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The Table of Contents is not part of the original book.
SOME
EVERYDAY
FOLK
AND DAWN
MILES FRANKLIN
First published in Great Britain by
William Blackwood & Sons
1909
* * * * *
_TO THE
ENGLISH MEN WHO BELIEVE IN VOTES FOR WOMEN
THIS STORY IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED,
BECAUSE THE WOMEN HEREIN CHARACTERISED WERE
NEVER FORCED TO BE
"SUFFRAGETTES,"
THEIR COUNTRYMEN
HAVING GRANTED THEM THEIR RIGHTS AS
SUFFRAGISTS
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1902.
M. F._
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
ONE. CLAY'S.
TWO. AT CLAY'S.
THREE. BECOMING ACQUAINTED WITH GRANDMA CLAY.
FOUR. DAWN'S AMBITION.
FIVE. MISS FLIPP'S UNCLE.
SIX. GRANDMA CLAY'S LOVE-STORY.
SEVEN. THE LITTLE TOWN OF NOONOON.
EIGHT. GRANDMA TURNS NURSE.
NINE. THE KNIGHT HAS A STOLEN VIEW OF THE LADY.
TEN. PROVINCIAL POLITICS AND SEMI-SUBURBAN DENTISTS.
ELEVEN. ANDREW DISGRACES HIS "RARIN'."
TWELVE. SOME SIDE-PLAY.
THIRTEEN. VARIOUS EVENTS.
FOURTEEN. THE PASSING OF THE TRAINS.
FIFTEEN. ALAS! MISS FLIPP!
SIXTEEN. ADVANCE, AUSTRALIA!
SEVENTEEN. MRS BRAY AND CARRY COME TO ISSUES.
EIGHTEEN. THE FOUNDATION OF THE POULTRY INDUSTRY.
NINETEEN. AN OPPORTUNELY INOPPORTUNE DOUCHE.
TWENTY. "ALAS! HOW EASILY THINGS GO WRONG!"
TWENTY-ONE. THINGS GO MORE WRONG.
TWENTY-TWO. "O SPIRIT, AND THE NINE ANGELS WHO WATCH US ..."
TWENTY-THREE. UNIVERSAL ADULT SUFFRAGE.
TWENTY-FOUR. LITTLE ODDS AND ENDS OF LIFE.
TWENTY-FIVE. "LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM."
TWENTY-SIX. "OFF WITH THE OLD."
TWENTY-SEVEN. "ONE MIGHT THINK BETTER OF MARRIAGE IF ONE'S MARRIED
FRIENDS ..."
TWENTY-EIGHT. LET THERE BE LOVE.
TWENTY-NINE. "THE SAVAGE SELLS OR EXCHANGES HIS DAUGHTER, BUT IN ..."
THIRTY. FOR FURTHER PARTICULARS CONSULT 'THE NOONOON ADVERTISER' OF
THAT DATE.
L'ENVOI.
* * * * *
GLOSSARY OF COLLOQUIALISMS AND SLANG TERMS.
AUSTRALIAN. AMERICAN EQUIVALENTS. ENGLISH INTERPRETATION.
Billy A tin pail A camp-kettle.
Blokes Guys Chaps--fellows.
Bosker Dandy or "dandy Something meeting with
fine" unqualified approval.
Galoot A rube A yokel--a heavy country
fellow.
Larrikin A hoodlum.
Moke A common knockabout horse.
Narked Sore Vexed--to have lost the
temper.
Gin Squaw An aboriginal woman.
Quod Jail.
Sollicker Somewhat equivalent Something excessive.
to "corker"
Toff A "sport" or "swell A well-dressed
guy" individual--sometimes of
the upper ten.
Two "bob" Fifty cents Two shillings.
To graft To "dig in" To work hard and steadily.
To scoot To vamoose or skidoo To leave hastily and
unceremoniously.
To smoodge To be a "sucker" To curry favour at the expense
of independence.
"Gives me the pip" "Makes me tired" Bores.
"On a string" } Trifling with him.
"Pulling his leg"}
Kookaburra A giant kingfisher with grey plumage and a
merry, mocking, inconceivably human laugh--a
killer of snakes, and a great favourite with
Australians.
* * * * *
Some Everyday Folk and Dawn.
ONE.
CLAY'S.
The summer sun streamed meltingly down on the asphalted siding of the
country railway station and occasioned the usual grumbling from the
passengers alighting from the afternoon express.
There were only three who effect this narrative--a huge, red-faced,
barrel-like figure that might have served to erect as a monument to
the over-feeding in vogue in this era; a tall, spare, old fellow with
a grizzled beard, who looked as though he had never known a succession
of square feeds; and myself, whose physique does not concern this
narrative.
Having surrendered our tickets and come through a down-hill passage to
the dusty, dirty, stony, open space where vehicles awaited travellers,
the usual corner "pub."--in this instance a particularly dilapidated
one--and three tin kangaroos fixed as weather-cocks on a dwelling
over the way, and turning hither and thither in the hot gusts of wind,
were the first objects to arrest my attention in the town of Noonoon,
near the river Noonoon, whereaway it does not particularly matter. The
next were the men competing for our favour in the matter of vehicular
conveyance.
The big man, by reason of his high complexion, abnormal waist
measurement, expensive clothes, and domineering manner, which
proclaimed him really a lord of creation, naturally commanded the
first and most obsequious attention, and giving his address as
"Clay's," engaged the nearest man, who then turned to me.
"Where might you be going?"
"To Jimmeny's Hotel."
