divorce case, an' it would be as well not to make yourself too cheap
to him. I don't say as most men ain't as bad, only they're not caught
and bowled out; but w'en they are made a public example of, we have to
take notice of it. Marry him if you want--use your own judgment; he'll
be the sort of feller who'll always have a good home, and in after
years these things is always forgot, and it would be better to be
married to a man that had that against him (seein' they're all the
same, only they ain't found out) and could keep you comfortable, than
one who was _supposed_ to be different an' couldn't keep you. But if
you ain't goin' to marry him, don't fool about with him. An' unless he
gets to business an' wants marriage at once, don't take too much
notice to his soft soap, as you ain't the only girl he's got on the
string by a long way."
"He acknowledges about the fault he did in his young days, and he says
it's terribly hard that it's always coming against him now," said
Carry.
"Well, if a woman does a fault she has to pay for it, hasn't
she?--that's the order of things," said grandma.
"But this was when he was young and foolish," continued Carry.
"Yes, the poor child, he was terribly innocent, wasn't he? an' was got
hold of by some fierce designing hussy--they always are--and it was
all her fault. It always is a woman's fault--only for the women the
men would be all angels and flew away long ago," said grandma
sarcastically. "They'll give you plenty of that kind of yarn if you
listen to 'em; an' if you are built so you can believe it, well an'
good, but the facts was always too much of a eye-opener for me," and
with that the contention ended.
"Yes, Carry's the terriblest silly about that Larry Witcom," said
Dawn; "she swallows all he says. She said to me yesterday, 'He seems
to be terribly gone on me.' 'Yes,' I said. 'You keep cool about his
goneness. Wait till he gets down on his knees and bellows and roars
about his love, and take my tip for it he could forget you then in
less than a week.' I've seen men pretending to be mad with love, and
the next month married to some one else. Men's love is a thing you
want to take with more discount than everything you know. You might be
conceited enough to believe them if you went by your own lovers, but
you want to look on at other people's love affairs, and see how much
is to be depended on there, and measure your own by them, and it will
keep your head cool," said this girl, who had the most sensible head I
ever saw in conjunction with her degree of beauty.
She had contracted the habit of slipping into my room for a talk
before going to bed, and as her bright presence there was a delight to
me, I encouraged her in it. The gorgeous kimono was a great
attraction; she loved it so that I had given it her after the first
night, but did not tell her so, or she would have carried it away to
her own room, where I would have been deprived of the pleasure of
seeing it nightly enhance the loveliness of her firm white throat and
arms.
"How did you and Dora get on together?" she presently inquired.
"Well, you see we didn't elope; how did you and Ernest manage?"
"Well, you see we didn't elope," she laughed.
"No, but you might have arranged such a thing."
"Arranged for such a thing!" she said scornfully. "I'm not in the
habit of trucking with other people's belongings."
"What do you mean?"
"It was you who said something about his young lady this afternoon--as
far as I can see he doesn't behave much as if he had one."
So it was my chance remark that had run her wheel out of groove during
the last few hours!
"Does he not?" I replied. "I think he appears more as though he has a
young lady now than he did during my previous knowledge of him."
"Well, I don't know how you see it," she said, as she tore down her
pretty hair.
"What!" I ejaculated in feigned consternation. "He has not been making
love to you, has he, Dawn? I always had such faith in his manliness."
"Well, he doesn't _say_ anything," said Dawn, with a blush. "But he
glares at me in the way men do, and when I mention anything I like or
want, he wants to get it for me, and all that sort of business."
"Perhaps he's falling in love unawares. Young men are often stupid,
and do not recognise their distemper till it is very ripe. He ought to
be removed from danger."
"Well, if I ever had a lover, and he liked another girl better, I'd be
pretty sure he hadn't cared for me, and would not want him any more,"
she said off-handedly.
"But would it not be better to let him go away and be happy with the
maid who loves him than to spoil his life by wasting his affection on
you, when you only think him a great pug-looking creature that you'd
be ashamed to be seen with?"
"Yes, I don't care for him," she said still more off-handedly; "but he
doesn't look so queer now I've got used to him. I suppose any one who
liked him wouldn't think him such a horror."
"No; I for one think him handsome."
"Handsome?"
"Yes, _handsome_."
"Well, I'll go to bed after that and think how some people's tastes
differ."
"Well, take care you don't think about Ernest."
