My dearest Gertie,
I have started to write no less than seven letters to you, but
something always interrupted me and I did not finish them. However,
I’ll finish this one in the teeth of Father Peter himself. I will
parenthesize all the interruptions. (A traveller just asked me for a
rose. I had to get up and give him one.) Living here is lovely.
(Another man inquired the way to Somingley Gap, and I’ve just finished
directing him.) Grannie is terribly nice. You could not believe. She is
always giving me something, and takes me wherever she goes. Auntie is
an angel. I wish you could hear the piano. It is a beauty. There are
dozens of papers and books to read. Uncle is a dear old fellow. You
should hear him rave and swear sometimes when he gets in a rage. It is
great fun. He brings me lollies, gloves, ribbons, or something every
time he comes from town. (Two Indian hawkers have arrived, and I am
going out to see their goods. There were nineteen hawkers here last
week. I am sitting on a squatter’s chair and writing on a table in the
veranda, and the road goes right by the flower-garden. That is how I
see everyone.) Have you had rain down there this week? They have great
squawking about the drought up here. I wish they could see Goulburn,
and then they’d know what drought means. I don’t know what sort of a
bobberie they would kick up. It’s pretty dry out on the run, but
everyone calls the paddocks about the house an oasis. You see there are
such splendid facilities for irrigation here. Uncle has put on a lot of
men. They have cut races between the two creeks between which the house
is situated. Every now and again they let the water from these over the
orchard gardens and about a hundred acres of paddock land around the
house. The grass therein is up to the horses’ fetlocks. There is any
amount of rhubarb and early vegetables in the garden. Grannie says
there is a splendid promise of fruit in the orchard, and the
flower-garden is a perfect dream. This is the dearest old place in the
world. Dozens of people plague grannie to be let put their horses in
the grass—especially shearers, there are droves of them going home
now—but she won’t let them; wants all the grass for her own stock.
Uncle has had to put another man on to mind it, or at night all the
wires are cut and the horses put in. (An agent, I think by the cut of
him, is asking for grannie. I’ll have to run and find her.) It is very
lively here. Never a night but we have the house full of agents or
travellers of one sort or another, and there are often a dozen swaggies
in the one day.
Harold Beecham is my favourite of all the men hereaway. He is
delightfully big and quiet. He isn’t good-looking, but I like his face.
(Been attending to the demands of a couple of impudent swaggies. Being
off the road at Possum Gully, you escape them.) For the love of life,
next time you write, fire into the news at once and don’t half-fill
your letter telling me about the pen and your bad writing. I am
scribbling at the rate of 365 miles an hour, and don’t care a jot
whether it is good writing or not.
Auntie, uncle, Frank Hawden and I, are going to ride to Yabtree church
next Sunday. It is four miles beyond Five-Bob Downs, so that is sixteen
miles. It is the nearest church. I expect it will be rare fun. There
will be such a crowd coming home, and that always makes the horses
delightfully frisky. (A man wants to put his horses in the paddock for
the night, so I will have to find uncle.) I never saw such a place for
men. It is all men, men, men. You cannot go anywhere outside the house
but you see men coming and going in all directions. It wouldn’t do to
undress without bothering to drop the window-blind like we used at
Possum Gully. Grannie and uncle say it is a curse to be living beside
the road, as it costs them a tremendous lot a year. There are seven
lemon-trees here, loaded (another hawker). I hope you think of me
sometimes. I am just as ugly as ever. (A traveller wants to buy a loaf
of bread.)
With stacks of love to all at home, and a whole dray-load for yourself,
from your loving sister,
Sybylla.
Remember me to Goulburn, drowsing lazily in its dreamy graceful hollow
in the blue distance.