"Right O! I can just drop you on the way to Clay's," said he; and the
big swell grunted up to a box seat, while I took a position in the
body of the vehicle commanding a clear view of the grossness of the
highly coloured neck rolling over his collar.
The journey through the town unearthed the fact that it resembled many
of its compeers. The oven-hot iron roofs were coated with red dust; a
few lackadaisical larrikins upheld occasional corner posts; dogs
conducted municipal meetings here and there; the ugliness of the
horses tied to the street posts, where they baked in the sun while
their riders guzzled in the prolific "pubs.," bespoke a farming rather
than a grazing district; and the streets had the distinction of being
the most deplorably dirty and untended I have seen.
The same could be said of a cook, or some such individual of whom I
caught a glimpse when landed at a corner hotel, where I sat inside the
door of a parlour awaiting the appearance of the landlady or the
publican, while for diversion I watched the third arrival wending his
way from the station on foot and shouting something concerning melons
to a man in a dray in the middle of the roadway.
Evidently it was the land of melons and other fruits and vegetables.
Over at the railway, loaded waggons, drays, and carts were backed
against a line of trucks drawn up to convey such produce to the city
and other parts of the country, while strings of vehicles similarly
burdened were thundering up the street. Some carts were piled with
cases of peaches, grapes, tomatoes, and rock-melons--the rich aromatic
scent of the last mentioned strongly asserting their presence as they
passed. On some waggons the water-melons were packed in straw and had
the grower's initials chipped in the rind, others were not so
distinguished, and at intervals the roughness of the thoroughfare
bumped one off. If the fall did not break it quite in two, a stray
loafer pulled it so and tore out a little of the sweet and luscious
heart, leaving the remainder to the ants and fowls. The latter were
running about on friendly terms with the dogs, which they equalled in
variety and number. Droves of small boys haunted the railway premises
at that time of the year and eagerly assisted the farmers to truck
their melons in return for one, and came away with their spoils under
their arms. Never before had I seen so many melons or so large. Some
weighed sixty and eighty pounds or more, while those from sixteen to
twenty-five pounds, in all varieties,--Cuban Queens, Dixies, Halbert's
Honey, and Cannon Balls,--were procurable at one shilling the dozen,
and nearly as much produce as sent away wasted in the fields for want
of a market.
An hour after arrival, having refused the offer of refreshments, which
in such places are not always refreshing, I betook myself to a
comparatively cool back verandah to further investigate my temporary
surroundings.
A yellow-haired girl with rings on her fingers sprawled in a hammock
reading a much-thumbed circulating-library novel and eating peaches.
This was the landlord's daughter, and a very superior young lady
indeed from her own point of view.
I learnt that at present there would only be one other boarder besides
myself. He came up for the week-end, and had just gone down to Clay's
to see some one there. If he could get a berth at Clay's he would not
come back; but the only hope of being taken in there during the summer
weather was to bespeak room a long way ahead, as there was a great run
on the place. It was built right beside the river, and they kept boats
for hire, which attracted a number of desirable young men from the
city to engage in week-end fishing, picnicing, swimming, &c.; and the
young gentlemen attracted young ladies, who found it difficult to be
taken in at all, because old Mrs Clay allowed her granddaughter, Dawn,
to boss the place, and _she_ favoured men-boarders.
The tone of Yellow-hair suggested that perhaps the men-boarders
favoured Dawn; at all events, it was an attractive name and aroused
interested inquiry from me.
"Oh yes, some thought her a beauty! There were great arguments as to
whether she or Dora Cowper--another great big fat thing in a hay and
corn store over the way--was the belle of Noonoon;" but for her part,
Yellow-hair thought her too coarse and vulgar and high-coloured (Miss
Jimmeny was sallow and thin), and she was always making herself seen
and known everywhere. One would think she owned Noonoon!
"There she is now," exclaimed the girl, pointing out another who was
driving a fat pony in a yellow sulky. "Talk of the devil."
"Perhaps it is an angel in this case," I responded, for though she was
thickly veiled she suggested youth and a style that pleased the eye.
Whether she and the boats were sufficient to make Clay's an attractive
place of residence I did not know, but already was painfully aware of
conditions that would make Jimmeny's Hotel an uncomfortable location.
I retired to my room to escape some of them--the foul language of the
tipplers under the front verandah, and the winds from two streets that
also met there in a whirlwind of dust and refuse.
There was nothing for me to do but kill time, and no way of killing it
but by simple endurance. I had been ordered to some country resort for
the good of my health. But do not fear, reader; this is not to be a
compilation of ills and pulses, for no one more than the unfortunate
victim of such is so painfully aware of their lack of interest to the
community at large. There are, I admit, some invalids who find a
certain amount of entertainment in inflicting a list of their aches
upon people, blissfully unconscious of how wearisome they can be, but
my temperament is of the sensitive order, knowing its length too well
to similarly transgress.
How I had struck upon Noonoon I don't know or care, except that it was
within easy access of the metropolis, and I have no predilection for
being isolated from the crowded haunts of my fellows. I had descended
upon Jimmeny's Hotel because in an advertisement sheet it was put
down as the leading house of accommodation in Noonoon. Now I had come
to hear of Clay's and Dawn, and determined to shift myself there as
soon as possible. This did not seem imminent, for presently the
"bloated aristocrat" came back to Jimmeny's pub. for the evening meal,
as he had been unable to get so much as a shake-down at Clay's. This
so aroused my desire to be a boarder at Clay's that I straightway
wrote a letter to its châtelaine inquiring what style of accommodation
she provided, and could she accommodate me; and strolling up the
broken street, while a few larrikins at corners, by way of
entertaining themselves and me, made remarks upon my appearance, I
dropped it in the post-office, but had to endure a week's inattention
at Jimmeny's, and no end of yarns from outside folk I encountered as
to how Mrs Jimmeny robbed the "swipes" who took their poison at her
bar, before I was honoured by a reply from Mrs Clay.
