WOMEN CAN’T CHOP WOOD

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8178, 3 May 1919, Page 3 (Supplement)

WOMEN CAN’T CHOP WOOD

By HILDA M. LOYE.

I have yet to meet the woman who can—or will-—chop with a good grace. We have hated the task in these years of war. Even among the land girls—those advanced pioneers of woman’s right to do most things that a man may do—there is rebellion against domestic wood chopping. They will fell trees smilingly, but chopping the sticks that must light the cottage fire is another matter. I have been sent out of their cottage into the shed to secure wood. They have given me a sugar-box to cut up and 1 have banged it with every weapon ivvai'n.Mc, and all it ever does is to bounce. I have tried hard, swing blows and unexpected, cunning knocks. I have hit the box when it wasn’t looking, and given it fair warning slogs, but—all that happens is a pain in my arm and a defiant box. Finally a woman neighbour lent me her son to conquer it. I felt tnat it was “up to her” to lend him. And I knew she felt that wav about it. too. Something fundamental in us tells us that women were never meant to chop wood—our shoulders are not made that way. The son gave the box about three blows and it fell apart. He had the grace to make no remark.

My turn for wood chopping came again yesterday. 'Some old damson branches in the corner were pointed out to me and I was left in the shed.

I got them out gently and struck at them quickly, but they jumped about like live things instead of quiet, dead, respectable wood. 1 tried breaking them across mv shoulders and they bent almost to breaking point. So did I, but n he branches won !

I placed them against the wall and jumped on them, and only hurt my ankles. Tile teeth of the saw merely bit them: the hatchet only marked'them. I thought I had conquered one with a ferocious stroke—instead, it turned tail

and hit me. Refusing to shed tears before them. T walked out into the snow with a bruised face and scratched hands.

Mv neighbour was watching her recently demobilised husband go up the

eottage path. She. was looking after hi n fondly, .n .smile hovered in her eyes and around her mouth. .Sentimentalists ma.v romance as to the words she uttered or should utter in the circumstances. T know for a. fact that what she really said was. “Tt’-s lovely to have someone to chop the wood again!”