"Thank you; I don't want the nightmare," she retorted, tossing her
head.
THIRTEEN.
VARIOUS EVENTS.
The following day was eventful. To begin with, after Andrew had
discharged his early morning duties, he was to appear before his
grandma for the execution of the sentence she had passed upon him the
night before. I was assisting him to dry the parts of the
cream-separator, a task which had become chronic with me, when Carry
shouted from the kitchen, where she was putting in her week--
"Your grandma says not to be long; she's waiting for you."
Andrew unburdened his soul to me.
"Lord, ain't I just in for it! I'll hear how me grandma rared me since
I was born! I'm dead sick of this born and rared business. It would
give a bloke the pip. I didn't make meself born, nor want any one else
to do it; there ain't much in bein' alive," he said with that
pessimism which, like measles and whooping-cough, is indigenous to
extreme youth.
"How could I help being rared? I didn't ask 'em to rare me. I didn't
make meself a little baby that couldn't help itself, and they needn't
have rared me unless they liked. Goodness knows, I'd have rather died
like a little pup before his eyes were opened," he continued so
tragically that I took the opportunity of smiling behind his back as
he threw out the dish-water.
"Hurry up! your grannie is waiting!" called Carry once more.
"Blow you! you'll have to wait till I'm done," retorted the boy in a
tone the reverse of genial.
"People is always chuckin' at their kids how much they owe them. I'm
blowed if ever I can see it. I didn't want 'em to have me, and don't
see why it should be everlasting threw at me."
It is a wise provision that youth cannot see what it owes the previous
generation. This is a chicken that comes back to roost in heavier
years.
"I wish I had a grandma like Jack Bray's ma. He nicked over to me w'en
I was after the cows, an' Mrs Bray ain't goin' to kick up any row
about the oranges. She says she never knew of a boy that didn't go
into orchards in their young days, and that his dad did, and people
don't think no more of a boy pickin' up a little fruit than they do of
pickin' up a stick. Yet grandma will tan the hide off of me. She done
it once before, and I was stiff for a week."
"Take a tip from me, Andrew! March into your grandma bravely; she's
the best woman I've seen; you ought to be proud to have such a
grandma! She's in the right and Mrs Bray's in the wrong. Let her
hammer you for all she's worth, and every whack you get feel proud
that she's able to give it at her time of life, and I bet when you're
a man you'll be telling every one that you had a grandma who was worth
owning. When she leaves off tell her that this is the last time she'll
ever have to do it for anything like that, and see if you don't feel
more a man than you ever did before. Promise me that's what you'll
do."
"Is that what _you'd_ do if you was me?" he inquired with surprise.
"That's what you'd do if you were me," I replied with a smile. "Just
try that. Never mind if your grandma does go for you hot and strong."
Andrew wiped the table, wrung out his dishcloth in the back-handed
manner peculiar to his sex, hung it on a nail behind the door, dried
his hands on his trousers, which for once were not "busted up," and
with a less rueful expression than he had exhibited for several hours,
went forth to meet his grandma.
About ten minutes later he returned blubbering, but it was a sunshiny
shower, and I did not despise the lad for his tears, for he had a soft
nature, and was quite a child despite his big stature and sixteen
years.
"Well?" I inquired, recognising that he was anxious to relate his
experience.
"She banged away with the strap of the breechin' till she was winded,
and then I said I hoped she'd never have to beat me again for acting
the goat in other people's gardens that didn't concern me, an' she
didn't beat me no more then, but I had plenty as it was," he said,
rubbing his seat and the calves of his legs.
"Well done, stick to that, and be thankful for such a grandma!"
"She ain't a bad old sort when you come to consider," he said with
that patronage, also an attribute of extreme youth or unsubdued
snobbishness, and when compared, snobbishness and youth have some
similar characteristics.
Next item on the programme was Mr Pornsch, whom grandma invited to
remain to midday dinner, and the old lady being sufficiently human to
denounce a swell far more fiercely behind his back than to his face,
in consideration of this one's presence, once more entrusted us to
sugar our own puddings, regardless of consequences.
After luncheon she interviewed him about his niece's health. Mr
Pornsch seemed really concerned, and said perhaps she needed to be
diverted, and that he would see about a further change, which might
prove beneficial. He then put up his eyeglass to inspect Dawn's
beauty, and ogling her, attempted to engage her in conversation; but
the girl didn't seem at all attracted by him or thankful for the
favours he brought her in the form of an exquisite box of bonbons and
the latest song.
