ROUGHING IT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13863, 26 March 1909, Page 2

ROUGHING IT.

A AVOMAN'S SHARE. Some rough pioneering work is being done in the hinterland of Taranaki, by people who are- determined to get on ana make a home of their own. Here is one story picked up by the "New Zealand Times":— The most heroic tales of women's pluck antl endurance in the work of making a home for her young ones arc told of the wives of co-operative labourers. Going into the wilderness—which the State.has wrongfully allowed to be subdued before providing the pioneer with a means of reaching a market or civilisation —without a penny of capital except a few pounds. paid down as a deposit on the section, these stouthearted women have, in the majority of cases, taken upon themselves the task of. making the home while the husband is working on the roads earning an income. A tent is generally the first dwelling, and before . a wooden shelter can bo thought of money' has to be scraped together, for the family must live and the rent for the Crown section must ho met. To take'one case of many which came under the writer's notice in the Matieri district.

The woman pioneer came in with lier husband, a co-operative labourer, and five children; and, without-a penny-oil money, took up a Crown lease of 200 acres. A single tent, with an carthern i'oor, was iheir home, and a long, harsh winter was passed through in this. The life for the first two years was one of remarkable denial. Every penny was saved that could be saved in order to purchase fencing material and to meet the. payments on the section. Nothing was bought that could be made. Flour was the main expense, and the bags in which it was received furnished material for blouses for the mother and clothing for the children. The hats for the whole family wens made from flax growing by the wayside. The only time meat, or anything of the nature' of butter, was iised was when the father managed to kill a wild pig. The fat was rendered clown and used as an apology for butter. Substitutes for vegetables were found in thistles and watercress. Flour was "saved" by making the bread "heavy" and so discouraging its consumption. The only luxury was a handful of sugar in a batch of scones on Sundays, the scones, of course, being : eaten without anything on them. While on ■■such scant fare this plucky woman faced the work practically alone of, Hearing the section. She cut down and fired the scrub, dug the post holes, having the assistance of her husband when'he could spare a day from his work on the roads, in erecting the fencing, and alone she put

up the outbuildings. She also provided as she does to this day, the firewood, felling trees in the bush at some distance away rind sledging the split wood to the home. This woman has been known to go out in the depth of winter, through the bush tracks, for supplies, and in one case drove over dangerous tracks, having to wear men's apparel and gum boots in order to accomplish this heavy task. AYlien constructing the little "shanty" which replaced the canvas home she brought the corrugated iron from the township, a distance of six miles, over the mountain, on a pack horse, a load which many packers would not take in the winter over such a particularly bad track. This woman, in addition to the heavy work referred to, milks eight cows a day, and is doing this at the present time, notwithstanding that she is nursing a. six weeks' old baby