The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1955-06-10
THE HIGHER
THE FEWER
There's Always Plenty of Room
At The Top
By
NANCY ]. MIDGETT

ASoll and still trying TO collect my
tits,-very rusty articles after
some ten weeks of vacation. Apart
from using them to remember who
was going to visit next and
where / was going to visit them,
the wits" have been very DOR
mant. The old body however has
been going hither and thither I'M
til at times / was wishing could
park it somewhere and go visit
ing without it. l looked at very
green hills and meadows, full of
daisies and buttercups in Sussex
and Surrey. In Kent, at the begin
ming of April it was the prim-
roses and bluebells wild hyacinth)
that seemed to burst from the
ground and ditch sides, hillsides
and under the hedgerows, like
foam on the wave tops when
hard wind is blowing. Up through
the EASTERN counties of England
and Scotland from London to
Aberdeen, the trees were in vari-
Gus stages of green; in the south
the leaves were either half out or
nearly full, except for the ash
which is often a slow mover but
the further north we went the
fainter was the green and the less
varied the shades of green that
stood against the sky on the high
hill tops or against the sides of
the hills and dales; as we travelled
north over the border most of the
trees were still bare of leaves, ex-
cept in the sheltered positions.
In Scotland we visited and stay
ed with an aunt, one of my moth
er's sisters, aged "a. Although her
memory for things of the present
is not good, she can tell you the
most about things and people of
the country side about Aberdeen
where she has lived all her days
except for a short period when in
her youth she visited and lived
with my mother near London, at
which time she worked down in the
county of Kent for while. The
southern air didn't suit her health
though and on the doctors advice
she headed north again for her
native, bracing air. Though get
ting feeble in body as we'll, she is
still a very determined old soul.
She gets down on her knees to
clean out an old fashioned coal
CRATE, the type we had in our
kitchen in my youth, built into the
wall alcove with the oven at the
side and much steel trim to keep
polished as well as the blacklead-
ing to be done to the iron. My sis
ter and l offered to do it for her
Agiving up only when it seemed
THAT our further insistence would
get her so mad that she might
have a stroke. The same struggle
arose when we wanted to carry
the ashes out to the yard for her,
or take her Stops up to the toilet;
drumming water toilets and wash
houses with big coal and wood
boiler and two big tubs are built
at the end of the garden in her
apartments which are some of the
older ones in that part; the new
houses and apartments are as con-
venient as the best bricked homes
anywhere). To return to my aunt,
the reason we were given when we
wanted to know why she wouldn't
let us help was that "the neigh
bours will think Pm lazy" l
doubt if I'll get to "a, but if | do,
l think 1 might have earned the
right to be a little lazy if I've
done half as much in my life as
Aunt Maggie.
Two more aunts visited when l
was there, one aged 80 also lives
on her own, are bright and spry
mentally but their bodies are be-
ginning to show the bending of the
years though they are more ready
to slow up and take things easy
now. AS I went up to Macduff and
Banff on the bus to see the third