"The accommodation provided by me for people is clean and
wholesome and the best as suits me. If it don't suit them
there are other places near that makes more efforts to
gather custom than I do. I can't take you in at present as
I'm too full for my taste as it is.--Yours respectfully,
"Martha Clay."
This interesting rebuff inspired me to further effort, and sitting on
the back verandah, under a giant fig-tree shedding its delicious and
wholesome fruit also to the fowls and ants, I wrote:--
"Dear Madam,--Would you kindly apprise me when it would be
convenient to accommodate me, as I'm anxious to be near the
river, where I could indulge in boating?"
To this I received reply:--
"There isn't any chance of me accommodating you till the
cool weather, and then I don't take boarders at all. I like
to have them all in the summer, and then have a little peace
to ourselves in the winter without strangers, for the best
of them have their noses poked everywhere they are not
wanted. If you want to go near the river there are heaps of
houses where there isn't no such rush of people as at my
place."
This firmly determined me to reside at Mrs Clay's, a desired member of
the household, or perish in the attempt. Alack! I had plenty time to
spend in such a trifle, for I was but a derelict, broken in fierce
struggle and hopelessly cast aside into smooth waters, safe from the
stormy currents now too strong for my timbers. That I had means to lie
at anchor in some genial boarding-house, instead of being dependent
upon charity, was undoubtedly food for thankfulness, and when one has
burned their coal-heap to ashes they are grateful for an occasional
charcoal among the cinders.
No other place near the river but Clay's would do me, though the
valley had much to recommend it at that season, when grapes, peaches,
and other fruits were literally being thrown away on every hand. So I
repacked my trunk, and the 'busman who had brought me took me once
more along the execrable streets, past the corner pub., near the
railway station, and, it being late afternoon, the railway employés,
as they came off duty, were streaming towards it for the purpose of
"wetting their whistle" after their eight-houred day's work.
Leaving the misguided fellows thus worse than ignorantly refreshing
themselves, and the tin kangaroos showing that the breeze was from the
east, I travelled farther west to a summer resort in the cool
altitude, there to await from Mrs Martha Clay a recall to the vale of
melons. That I would get one I was sure, and so little was there in my
life that even this prospect lent a zest to the mail each day.
I had neither relatives nor friends. Fate had apportioned me none of
the former, and fierce, absorbing endeavour had left little time for
cultivating the latter, while pride made me hide from all
acquaintances who had known me standing amid the plaudits of the
crowd--strong and successful; and fiercely desiring to be left to
myself, I shrank with sensitive horror from the sympathy that is only
careless pity.
TWO.
AT CLAY'S.
The long hot days gave place to cooler and shorter, and there was none
left of the beautiful fruit--peaches, apricots, figs, plums,
nectarines, grapes, and melons--which, for want of a market, had
rotted ankle-deep in some parts of the fertile old valley of Noonoon
ere I received a communication from Mrs. Clay.
"If you think it worth your while you can investigate my
place now. All the summer weather folk has gone. I would
only take one or two nice people now that would live with us
in our own plain way and who would be company for the
family, so I could not undertake to give you a separate
parlour and table and carry on that way, but if you like to
call and see me, please yourself."
Accordingly, I lost no time in once more patronising the town 'busman,
and being his only patron that day, he rattled me past the tin
kangaroo weather-cocks, the battered corner pub. and its colleague a
few doors on, and entering the principal street where Jimmeny's Hotel
filled the view, turned to the right across fertile flats held in
tenure by patient Chinese gardeners.
Being a region of quick growth, it was of correspondingly rapid decay,
and the season of summer fruits had been entirely superseded by autumn
flowers. The vale of melons was now a valley of chrysanthemums, and
with a little specialisation in this branch of horticulture could
easily have out-chrysanthemumed Japan. Without any care or cultivation
they filled the little gardens on every side; children of all sizes
were to be seen with bunches of them; while discarded blossoms lay in
the streets, after the fashion of the superabundant melons and orchard
fruits during their season.
About a mile from the station we halted before a ramshackle old
two-storey house that was covered by roses and hidden among orange and
fig trees. The approach led through an irregular plantation of cedar
and pepper trees, pomegranates and other shrubs, and masses of
chrysanthemums and cosmos that flourished in every available space.
The friendly 'busman directed me to a gable sheltered by a yellow
jasmine-tree, where I tapped on the door with my knuckle. Footsteps
approached on the inside, and after some thumping and kicking on its
panels it was burst open by a nimble old lady in immaculate gown, with
carefully adjusted collar, and wavy hair combed back in a tidy knot
and with still a dark shade in it.
"Them blessed white ants!" she exclaimed. "They've very near got the
place eat down, so that you have to make a fool of yourself opening
the door, and that blessed feller I sent for hasn't come to do 'em up
yet; but some people!" She finished so exasperatedly that I felt
impelled to state my name and business without delay, and with a prim
"Indeed," she led the way across a narrow linoleumed hall, so
beeswaxed that one had to stump along carefully erect.
She invited me to a chair in a stiff room and began--
"I've only got another young lady in the place now, and if you come
you'll have to eat with the family."
I considered this an attraction.
"And there'll be no fussing over you and pampering you, for I'm not
reduced to keeping boarders out of necessity. They ain't all I've got
to depend on," she said with a fiery glance from her choleric
blue-grey eyes.