"I don't accept presents, thank you," she said uncompromisingly.
"Do you never make exceptions?"
"Only from people I like _very_ much."
"Well, I trust I may some day be among the exceptions," he said, in a
gruesome attempt to be ingratiating; but the girl replied--
"Then you hope for impossibilities."
Somewhat disconcerted though not the least abashed, Mr Pornsch
persevered by asking if she ever went to Sydney, and stated the
pleasure it would be to him to provide her with tickets for any of the
plays; but even this could not overcome her unconquerable horror of
the various intemperances suggested by his person, so he had to
retreat.
Dawn's grandmother remonstrated with her afterwards.
"You ought to be a little more genteeler, Dawn, and you could refuse
presents just as well. Even if he isn't the takin'est old chap, that
is not any reason for you to be ungenteel."
"Well, I don't care," replied Dawn, whose exquisitely moulded chin,
despite an irresistible dimple, was expressive of determination. "If I
was a great old podge and had a blue nose from swilling and gorging,
and was fifty if I was a day, and then went goggling after a young
fellow of eighteen, he wouldn't be very civil to me, or be lectured if
he spoke to me the way I deserved, and I think these old creatures of
men ought to be discouraged by all the girls. What's sauce for the
goose is the same for the gander."
Mr Pornsch had not long departed when Mrs Bray favoured us with a
call, so grandma was spared a pilgrimage to her house. She and Carry
exchanged a stiffly formal greeting, but the visitor beamed upon the
remainder of us and seated herself in our midst.
"Oh, I say, ain't it a blessed nark to the men us going to have a
vote? He! he! Ha! ha! It fairly maddens 'em to see us getting a bit of
freedom--makes 'em that wild they don't know how to be sneerin' an'
nasty enough. Every one of us will just roll up an' use our power now
we've got it,--they've kep' our necks under their heel long enough."
"I wasn't thinkin' of the vote at present," said Grandma Clay. "I was
just off to see you about what our noble nibbs have been doin' in that
old Gawling's orchard; but I beat Andrew already in case. What did you
think of 'em?"
Mrs Bray put back her handsome head, decorated by an extremely
fashionable hat, and laughed boisterously.
"Fancy the old toad runnin' 'em down,--gave 'em a bit of a scare,
didn't it? Old mongrel, to kick up a fuss over a few paltry oranges!
As if we don't all know what boys is; why, there'd be no chance of
rarin' them without touchin' nothing, unless you carted them off to
the back-blocks where there wasn't no one within reach. I told him
what I thought of him. 'How dare you!' says I. 'Bring witnesses of
this,' said I."
Grandma Clay arose.
"Well, if that's your idea of rarin' a family, it ain't mine. Why,
can't you hear the parson's everlastin' preaching and giving examples
how taking a pin has been the start of a feller coming to the gallows;
and this is a much worse beginning than a pin! If the only way of
rarin' them not to steal was to put 'em where there was no possibility
of stealing nothink, a pretty sort of honesty that would be; you might
as well say the only way to rare a girl modest was to let her never
have a chance of being nothink else. Some people, of course, has
different views, but I believe in holding to mine; they've brought me
up to this time very well."
"Oh, you are terrible strict; you wouldn't have no peace of your life
rarin' boys if you cut things so fine as that. Now w'en women gets the
rule it might become the fashion for men to be more proper. Look here,
the men are that mad--"
Uncle Jake here interrupted her by appearing for four o'clock tea.
"Well, Mr Sorrel, now the women has come to show you how to do things,
there might be something done in the country."
"Nice fools they'll make of themselves," he sneeringly replied.
"They couldn't make no greater fools of themselves than the men has
always done,--lying in the gutter an' breakin' their faces," said Mrs
Bray.
"Wait till the women go at it, they'll fight like cats," continued
Uncle Jake, whose power to annoy depended not so much upon what he
said as his way of saying it.
Dawn chipped into the rescue at this point.
"I'm dead sick of that yarn about women fighting. It's a mean lie.
They never fight half as much as men; and girls always love each other
more, and are more friendly together than men. The only women who
fight with their own sex and call them cats are a few nasty things who
are trying to please men by helping them to keep women down and make
little of them; and the fools! that sort of meanness never pleases any
men, only those that are not worth pleasing."
