AUNT HILDAS LETTER.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 732, 8 April 1933, Page 18 (Supplement)

AUNT HILDAS LETTER .

HOLIDAY JOYS.

Far from the Haunts of Men. J)EAR LITTLE PEOPLE,— After three weeks of the most appalling laziness, I have come back to Starland and found that you’d all worked just as hard for the page as ever in my absence! That’s splendid and shows you all have the right spirit, and I’m ever so proud of you all. It was so lovely to have time to do everything, time to take long, long sleeps in the sunshine; the first few days I slept almost the whole day! Every few hours I’d hear a “ rumble-rumble,” and there beside, wherever I happened to be, a waggon laden with the loveliest things to eat mysteriously appeared. I think I’ll tell you more of this aspect of the holiday; hearing of things to eat is always so interesting! Always a bright geranium or a bunch of scarlet briar hips stood in the comer, and a happy nasturtium flower sat on the butter pat, asking to be admired and also making the butter so golden. Dairy butter, too, full of the freshest vitamins and fats, and free from adulteration. The sugar-basin was green and travelled from Switzerland, a funny little bowl with a flat handle each side. “ Murren ” was the name of the place it came from. There were loads of the brightest scarlet tomatoes, and- with a flavour that said the gardener knew his art. He was an old Scotchman, and told me about all the large gardens he had worked on in Scotland. He also had some quite original ways of inducing the flavour and colour of his Tomatoes. Sometimes there were flounders taken straight from the blue water, fresh, fat and delicious; city people never know how delicious fresh fish straight from the water can be. What else on this waggon which rumbled so cheerfully and so uncomplainingly? Local fruits, reddest apples, fat and clean walnuts, pears that you longed to paint, peaches and grapes. Someone kind had a genius for placing fruit around in bowls so that you could look at beauty in the process of eating. • And always the sun shone, the blue-sea waters gleamed, and there was no printer to worry about! Hours and hours of lying in the sun, watching the light shift across the distant peaks and the purple and brown shadows of evening envelop the whole; hours and hours of thinking about nothing at all! Hard work, wasn’t it? Sometimes a bellbird trilled and perhaps a tui breathed a note; and once there were children singing in the valley on their way home from school. Their voices, coming up through the trees of the bush, were a striking contrast to the canned music we hear all round. And oh! so sweet! Have you guessed by now that it was lovely Akaroa which welcomed and rested and inspired me after the year of work? Three men-o’-war were in and I was lucky to attend .two sailors’ concerts, but in a later letter I will tell you of the very smart things I saw done there. They would take too long to-night. And now we must go straight ahead with our Autumn page, and make preparation for Easter, too. After Easter is past, there’s the Literary C3ub to resume and also Handy Fingers. You will need to watch the pages ever so closely now for all sorts of winter hobbies and fun. So now for twelve months’ more happy and useful endeavour, answering the needs of the thousands and thousands of you. Shut your eyes and see the scarlet nasturtium on the butter! Hear the cheerful rumble of that obliging dinner waggon! See the blue ripple on Akaroa harbour and the tussocks bowing to the nor’-wester on historic Onawe! Work hard, little people, and lots of love from—