HEROINES OF THE DROUGHT

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16037, 30 January 1920, Page 5

HEROINES OF THE DROUGHT

WONDERFUL BUSH WOMEN.

ENDLESS TOIL, NO PLEASURE.

A correspondent/ who recently toured the drought-stricken area of New South Wales pays the following glowing tnbute tp the women ol the bush;— _ At Wee Waa there was a little faint oreen tint to be seen around the town. But that was deceptive, for all beyond stretched the cracked and fissured black soil. The plains were almost empty of stock, for the end had come. The surviving sheep were being trucked away as fast as the railway could carry them —down to the pasture lands of the far south. It is a remarkable and creditable.work that the railways are doing.' Think of the tremendous feat. Here in this district so prolific and prosperous in the good years, were hundreds of thousands of stock; and now it has been emptied of all these great herds. There were no relief pastures near at hand; but there were railways. So far from the far north-western corner of the State to its far south-eastern corner the sheep are being shifted, vast populations of animals transferred from the stricken north to the highlands of the fertile south.

THE WONDERFUL WOMEN

“The -women are wonderful!”

That is the unanimous opinion of everybody in the bush in these years of drought—except the women themselves. You come to some selection in the bush, a two-roomed shanty in tho solitude of the heat. The husband is away doing contract jobs to earn a few' pounds, for there is not a penny to bo got from the drought-stricken earth. The women give you a. cup of tea, without milk, of course, and would fed insulted beyond endurance if you insisted on paying for it. There is no meat. But she can do without that. What she cannot do without, though she will not admit it, and probably does not even know it, is recreation or pleasure. You women of the city cannot understand what her drear existence is like. The bush woman gets no reprieve from her hard day’s work. It is her task—and even her pride—to keep the little homo neat and clean—and she does it. She has all the wor kto do about the place, yet it is the only home she knows, and she does not complain.

HARD HANDS; HARD EARS. She carries on in the heat. Her hard look in her face shows it. Oh, all the little refinements that the city woman loves. Oh, the articles of necessary attire, as tabulated by learned commissions for office girls! Oh, all the inessentials so necessary to the city girl, tho face powder, the lace, the changes of linen, the good boots, the smart hat, the novel from the library, the picture shows, the bathing dress! Cut every one of these out, and imagine life to be lived month after month and year after year with an uncomplaining heart. That is the lot of the bush wife.

With such high hopes tho bride and bridegroom had started out to take up a selection in the “green country !” The bush had to be ring-barked, the house built, the wheat sown; and then to see their little crops fail—not for one year, but for three or four in succession; and with the drought still with no end in sight. Yet they carry on, uncomplaining, with no whining to the paternal Government to succor them.

A RABBIT FOR A STAMP

At another small holding—a place that the owner had had for five years—five years of drought—the husband was discovered building a chock and log fence—a two men’s job. “Do you know,” he said, “that at times I’ve had no stamp to send a letter away. I had to go out and catch a rabbit to sell first. I’ve had no meat since the drought drove the rabbits away.” His home was, as usual, clean and tidy. His wife bad two youngsters twins. “I reared them on goats’ milk,” she And for the third time she got up to 'drive. the goats out of the yard. “The storekeeper can’t carry us on any longer. We owe them for two years, and you couldn’t expect them to help us until we had paid off what we owed them. But you see how it is with us. When is the drought going to break?”

The inevitable and unanswerable question. Yet that mother will carry on. The women are wonderful.

THE DROUGHT’S TOLL,

The extent to which the storekeeper has stood behind the small farmer is remarkable. In one western town one storekeeper has 1146,000 on his books; two others have almost as great amounts of money owing to them. A returned soldier is still battling away, though he has struck two droughts.' On his return from the Boer war he took up land and struck the 1902 drought. On his return from this war he “lobbed” into another. He bought 311 sheep in May, 1918. In September he shore 213, including 20 lambs. In 1919 his flock went down to 165, and there is the prospect of further losses. There is precious little natural increase of his flocks to be found from these figures. Yet he is a hard-working “Digger,” and will win out somehow when the drought breaks.

So will his wife. The women are wonderful!