"Well, now that women has the vote they ought to plough, an' drive the
trains, and let the men sit down inside," continued Jake. But Mrs Bray
descended upon him.
"Yes; an' the men ought to come inside an' sweep, an' sew, and have
their health ruined for a man's selfishness, an' be tied to a baby and
four or five toddlers from six in the mornin' till ten at night, day
in and day out, like the women do. What do you think, Mr Eweword?" she
inquired of this individual, who had joined the company and awaited
the conclusion of her remarks ere he greeted us.
"I think the women ought to vote if they want to. There's nothing to
stop 'em voting and doing their housework as well; and the Lord knows
it doesn't matter who they vote for, as all the members are only a
pack of 'skytes,' after a good billet for themselves. Think I'll have
a go for it to see if it would pay better than farmin'," he said, with
his mouth extended in a laugh that redeemed the weakness of this
feature by exhibiting the beauty of a perfect set of teeth.
"What about women havin' to keep theirselves in subjection?" persisted
Uncle Jake. This subject apparently lay near his heart.
"I always think that means for them to take care of themselves, and
not bust over the hard dragging work that men were meant for," said
Mrs Bray; "for I've always noticed that any man who puts his wife to
man's work never comes to no good in the finish. If a man can't float
his own boat, and thinks a woman can keep his and her own end up at
the same time, she might as well fold her hands from the start, as the
little she can do will never keep things goin' and only pave the way
for doctors' bills."
"You might try to argue it, but if you believe the Bible you can see
there in every page that women ain't meant only to be under men," said
the gallant Jake.
"It ain't a case of not believin' the Bible, it's only that we ain't
fools enough to believe all the ways people twists it to suit
theirselves; men as talks that way is always the sort would be in a
benevolent asylum only for some woman keepin' 'em from it," said
grandma, coming to the rescue. "Cowards always drag in the Bible to
back theirselves up far more than proper people does; and there's
always one thing as strikes me in the Bible, an' that is w'en God was
going to send His son down in human form. He considered a woman fit to
be His mother, but there wasn't a man livin' fit to be His father. I
reckon that's a slap in the face from the Almighty hisself that ought
to make men more carefuller when they try to make little of women."
Even Uncle Jake collapsed before this, and Mrs Bray ceased contention
and veered her talk to gossip.
"Young Walker has been chose by the Opposition League in Noonoon, an'
we're goin' to form a committee at once and work for him. Ada
Grosvenor is goin' to form a society for educating women how to vote."
"Ada Grosvenor!" exclaimed grandma. "I thought she would be too much a
upholder of the men to be the start of anythink like that."
"I don't see how educating one's self how to vote would be making them
a putter down of the men," said Dawn.
"Well, it's much the same thing," said Mrs Bray. "For if a woman
educates herself on anything it will show her that a lot of the men
want puttin' down--a long way down too. You'll see the men will think
it's against 'em, and try to squash her and her society, for they're
always frightened if you begin to learn the least thing you will find
out how you're bein' imposed upon; but they don't care how much you
learn in the direction of wearin' yourself out an' slavin' to save
money for them to spend on themselves."
"Oh, come now," laughed "Dora"; "we're not all so bad as that!"
"Not at your time of life w'en you're after the girls and pretendin'
you're angels to catch 'em; it's after you've got 'em in your power
that things change," said Mrs Bray.
The company was now further enlarged by the arrival of Ernest, soon
followed by a young lady I had not previously met--a tall brown-eyed
girl, with pleasant determination in every line of her well-cut face,
and who proved to be the young lady under discussion--Miss Ada
Grosvenor, daughter of the owner of the farm adjoining Bray's and
Clay's.
Her errand was to invite Dawn to join the society she was promoting.
She explained it was not for the support of a party, but for the
exchange and search of knowledge that should direct electresses to
exercise their long-withheld right in a worthy manner. I listened with
pleasure to the thoughtful and earnest ideals to be discerned
underlying the girl's practically expressed ideas, and delighted in
the humorous intelligence flashing from her clear eyes, and was
altogether favourably impressed with her as a type of womanhood--one
of the best extant.
