Chapter 20 - Play & Work
“Make a croquet lawn? Of course we can do it.” Fred declared. A group of Puketaha ladies had decided to form a croquet club and they asked Esther to join them. At Okoropong a lawn had been formed where the two newlyweds had planted the two magnolia trees. Now it was increased to the correct measurements. To be a good coquet lawn it had to be smooth and flat. “We’ll need a heavier roller,” they said, so they made a roller filled with concrete. It was so heavy that two men moved it with great difficulty. Soon the lawn was flat and smooth and even.
“The best in the circuit!” said the ladies. It took constant rolling, cutting and weeding to keep it that way, but it was a labour of love, willingly undertaken.
“I’ll take Lassie in the gig to meet my mother from the railway station,” Esther volunteered. The men were busy stumping; ‘extracting the roots from the swamp,’ was how Fred expressed it.
It was a pleasant morning and Lassie trotted along cheerfully. They had turned down towards Rototuna when a motorbike came towards them. Just as it was passing the gig, it let out a burst of noise and smoke. Lassie bounced sideways and then bolted. Esther was shot onto the road. She picked herself up just in time to see the gig disappearing round the corner on one wheel. Esther followed, alternately thanking God she hadn’t had one of her babies with her, worrying how badly smashed the gig would be and wondering what her mother would do if there was no one there to meet her at the station. Around the corner, there was Lassie standing in the middle of the road, looking back as if to say, “Where is my driver?” Esther was never sure if it was because she was well trained and really cared or if it was an answer to her prayer.
Sam didn’t fare so well. (June 1921) He had taken a friend to the railway station. “My, you were late home last night. We didn’t hear you come home,” Fred teased as he made the early morning tea. Then he looked at his brother more carefully. “Are you alright? Have you hurt yourself?’ “Just bruised and sore.” Sam grunted as he reached for his cup. “That Darkie. He shied at a shadow coming past the Rototuna church. The gigs smashed to smithereens.” “We will sell him,” Fred exclaimed, “And we’ll take Bonnie too.” Bonnie, a part Arab, had been bought for Mary to ride to school. She had seemed gentle enough when Mary was riding. But when 2 year old was put on behind her she bucked and bolted. “I would have stayed on,” said Mary indignantly, “if Edith had hung on with her legs.” At the sale they got £6/10/- for Darkie, but Bonnie being too small for a man and without a recommendation fetched only £2/10/-.
“Soap making is not my favorite hobby,” Esther told her helper Mattie, “It is too fussy”. The fat was melted in the copper. “If it is too hot or something when you put in the caustic soda it will froth over the top,” Esther said “and sometimes it does it just for sheer devilment.” Esther made good soap, and because she took a lot of care she did not have to scrape it off the wash-house floor. “I am so glad candles are a reasonable price and we don’t have to make them as my mother did when I was little, so perhaps soon we won’t have to make soap either.” When the authorities decided that soap was not to be used to wash milking machines, not so much soap was needed on the farm and after the depression, Esther never made soap again. When it was time for Mattie to be married, Esther was not well enough to take the little girls to her wedding. Mary was disappointed – she had enjoyed being flower girl for Winnie. The three young Williamson girls hated Kitty. Perhaps it was because their mother was sick most of the time Kitty was at Okoropong. Esther wept over the still born baby boy, and when some years later another baby boy lived for only a few hours, she was heartbroken. The Doctor could give no reason. Fred wondered why God had denied him the thing he wanted most, a son to enjoy the farm he was making. Some of the joy was slipping away.