SCOTCH SCONES

Last Wednesday I attended a monthly meting of the ACW—Anglican Church Women. Oh, how it took me back. It took me back to cramped little living rooms on Thursday afternoons—always the third Thursday of the month. It took me back to the days before I started school; when I would sit among the women, sit as still and as quietly as was humanly possible, when I would listen to the endless deliberations of the women. Would it be $50.00 to the boys camp, or $75.00 to a mission in Uganda? Should the church be cleaned with Pledge on Tuesdays, or lemon oil on Fridays? Would the Valentine’s Day tea and bake sale be better on February 10, or ought it to wait until the 17th when Patsy would be back from visiting her daughter? And then there were the letters, endless letters read aloud by the secretary: pleas for support from far-off missionaries; thank-you notes for a get-well card send last month; vital instructions from the Bishop. Through all of this I would wait, and wait, and wait.
It took me back to the waiting, waiting for the moment when the ladies would perch daintily on the edge of chairs, balancing the hostess’s finest china teacups in their hands, never spilling a drop in the saucers below. It took me back to the homes of the women, to the foods that each one served when her turn came around: to Mrs. Clouston’s sausage rolls; Mrs. Thomas’s egg sandwiches; Mom’s tiny cupcakes dipped in coconut; to butter tarts and lemon squares and the miniature buttermilk pancakes that Jean Hepworth called Scotch Scones. I liked it all, but I loved those scones. I ate one scone, then another, then another.
“Let her eat them,” crooned Jean, when my mother moved to stop me. “She’s a skinny little lass.”
It took me back to later times, when I went to school and Mom went without me to the ACW meetings, even the meetings at Jean’s. I couldn’t be there of course. So Jean sent the Scotch Scones home for me. What a thrill it was to find a stack of them kept fresh in a plastic bag, too many for me to eat at a single sitting, waiting for me in our kitchen after a long day of arithmetic! This is what I ought to remember when I wonder whether it is worth the effort to show a little appreciation.