"Certainly not; I'm sure of that by your style, Mrs. Clay."
"But of course I like to make a little; this Federal Tariff has rose
the price of living considerable," she said, softening somewhat as we
now sat down on the formidable and well-dusted seats.
"But I believe you are somethink of a invalid."
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Well, this isn't no private hospital, and never pretended to be. Sick
people is a lot of trouble potterin' and fussin' around with. I
couldn't, for the sake of my granddaughter, give her a lot of extra
work that wouldn't mean nothink."
This might have sounded hard, but with some people their very
austerity bespeaks a tenderness of heart. They affect it as a shield
or guard against a softness that leaves them the too easy prey of a
self-seeking community, and such I adjudged Mrs. Clay. Her stiffness,
like that of the echidna, was a spiky covering protecting the most
gentle and estimable of dispositions.
"My ill-health is the sort to worry no one but myself. I need no
dieting or waiting upon. It is merely a heart trouble, and should it
happen to finish me in your house, I will leave ample compensation,
and will pay my board and lodging weekly in advance."
"I ain't a money-grubber," she hastened to assure me; "I was only
explaining to you."
"I'm only explaining too," I said with a smile; and having arrived at
this understanding of mutual straight-going, she intimated that I
could inspect a room I might have.
In addition to a couple of detached buildings composed of rooms which
during the summer were given to boarders, there were a few apartments
in the main residence which were also delivered to this business, and
I was conducted to where three in an uneven gable faced west and
fronted the river.
"This is my granddaughter Dawn's, and this one is empty, and this one
is took by a young party for the winter," said the old dame.
I selected the middle room, as it gave promise of being companionable
with those on either hand occupied, and its window commanded an
attractive view. A tangled old garden opened on a steep descent to the
quiet river, edged with willows and garnished by a great row of red
and blue boats rocking almost imperceptibly in the even flow, while a
huge placard advertised their business--
BEST BOATS ON THE RIVER TO BE HIRED HERE.
MRS. MARTHA CLAY.
To the right was an imposing bridge, and on the other side of the
water, right at the foot of the great range which in the early days
had remained so long impassable, lay the quiet old settlement of
Kangaroo.
"If you think that room will do, you are welcome to it," continued
Mrs. Clay. "Seventeen-and-six a-week without washing--a pound with."
I agreed to the "with washing" terms, so the affable jehu hauled in
what luggage I had brought, and at last I was installed at Clay's.
The only thing wanting to complete the incident was the advent of
Dawn, but she was nowhere to be seen. As it was only eleven in the
morning I sat in my room and waited for her and a cup of tea, but
neither were forthcoming. In her own words, Mrs. Clay "was never give
to running after people an' lickin' their boots." Eventually, having
grown weary of waiting for Dawn and luncheon and other things, I went
out on a tour of inspection. First find was a tall dashing girl of
twenty-four or thereabouts, dusting the big heavily encumbered
"parler" into which my room opened.
"Good morning!" heartily said she.
"Good morning! Are you Dawn?" inquired I.
"Dawn! No. But you might well ask, for it's nothing but Dawn and her
doings and sayings and good looks here! You'd think there was no other
girl in Noonoon. She won't take it as any compliment to be taken for
me."
"Well, she must be something superlative if it would not be a
compliment to be taken for you."
"Oh me! I'm only Carry the lady-help--general slavey like, earning my
living, only that I eat with the family and not in the kitchen. In the
summer they hire a cook and others, but in the winter there are only
me and Dawn and the old woman," said this frank and communicative
individual in the frank and communicative manner characteristic of the
Clay household.
Proceeding from this encounter, I went out the back way past more
gardens and irregular enclosures, where under widespreading
cedar-trees I found a boy at the hobbledehoy age chopping wood in a
desultory fashion, as though to get rid of time, rather than to
enlarge the stack of short sticks, were the most imperative object.
Driving his axe in tight and holding on to it as a sort of balance, he
leant back, effected a passage in his nostrils, and after having
regarded me with a leisurely and straightforward squint, observed--
"I reckon you're the new boarder?"
"I reckon so. I reckon you belong to this place."
"Yes, Mrs. Clay, she's my grandma."
"Is that your grandfather?" I inquired, pointing to the old man who
had travelled with me on the day of my first visit to the town, and
now supporting an outhouse door-post, while a young man with whom he
talked leant against the tailboard of a cart advertising that he was
the first-class butcher of Kangaroo, and had several other
unsurpassable virtues in the meat trade.
"No, he ain't me grandfather, thank goodness he's only me uncle;
that's plenty for me."
"Aren't you fond of him?"
"I ain't _dying_ of love for him, I promise you. Old Crawler! He
reckons he's the boss, but sometimes I get home on him in a way that a
sort of illustrates to his intelligence that he ain't. Ask Dawn. She's
the one'll give you the straight tip regarding him."
"Where is Dawn?"
"Oh, Dawn's in the kitchen. She an' Carry does the cookin' week about
w'en the house ain't full. Grandma makes 'em do that; it saves rows
about it not bein' fair. You won't ketch sight of Dawn till dinner.
She'll want to get herself up a bit, you bein' new; she always does
for a fresh person, but she soon gets tired of it."
"And you, are you going to get yourself up because I'm new?"
"Not much; boys ain't that way so much as the wimmin," he said, and
the grin we exchanged was the germ of a friendship that ripened as our
acquaintance progressed. I intended to settle down to the enjoyment
afforded by my sense of humour. I had preserved it intact as a private
personal accomplishment. On the stage, having steered clear of comedy
and confined myself to tragedy, it had never been cheapened and made
nauseous by sham and machine representations indigenous to the hated
footlights, and was an untapped preserve to be drawn upon now.