She conversed with the elder members of the party and Ernest, and this
left "Dora" Eweword in charge of Carry and Dawn. His giggle was much
in evidence. Between blasts of it he could be heard inviting the girls
to a pull on the river, and they presently set off round the corner of
Miss Flipp's bedroom leading to the flights of wooden steps down to
the boats under the naked willows. The nature of the one swift glance
that travelled after them from Ernest's eyes did not escape my
observation, so I suggested that he, Miss Grosvenor, and myself should
follow a good example, and we did. I knew it would be a relief to him
to overtake Eweword, pull past him with ease, and leave him a speck in
the distance, as he did. I felt a satisfaction in noting Dawn watch
his splendid strokes, and Miss Grosvenor's animated conversation with
him and enthusiastically expressed admiration of his rowing. She was
not so exacting in the matter of detail as Dawn, and red hair did not
prevent her from enjoying the company of a splendid specimen of the
opposite sex when she had the rare good fortune of encountering him.
"That's a fine stamp of a girl," he cordially remarked as, having at
her request pulled the boat to the edge of the stream, she landed and
sprang up the bank for ferns; but not by any inveiglement could I
induce him to give an opinion of Dawn, which was propitious of her
being his real lady. When we pulled down stream again between the
fertile farm-lands spread with occasional orange and lemon groves,
beautiful with their great crops of yellowing fruit, we found that the
other party were already deserting their craft.
"We had to give it best. Mr Eweword soon got winded. I never saw any
one pull a boat so splendidly as you do, Mr Ernest," called the
outspoken Carry, who had not acquired the art of paying a compliment
to one member of a party without running _amok_ of the feelings of
another. Eweword, despite his shapely and imposing bulk, had not
developed his athletic possibilities so much as those of the gourmand,
and, reddening to the roots of his stubbed hair, he looked the reverse
of pleased with the tactless young woman,--an expression usually to be
found on the countenance of one or more members of a company following
the publication of her opinions.
Miss Grosvenor and Ernest continued to chat with such apparent
enjoyment that Dawn said pointedly--
"Pooh! there's no art in pulling a boat; any galoot with a little
brute force can do that,"--a remark having the desired effect, for the
young Breslaw feigned not to hear, his face rivalled the colour of
"Dora's," and his remarks grew absent.
"Oh, I don't know," persisted Carry, "I know plenty of
galoots,--they're the only sort of men there are in the Noonoon
district, and they can't row for sour apples."
Dawn singled out "Dora" Eweword, and went up the bank with him,
leaving the remainder of us together. Miss Grosvenor favoured us with
a cordial invitation to partake of the hospitality of her home during
the following evening; and delighted with the intelligence and go of
the girl, I was pleased to accept. Ernest said he would be delighted
to escort me, but Carry said she had her work to do, and had no time
to run about to people's places. Miss Grosvenor received this with a
merry twinkle in her eye, and said to me--
"Well, Dawn will come to show you the way. It is an uncomfortable path
if you don't know it;" and with this she bade good afternoon and ran
around the orchard among the square weed and wild quince, across an
area abounding in lines of barbed-wire.
Ernest too departed in a triangular direction leading to the curious
old bridge spanning the stream.
"What makes him hang about here so long?" asked Carry. "Has he a girl
in the district? Do you think he seems gone on Dawn?"
"Perhaps it's Carry?"
"No such luck. I wish he were. I suppose he has money. They say over
where he boards he has a set of rooms to himself, and is very liberal.
What would he be doing up here so long?"
"He doesn't publish his business. Perhaps he's staying in this nice
quiet nook to write a book or something," I said idly, by way of
accounting for his idleness, or the curious might have set to work to
discover more of his doings than he wished to get abroad just then.
"He doesn't look much like the fools that write books, but every one
is writing one these days. I know of five or six about Noonoon even;
it seems to be a craze."
"Perhaps a cycle!"
"I often wonder who is going to read 'em all and do the work."
This brought us to Clay's, Carry supporting me on her arm, and thus
ended her discourse.
Dora stayed for tea, but it was a dull meal, as Dawn now appeared
desirous of repelling him.
Andrew, who on account of his drubbing had been very subdued during
dinner, had regained his usual form, and when Uncle Jake, to whom the
freeing of women seemed an unabating irritation, remarked--
"Who's this young Walker? All the women will be mad for him because
he's good-looking and got a soft tongue. They ought to stick to the
present member who is known, this other fellow hasn't been heard of;"
his grand-nephew replied--
"Like Uncle Jake; he's been in the municipal council fifteen years and
never got heard of; he ought to put up an' see would the women go for
him, because he's never been heard of an' is a bit good-lookin'."