This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Dec. 2, 1939.
When the recent registration of women for war work was held in Canada, many a woman sat staring at the list of questions, not able to answer any in the affirmative. Little Mrs. Dunne was one of those who voiced her complaint to the woman in charge.
“I can’t do anything,” she said. “I am a liability to my country in her hours of need instead of an asset.
“I have no room in my house for refugees. The walls are bulging now. I can’t take on any sewing or knitting. I can’t drive a car or buy supplies for a hospital. It takes me all my time to keep my own three children clothed and fed.
“I am three weeks behind in my darning now. I haven’t acknowledged all my 1938 Christmas presents yet. Every department of my life is in arrears. At night I am so tired I have to sit down and read awhile before I can sleep. I know I’m holding one family on the rails, but I do want to help my country.”
The director smiled at her encouragingly.
“I know something you can do,” she said. “And you’ll like it. It is something you can do very well. You can talk.”
“But there is no virtue in that,” said the applicant. “Everyone can talk. We all talk too much.”
The director shook her head.
“No, you’re wrong about that. It is true there is too much worthless, idle, empty talk, depressing and futile, but good talk is a national asset. One of the great benefits of the royal visit was the new vein of conversation it produced. Instead of Hitler-hate and fear, the people talked about the Queen’s dresses and hats and smiles. We received the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Now you read quite a bit, do you not?”
Mrs. Dunne agreed.
“It is my one escape from the treadmill. I do not believe I could carry on without that precious time when the family are bedded down.”
“And you should have it, too,” said the older woman. “Reading is a life-saver. And you remember what you read, do you? Yes, well, now I see a real place for you. Read all the cheerful news you can find, and humorous books. Get your librarian to help you and scatter the sunshine far and wide. Women will be gathering to sew and knit. You can take your darning, and join them.
“You do go to your friends house, and they come to yours, and perhaps you belong to a church, and to the Parent-Teacher Association? Oh, you will find ways to sow the seeds of the Merry Heart. Tell them something they will want to tell to some one else.
“You know people gossip, not from malice but from this worthy desire to contribute something interesting. Gossip has been defined as the ‘natural pastime of undirected leisure,’ but we can redeem it, if we have a clear purpose in our minds. We must lift people’s minds out of the dismal swamp of horrors.”
It was the director who told me this story, and I have thought of Mrs. Dunne — the good-gossip missionary, and hoped that her kind will increase all across the country.
I listened to a woman speak on current events this week, to a group of women, in a country place, and she had all the qualifications of a good commentator. I noticed how eagerly her audience listened to her stories about Queen Mary. Eager economists (whose impatience I understand) may criticize our system. But one thing is certain: The Royal Family is a strong rock of defence to the people of Britain; and a never-failing well of inspiration to all the Empire.
The speaker told of Queen Mary’s visit to an eating place in England, and how she insisted on being taken into the kitchen where the dishes were being washed, by a row of girls at sinks. Her quick eye saw something was wrong with the arrangements, and she asked one of the girls if she found her back ached at the end of the day. The tired girl admitted that it did and the Queen said:
“I knew it. You should not have to bend over your work. That must be remedied. All these sinks are too low,” and every sink in the place was lifted forthwith.
She had new stories of the Royal visit, one of the 15,000 people who assembled on a hillside at a little place called Carley, in Ontario, just to see the Royal train go by in the purple dusk, and how the lights of the automobiles came out in a semicircle at the top of the hill just as the train rounded the curve.
The train came to a stop, blinds went up, and the two gracious people appeared, and talked to the veterans who were standing beside the track. One soldier had his little five-year-old girl in his arms, and to her the Queen spoke, asking her if she had been waiting long. Yes, she had been there for a long time. Was she tired? To which the little one replied, with a natural eloquence of childhood. “I could never be tired waiting for you, Your Majesty!”
She gave us plenty to think about, too, in her survey of the world affairs, but never once did she slip into the Slough of Despond. She told us that detective stories are banned in German, which is an interesting side-light on the Hitler mentality. In detective stories, murderers are apprehended; their crime exposed and justice triumphs. It must be so, to satisfy the reader. And that does not harmonize with Nazi philosophy.
She said tribute to the church in its efforts to care for the material needs as well as the spiritual needs of the people — with many practical illustrations. It was a missionary, she said, who carried a bundle of little apple trees to one of the provinces of China in 1922, where there were no apples, and as a result, last year, 60,000 young apple trees were offered for sale at one spring fair.
She came nearer home to tell us of her pleasure in hearing the conversation going on in a bulb-house, one Saturday, in her own neighbourhood, where the boys were cleaning bulbs. These boys came out from town, to do seasonal work, on the bulb-fields. Some of them are high school boys, and some are of older growth.
It seems they had agreed that each should make a contribution to the conversation on this particular Saturday. Each one would recite his favourite poem. So while they cleaned the gladiolus bulbs, one recited the Listeners, by Walter de la Mare, one chose The Song My Paddle Sings, by Pauline Johnston, and one had learned selections from the Ancient Mariner. Every boy had a poem and he could tell why he liked it.
We hear criticism of the three constructive forces in the life of our youth, the home, the school, the church. But some good influence from one or all of these must have blown across the souls of these lads, to cause them to take delight in literature, and find in it a joy that made their labour light.
Then just as the final touch, to send us away stepping light she read us Kipling’s Dawn Wind, describing the coming up of the sun, after a dark and windy night, and of how the rosy light dispelled the gloom and shadows.