So I was not to see Dawn till the midday dinner; she was to appear
last, like the star at a concert.
A star she verily was when eventually she came before me carrying a
well-baked roast on an old-fashioned dish. Her lovely face was scarlet
from hurry and the fire, her bright hair gleamed in coquettish rolls,
and a loose sleeve displayed a round and dimpled forearm--a fitting
continuance of the taper fingers grasping the chief dish of the
wholesome and liberal menu she had prepared.
Old Uncle Jake took the carver's place, but Grandma Clay sat at his
left elbow and instructed him what to do. He handed the helpings to
her, and she supplemented each with some of all the vegetables,
irrespective of the wishes of the consumers, to whom they were handed
in a business-like method. The puddings were distributed on the same
principle, grandma even putting milk and sugar on the plates as for
children; and further, she talked in a choleric way, as though the
children were in bad grace owing to some misdemeanour, but that was
merely one of her mannerisms, as that of others is to smile and be
sweet while they inwardly fume.
Excepting this, the unimpressive old smudges hung above the mantel,
and probably standing for some family progenitors, gazed out of their
caricatured eyes on an uneventful meal. Conversation was choppy and of
the personal order, not interesting to a stranger to those mentioned.
I made a few duty remarks to Uncle Jake, which he received with
suspicion, so I left him in peace to suck his teeth and look like a
sleepy lizard, while I counted the queer and inartistic old vases
crowded in plumb and corresponding pairs on the shelf over the
fireplace.
Miss Flipp, the other boarder, was in every respect a contrast to me,
being small, young, and dressed with elaboration in a flimsy style
which, off the stage, I have always scorned. Her wrists were laden
with bangles, her fingers with rings, and her golden hair piled high
in the most exaggerated of the exaggerated pompadour styles in vogue.
Her appetite was indifferent; the expression of her eyes bespoke
either ill-health or dissipation, and she was very abstracted, or as
Mrs Clay put it--
"She acts like she had somethink on her mind. Maybe she's love-sick
for some one she can't ketch, and she's been sent up here to forget."
This was after Miss Flipp had retreated to her room, and Carry
continued the subject as she cleared the table.
"She _says_ she's an orphan reared by a rich uncle; she's always
blowing about him and how fond he is of her. She's just recovered from
an operation and has come up here to get strong. That's why she does
nothing, so she _says_, only poke about and read novels and make
herself new hats and blouses; but _I_ think she'd be lazy without any
operation. She'd want another to put some go in her."
"She'd require inoculating with a little of yours," said I, watching
with what enviable vigour the girl's work sped before her as though
afraid. I also retired to my room for a rest, intending to come out
and pave the way for friendship with Dawn by-and-by, for I quickly
perceived she was not the character to go out of her way to make the
first overture.
Some time after, when strolling around in an unwonted fashion, I was
pleased to again encounter my friend Andrew. Evidently he had been set
to clean out the fowl-houses, for a wheelbarrow half full of manure
stood at the door of a wire-netted shed, and in the middle of this
task he had sought diversion by shooting rats from among the straw in
a big old barn, where a great heap of unused hay made them a harbour.
In this warm valley, carpeted in the irrepressible couch-grass, there
was no lack of fodder that season, and even the lanes and byways would
have served as fattening paddocks. Andrew leant upon his gun, and
having delivered himself of certain statistics in rat mortality, and
exhibiting some specimens by the tail, he began a conversation.
"Say, what did you think of Miss Thing-amebob, Miss Flipp I mean?"
"I didn't bother thinking anything at all about her."
Andrew looked interrogatively at me and broke into a grin.
"Well, I reckon she's the silliest goat I ever came across. She came
out to me and asked did I think she looked pretty, as her uncle is
coming up to-night, and if she looks nice he'll give her a present or
something. I reckon she'd have to look not such a mad-headed rabbit
before I'd give her anything but some advice to bag her head. And he
must be a different uncle to Uncle Jake; I reckon he wouldn't give you
nothing if you had on two heads at once. Here's Larry Witcom coming
back from his rounds, and he promised me a bit of meat for Whiskey!
Here, Whiskey! Whiskey!" he roared, and a small canine pet that had
been hunting rats desisted from the fray and ran with his master. I
also walked with him--this without exception, even in slum scenes on
the stage, being the dirtiest escort I ever had had. His face was
grimed, his shirt like an engine-rag, and his trousers dusty, while
from a hole in the seat thereof fluttered a flag of garment--such an
ingratiatingly wholesome blunderbuss of a boy!
"Here, you Larry," he yelled, "you promised me! Come on, Whiskey! Why,
ain't he a bosker!" he enthusiastically exclaimed, as the hideously
unprepossessing little mongrel stood on his hind legs and yelped in
excited begging.
"Hullo, Andrew! Don't bust! Who's that you had with you?--(I had
turned a corner)--a new boarder, I suppose? Rather an old piece!"
"Yes," said Andrew. "Her hair is a little white, but she ain't sour
and stuck up."
"A chance for you to hang your hat up, Jake," said Larry.
"No, thanks! I'm cautious of them old maids. If you say a pleasant
word to 'em they can't be shook off, and might have you up for breach
of promise like with Tom Dunstan."
"I suppose there is a danger, you being so fascinating," chuckled the
butcher as I went inside, with a premonition that should it come to
taking sides in the Clay household, if avoidable I would not be on
Uncle Jake's.
