettle-drum!” gasped the four other girls, looking properly shocked. “Mamma holds them every evening at five o'clock,” replied Kate. “Gentlemen as well as ladies attend them, and it is also quite in order that young ladies shall assist and hand the tea if necessary.” “But where will you get the tea from?” asked Jane. “The tea and the kettle are in my trunk,” said Kate. “I persuaded our Mrs. Cook to provide them. All we require is wood with which we can make a fire and boil the water. I shall send invitations.” So merry Kate painted invitation cards which she gave to her special friends, and a few evenings later nine excited young ladies, wearing thick woollen dressing gowns over their thick calico

nightdresses, crept to the dormitory. As tea was still far too expensive to be drunk at school, the girls were delighted at the thought of Kate’s. kettledrum. This new fashion had come from India. Although kettles had nothing to do with drums, the word kiddle, meaning a fish basket had become distorted into kettle, and a ketle-drum was nothing but a drum in the shape of a fish basket. In-India, at really smart military parties, drums were used as tables, and in the year 1873, when Kate gave her kettle-drum, everybody knew that it was a tea-party, although that word was not yet used. The girls were greeted by Kate In a charming manner, In the middle of the room was a drum made of sheets and pillows, and on a wood fire the water in the kettle boiled merrily. There was seed cake to eat and there were glasses to drink out of. Conversation was carried on by signs, for fear of waking one of the mistresses. But when Kate sprinkled three spoonsful of tea into the kettle, the affair became so exciting that whispers broke out. Several of the girls had never tasted tea, and were terribly afraid that it would turn their complexions brown! As the brown liquid went down nice little throats,' ’ Amelia declared that it was getting into her head, and she screamed! Oh horror! In another moment Miss Smithson was at the. door, candle in hand, tragedy on her face. “A kettle-druml” she gasped painfully. “Kate—whom I trusted—Kate—walk to my drawing room.” Kate walked, still grasping the kettle, and she was locked in the drawing-room all night. The following .day her father came and fetched her-for she was expelled from school.’ “It was not so—so dreadful as—smoking a cigar,” sobbed poor Kate. ‘ I beg your forgiveness, Papa.”