Evening star., 1935-07-28

mucn as cup OF tea!
Can it be that we are
money-minded to the
point of actually believing that hospitality
at frugal cost is not worth attempting because
it is doomed to failure at the start?
For example, letter in my mail this morn
husband and two delightful young sons have
moved from city apartment to a small farm
less than twenty miles away She writes:
Il don't know why have such an inferi-
ority complex. 1t is true our farmhouse is so
small we have no spare room; but even so one
of the incest prospects we had in mind before
we moved out here was our intention to invite
our friends - who spend their whole summer
in the city - to motor out for Saturday
afternoon and stay for supper. or to come for
all day on Sunday.
When we ourselves we're living in the city
there was nothing we looked forward to so
much as going to spend day in the country
and we had no car at that, but used to take
a trolley or a bus and not to friends house
but just to pretty part of the country. And
yet now that we are living on our farm don't
know what 8 got into us, but what we have to
offer seems so plain that so far we have not
invited single friend to enter our gate!
And now do feel that we are stupid to sit
out here in the country and never tell our best
friends how glad we'd be to see them - if only
they wouldn't expect too much, and if there
was any way of knowing that they would not
be bored to death.
Yet all can think of is that Molie and
Tom and Anne and Dick will hate to hurt our
feelings by letting us see how bored they'd be
to motor on crowded road for nothing but
to sit on porch and look at some cows in
field, or to sit out under tree and get eaten
by mosquitoes. and eat very plain dinner,
and still palmer supper and then just sit
around some more.
On the other hand, they may perhaps be
saying: What selfish things Jane and jim
are, not to ask us out to their farm for a
breath of country air - it would be nice to
have place to motor to- So wish. dear Mrs.
Post. you'd tell me which of these two pic
lures you think is most likely. There are lots
OF reasons why we can't possibly ask people
to stay overnight; and yet to ask them to
come out here and then 60 home doesn't
seem much of an invitation - or does it?"
In answer to you, dear Mrs. Newfarm it
seems to me that you land your husband.
tooO have developed bad case of lost point
of-view and that this alone is the flaw in
your hospitality - if there is any flaw!
You say yourself that when you lived in the
city you liked to 60 to the country for the day
even when you had no friends house at the
end of the bus or the trolley trip. Why don't
you remember how much you would have en-
joyed a day or a summer afternoon and
evening at place like yours - especially if
you might have had a Car to 60 in?
1t would be true, perhaps, if you were
thinking of mere acquaintance, that they
who care little for the country and perhaps
little for you. would be bored. But this double
situation is certainly not possible to find
among those who are your friends.
1t seems to me that you have for the mo-
ment mislaid the meaning of friendly hospi-
tality, and are imagining it - in the YER
nacular of the day - to be putting on a