"Who is Uncle Jake?" said Carry in response to my inquiry, as she
prepared four o'clock tea; "he's Uncle Jake, that's what he is, and
enough for me too, that he is. The old swab wants hanging up by the
beard."
"Yes, but what place does he hold in the house?"
"Place! that of walking round poking his nose in everywhere and
growling about things that don't concern him. Mrs Clay keeps
him--gives him fifteen shillings a-week--because he's her brother, and
you'd think he owned everything. If you want to know what he is, he's
a terribly bad example to Andrew. _He's_ the greatest clumsy,
lumbering, dirty lump (oh, you should see his clothes, what they are
like to wash, and the only way to keep him clean would be to stuff him
in a glass case!), but for all that he's a very fair kid. You can't
expect much of boys, you know, and have to be thankful for any good
points at all. O Lord!" she here exclaimed, looking out a window,
where along a path through the orchard she descried approaching a fine
buxom dame in a fashionably cut dress, "here's Mrs Bray in full sail.
I suppose she saw the 'busman leaving you here to-day, and her
curiosity couldn't stand any longer without coming on a tour of
inspection."
"Who is Mrs Bray?"
"She won't let you overlook who she is, and what she owns, and what
she '_done_,' you'll soon hear it. She's the most inquisitive
blow-hard I ever came across."
Dawn now appeared and invited me to afternoon tea, which was a
friendly and hospitable meal spread on a big table on a back verandah,
so enclosed by creepers and pot-plants and little awnings leading in
various directions as to be in reality more of a vestibule. Mrs Bray
hove into near view and took up a seat beside a bank of lovely
maiden-hair fern.
"How are you living?" she asked Grandma Clay as she complacently shook
hands. "Nice cool weather now and not so many beastly mosquitoes."
"By Jove! Did you know about the 'skeeters' here?" inquired Andrew of
me. "They're big enough to ride bikes and weigh a pound. You wait till
you hear 'em singing Sankey's hymns to-night."
"If I were you I'd hold my tongue and not draw attention to my
dirtiness," said Dawn. "It's a wonder a garden doesn't sprout upon
you."
I was then introduced to Mrs Bray, who acknowledged me genially, and
seemed so flourishing, and was so complacent regarding the fact, that
it did one good to look at her.
After addressing a few remarks to me she had to move, for the trimming
of her hat caught in the cage of a parakeet, and she took another seat
in the shelter of a tree-fern near Uncle Jake.
"You have some lovely pet birds," I remarked by way of making myself
agreeable to Grandma Clay.
"The infernal old nuisances!" she said irascibly, "I wish they'd die.
Andrew calls them his, but they'd starve only for me. I'm always
saying I'll have no more pets, and still they're brought here. Some
day when he has a home of his own and people plague him, he'll know
what it is."
On the other side of the verandah above Uncle Jake stretched a passion
vine, where a thick row of belated fruit hung like pretty pale-green
eggs, and evil entering Andrew's mind, he remarked to me--
"Wouldn't it be just bosker if one of them fell on his old nut," and
going out he returned with a pair of orange clippers.
"Where's Carry got to?" asked grandma.
"I saw her out there doing a mash with Larry Witcom," said Andrew.
"Now, do you think there'll be anything in that?" interestedly asked
Mrs Bray. "I suppose she'd be glad to ketch anything for a home of her
own."
"Well, it's to be hoped the home she'd catch with him would be better
than some of the meat we've caught from him lately--it was as tough as
old boots," put in Dawn.
At this point Andrew succeeded in disturbing Uncle Jake--succeeded
beyond expectation. Uncle Jake had just sucked his fuzzy 'possum-grey
moustache in the noisy manner peculiar to him, and was raising his tea
again, when he was struck by the passion fruit, causing him to let
fall the cup.
"Just like you! On the clean boards! Carry will be pleased. I'm glad
it's not my week in the house," said Dawn. What Uncle Jake said is
unfit for insertion in a record so respectable as this is intended to
be, and grandma seemed to grow too agitated for verbal utterance, but
her facial expression was very fiery indeed as Andrew and Uncle Jake
withdrew and settled their little score in a manner unknown to the
company.
"Well, it's an ill wind that don't blow nobody no good, and though
there's a cup broke, it's got us rid of the men, and there's never no
talking in comfort where they are," remarked Mrs Bray, who had a
facility for constructing sentences containing several negatives. Two,
we learn in syntax, have the effect of an affirmative, but there being
no reference to a repletion, only that her utterances were
unmistakably plain, Mrs Bray might have reduced one to wondering the
purport of her remarks.
"Did you hear the latest?" she said, laughing boisterously. "You don't
know the people yet," she continued, turning to me, "half of 'em want
scalding."
Here she burst into a full flood of gossip regarding the misconduct of
the leading residents; but honest and straightforward though her
communications were, I cannot include them here, for this is a story
for respectable folk, and a transcript of the straight talk of the
most respectable folk would be altogether out of the question. I must
confine myself to the statement that Mrs Bray had found few beyond
reproach, and "the latest," as she termed it, concerned one Dr Tinker,
whose wife--known colloquially as the old Tinkeress--had recently
administered a public horsewhipping to a young lady whom the doctor
had too ardently admired. Mrs Bray had only just unearthed the facts
that day, and was overwhelmingly interested in them.
"I tell you what ought to be done with some people," said grandma when
Mrs Bray halted for breath. "There's no respectability like there used
to be in my young days. In Gool-gool--that's where I was rared--the
people used to take up anythink that wasn't straight. There was a
woman there. She and her husband lived happy and respectable, with no
notion of anythink wrong, till a feller--a blessed feller," grandma
waxed fierce, "that was only sellin' things and making a living out of
honest folk, come to town an' turned her head. I won't say but he was
a fine-lookin' man, had a grand flowin' beard," grandma spread her
hands out on her chest.
