![]() Saturday Chores.A Story by MarieIn the mid 50’s, children in 5th and 6th class
Primary School had school on Saturday mornings from 9.30am to 12.30pm, at least
we did in the County Kerry town in which I grew up. If there was no school on a particular Saturday morning, for example, if
it was a holy day, or the teacher’s Feast Day, or if we were on school
holidays, certain chores would be allotted to each child in the household by
Mammy. These little jobs varied according to the age of each child. Older
children were asked to wash up after breakfast, because they could be safely
trusted not to drop the delph, and also to see that each item was dried
carefully and returned to its position on the kitchen dresser. The youngest children, babies and toddlers, were also entrusted to the
older children, and taken out in their prams or pushchairs to the local park.
This allowed Mammy to get on with cleaning the house from top to bottom or
“stem to stern”, as she used to say, and also to change, wash and iron all the
bedding, replace the dirty bathroom towels with fragrant clean ones, and get
all the floors washed too. When Mammy had successfully completed all her
chores, she took five minutes out for herself to have a strong cup of tea, and
relax with a quick glance through ‘Woman's Weekly’, before getting started on
dinner. For us children of ‘inbetween’ ages, there was an array of small jobs to
be completed by early afternoon. These included polishing all the shoes in the
household ready for 8am Mass next morning, or perhaps running to the shop for
some necessity forgotten by Mammy when she did her weekly shopping the day
before. We all went about our individual chores silently, but with a great sense
of happiness, feeling privileged to be allowed to help out and with a desire to
do the very best job we could. There was no monetary reward, but parental
praise was the only reward we craved. It brought a big, broad beaming smile to
our faces, making them glow like shining silver stars studding a black velvet
sky. My favourite Saturday chore was one which I eagerly looked forward to on
each ‘free’ Saturday I had from school. When I had all the windows in the house
washed and sparkling clean, they glistened like diamonds when the caught the
rays of the sun and I would wait patiently on our door step, with a large jug in one hand and a shiny sixpence in
the other, for the old lady who sold sour milk weekly, to make her appearance
round the corner at the end of our street, together with her little donkey. In the donkey’s cart stood a large timber barrel, filled to the brim
with sour milk, and fastened with strong ropes to each side of the cart to hold
it steady and prevent any spillage. She usually rounded the corner at 11.00am.
A local boy had the honourous task of leading the little donkey up the street,
coaxing him along and telling him where to stop, so the old lady could delve
into the sour milk with her immaculately clean white enamel mug and fill the
outstretched cans and jugs just off overflowing, for the princely sum of sixpence
per jug/can, which was payable to the little boy. The little boy’s name was Oliver, and the donkey’s name was Neddy, but I
never could discover what the old lady’s name was, nobody seemed to know, not
even her trusted companion Oliver. Mother made the most delectable soda bread from the sour milk, baked in
the oven of our Stanley range, the aroma wafting through the house, assailing
our nostrils and giving us gnawing pangs of hunger in our empty tummies. We
truly looked forward to teatime on Saturdays, as we had our fill of beautifully
baked fresh bread and scones loaded with butter and Chivers’ Strawberry Jam,
which dripped down our jaws, ‘til we could eat no more. After our baths in a large zinc tub in front of a blazing fire, we were
tired and anxious to go to bed, to slip between the sweet smelling, freshly
laundered crisp cotton sheets, in our brushed cotton pajamas, feeling very
happy, safe, secure and loved, and also very full - almost to bursting point. We
said our prayers and surrendered our souls to God, before drifting off into the
magic night to sail on ‘The Sea of Dreams’. © 2024 MarieFeatured Review
Reviews
|
Stats
94 Views
4 Reviews Added on July 23, 2024 Last Updated on July 23, 2024 Author
|