"Must have been lovely with a _beard_, especially if it was like Uncle
Jake's!" interposed Dawn.
"How dare you, miss! Beards is a natural adornment gave to man by God,
and it's a unnatural notion to carve them off--"
"Some of them do want adorning, I'll admit," said Dawn.
"He was a good-lookin' man," persisted grandma.
"Must have been with a _beard_!" scornfully contended the
irrepressible Dawn.
"She must be smitten on some of these clean-faced articles," said Mrs
Bray with a laugh, which effected the collapse of Dawn.
"Hold your tongue, miss! surely I can speak in me own house!"
continued grandma. "And he could sing and play, and that sort of
thing. At any rate, this woman was terribly gone on him, and her
husband was heart-broke, and they always lived so happy till then that
the people of the town took it up. They went to the sergeant and told
him what they was goin' to do, and he was in such sympathy with 'em
that he got business that took him to the other end of the town for
that night."
"That'll tell you now!" exclaimed Mrs Bray with interest.
"And they went and collared him," proceeded the narrator.
"That'll tell you now, the faggot!" exclaimed Mrs Bray again.
"So they took him and put him on a horse, naked except his trousers,
about twenty of 'em did it, and rode on either side with tar-pots; and
every time he'd turn his head any way to jaw about what he'd do,
they'd swab him in the mouth with it; and they had bags of feathers,
and nearly smothered him with 'em, till with the black tar stickin'
on every way, and all in his great beard, he would be mistook for
Nebuchadnezzar. When they got him out of the town he was let go, an'
they said if he showed hisself in it again worse than that would
happen him. That's what the men of my day did with a bad egg,"
concluded the old lady, firm in the belief of the superior virtue of
her generation.
"What price beards in a case like that?" came from Dawn.
"That clean-faced feller of yours would have the advantage then," said
Mrs Bray. "And now I'll tell you the point of that story. It was just
the men stickin' up for themselves. If that had been a woman harmed by
her husband going away with some barmaid, or other of them hussies men
are so fond of, there wouldn't have been nothing done to avenge _her_.
_Her_ heart could have broke, and if she said anything about it people
would have sat on her, but when one of the poor darling men is hurt
it's a different thing."
Mrs Bray had yet more to tell, and after another hearty laugh divulged
a secret that should have pleased a Government lately reduced to
appointing a commission to inquire into a falling birth-rate.
"This," said grandma in explanation, "is a girl who used to be
milliner in Trashe's store in Noonoon--one of them give-herself-airs
things, like all these county-jumpin' fools! W'en you go to buy a
thing off of them they look as if you wasn't fit to tie their
shoe-laces, and they ain't got a stitch to their back, only a few
pence a-week from eternal standin' on their feet, till they're all
give way, and only fit for the hospital. I won't say but this one was
a sprightly enough young body and carried her head high. And there
was a feller came to town, was stayin' there at Jimmeny's pub. for a
time, an' walkin' round as if Noonoon wasn't a big enough place for
the likes of him to own. He talked mighty big about meat export trade,
an' that was the end of his glory. He married this girl that was
trimmin' hats, an' she thought she was doin' a stroke to ketch such a
bug, an' now she lives in that little place built bang on the road as
you go into town. Larry says he often takes her some meat, he's afraid
she'll starve; an' you know, though he'll take you down in some ways,
he's terrible good-natured in others, and that is the way with most of
us; we have our good an' bad points. But the poor thing! is that what
she has come to? I ain't had a family of me own not to be able to
sympathise with her."
"Well, she don't deserve no sympathy, she upholds him in his pride,"
said Mrs Bray.
"Pride! His pride," snorted grandma, "it's of the skunk order. He'd
make use of every one because he thinks he's an English swell, and
then wouldn't speak to them if he met them out no more than they were
dogs. I don't think there's a single thing he could do to save his
life. If there's a bit of wood to be chopped, she's got to do it, an'
yet he'd think a decent honest workin' man, who was able to keep his
wife and family comfortable, wasn't made of as good flesh and blood as
him. That ain't what I call pride."
"There's one thing, if I ever fell in love with a man he'd have to be
a man and not a crawler," said Dawn. "Some girls think if they get a
bit of a swell he's something; but I wouldn't care if a man were the
Prince of Wales and Lord Muck in one, if he couldn't do things without
muddling, I'd throw water on him."
"What about young Eweword, are you goin' to throw water on _him_?"
laughed Mrs Bray.
"Ask Carry, she knows more about him than I do."
"Dawn finds it handy to put her lovers on to me," said Carry, who was
washing away the spilt tea and airing some uncomplimentary opinions of
Andrew and Uncle Jake between whiles.
"Why don't you come and see me, Carry?" continued Mrs Bray.
"I can't be bothered, I've got my living to earn and have no time for
visiting," said that uncompromising young woman.
"Anything new on here, Dawn?" asked Mrs Bray, turning to her.
"No, only Miss Flipp's uncle is coming up by this afternoon's train
and we're dying to see him, there's been so much blow about him.
Andrew is going to get out a tub to hold the tips."
"Well, I'll be going now to get Bray his tea or there'll be a jawin'
and sulkin' match between us. That's the way with men,--if you're not
always buckin' around gammoning you think 'em somebody, they get like
a bear with a scalded head. Well, come over and see me some day," she
said hospitably to me. "Walk along a bit with me now and see the way."
To this I agreed, and going to get a parasol heard the incautious
woman remark behind me--
"Seems to be an old maid--a gaunt-lookin' old party--ain't got no
complexion. I wonder was she ever going to be married. Don't look as
if many would be breakin' their necks after her, does she?"
Mrs Bray posed as a champion of her sex, but could not open her mouth
without belittling them. However, I was too well seasoned in human
nature to be disconcerted, and walked by her side enjoying her
immensely, she was so delightfully, transparently patronising. There
are many grades of patronage: that from people who ought to know
better, and which is always bitterly resented by any one of spirit;
while that of the big splodging ignoramus who doesn't know any better,
to any one possessed of a sense of humour, is indescribably amusing.
Mrs Bray's was of this order, and would have been galling only to the
snob whose chief characteristic is a lack of common-sense--lack of
common-sense being synonymous with snobbery.
"You'll get on very well with old grandma," she remarked, "she ain't
such a bad old sort when you know her; she must have a bit of property
too. Of course, I find her a bit narrer-minded, but that's to be
expected, seeing I've lived a lot in the city before I come here, and
she's only been up the country; but that Carry's the caution. The
hussy! I only asked her over out of kindness, being a woman with a
good home as I have, and did you hear her? Them hussies without homes
ain't got no call to give themselves airs,--bits of things workin' for
their livin'."
"I'm afraid I'm in the same category, as I have no home," I said by
way of turning her wrath.
"Oh, well, yes, but you're different; you don't have to _work_ for
your livin'."
"Have you any daughters?" I asked.
"I had one, but she soon married. Like me, she was snapped up soon as
she was old enough." Mrs Bray laughed delightedly.
Here was a broad-minded democrat who considered a woman lowered in
becoming a useful working member of society, instead of remaining a
toy or luxury kept by her father or some other man, and who, while
loudly bawling for the emancipation of women from the yoke of men,
nevertheless considered the only distinction a woman could achieve was
through their favourable notice--an attitude of mind produced by moral
and social codes so effectively calculated to foster immoral and
untenable inconsistency!
THREE.
BECOMING ACQUAINTED WITH GRANDMA CLAY.
When I returned the 'busman was driving away after having brought Miss
Flipp's uncle, and Andrew was assisting to fill a spring-cart with
pumpkins. This vehicle had arrived under guidance of a tall, fair
young man with perfect teeth and a pleasant smile, which kept them
well before the public, seeing they were not concealed by any hirsute
ambuscade, regarding the adorning qualities of which Dawn and her
grandmother were divided. The former came out to inform Andrew that
the pony had to be harnessed, as Mrs Clay had promised Miss Flipp she
could drive her uncle back to catch the train.
"I hope the old thing won't smash up the sulky," said Andrew. "He's
the old bloke that come down here in the summer in a check suit, an' I
told him you was all out an' we was full up."
"A few of him would soon fill up. He! he! ha! ha!" laughed the fair
young man. "He looks as if he were always full up! He! he! ha! ha!
ha!"
"Well, he's the purplest plum I ever saw," said Dawn. "He's a complete
hog. He has one of these old noses, all blue, like the big plums that
grew down near the pig-sty. I think he was grown near the pig-sty,
too, by the style of him. It must have taken a good many cases of the
best wine to get a nose just to that colour. Like a meerschaum pipe,
it takes a power of colouring to get 'em to the right tinge. And his
eyes hang out like this," said the girl, audaciously stretching her
pretty long-lashed lids in a way that would have been horrible on a
less beautiful or less successfully saucy girl, but which in this case
was irresistibly amusing. The fair young man was convulsed.
"His figure is like as if he had swallowed our great washing-copper
whole and then padded round it with hay bags, and he has a great
vulgar stand with one foot here and the other over there by the
wheelbarrow."
"He must be a acrobat or be made of wonderful elastic, if he could
stretch that far!" remarked Andrew.
"Yes, and he gets up a gold-rimmed eyeglass and sticks it on his old
eye like this, and so I up with my finger and thumb this way in a ring
and looked at him," said Dawn, with a moue and the protrusion of a
healthy pink tongue which for dare-devil impertinence beat anything I
had seen off the stage, and I succumbed to laughter in chorus with the
young man.
By some intangible indications Andrew and I felt impelled to leave, he
proceeding to harness the horse and I accompanying him.
"Just look here, 'Giddy-giddy Gout with his shirt-tail out,'"
exclaimed the lad, breaking into one of the poetic quotations of which
he was rarely guilty. "Now, I didn't know me pants was tore. I must
have looked a goat!"
I offered to put a stitch in the breach, so he brought needle and
thread.
"Now don't you sew me on to me pants. Dawn done that once, thought it
was a great lark, an' I jolly well couldn't get out; so I busted up
the whole show, and grandma joined in the huspy-puspy, and there's
been no more larks like that. Thanks, I must do a get and put the pony
in. Did you notice that bloke fillin' up the cart with pumpkins? He's
gone on Dawn!"
"He shows good taste."
"Do you reckon Dawn's fit to knock 'em in the eye?"
"Rather!"
"That's bein' a stranger! When you are used to a person every day an'
they belong to you, you don't think so much of 'em, and at the same
time think more, if you can understand. What I mean is this. When I'm
busy fightin' with Dawn, and she's blowing me up for not doing things
and tellin' grandma on me, I can't see what the blokes can see in her;
but then if I caught any one saying she wasn't good for anything, if
he was a bloke I felt fit to wallop, I'd give him a nice sollicker
under the ear, an' I wouldn't bother about any other girl. Do you
see?"
"Yes; I'll hold up the shafts for you."