ON INFLUENZA AND FURNITURE
“So you think he'll do, Jim?”
“Yes, I certainly do,” Jim answered. He was sitting with his father in
the smoking-room at Billabong, his long legs outstretched before the
fire, and his great form half-concealed in the depths of an enormous
leather armchair. “Of course he'll want guidance; you couldn't expect
him to know much about stock yet, though he's certainly picked up a good
bit.”
“Yes--so it seems. His great point is his quick eye and his keenness. I
haven't found him forget much.”
“No, and he's awfully ashamed if he does. He's a tiger for work, and
very quick at picking up the way to tackle any new job. That was one
of the things that pleased old Joe about him. I fancy the old chap had
suffered at the hands of other new-chums who reckoned they could
teach him how to do his work. 'Captin ain't orffered me not one bit of
advice,' he told me with relief.”
Mr. Linton laughed.
“Yes, I've had them here like that,” he said. “Full of sublime
enthusiasm for reforming Australia and all her ways. I don't say
we don't need it, either, but not from a new-chum in his first five
minutes.”
“Not much,” agreed Jim. “Well, there's nothing of that sort about old
Bob. He just hoes in at anything that's going, and doesn't talk about
it. Joe says he must have been reared sensible. He's all right, dad.
I've had a lot of men through my hands in the last few years, and you
learn to size 'em up pretty quickly.”
David Linton nodded, looking at his big son. Sometimes he had a pang of
regret for Jim's lost boyhood, swallowed up in war. Then, when he was
privileged to behold him rough-and-tumbling with Wally, singing idiotic
choruses with Norah and Tommy, or making himself into what little Babs
Archdale ecstatically called “my bucking donkey,” it was borne in upon
him that there still was plenty of the boy left in Jim--and that there
always would be. Nevertheless, he had great confidence in his judgment;
and in this instance it happened to coincide with his own.
The door opened, and Bob Rainham came in, hesitating as he caught sight
of the father and son.
“Come in, Bob,” Mr. Linton said. “I was just wishing you would turn up.
We've been talking about you. I understand you've made up your mind to
get a place of your own.”
“If you don't think I'm insane to tackle it, sir,” Bob answered. “Of
course, I know I'm awfully ignorant. But I thought I could probably get
hold of a good man, and if I can find a place anywhere in this district,
Jim says he'll keep an eye on me. Between the two, I oughtn't to make
very hopeless mistakes. And I might as well have my money invested.”
“Quite so. I think you're wise,” the squatter answered. “As it happens,
I was in Cunjee yesterday, talking to an agent, and I heard of a little
place that might suit you very well--just about the price you ought to
pay, and the land's not bad. There's a decent cottage on it--you and
Tommy could be very comfortable there. It's four miles from here, so we
should feel you hadn't got away from us.”
“That sounds jolly,” said Bob. “I'd be awfully glad to think Tommy was
so near to Norah. Is it sheep country, Mr. Linton?”
“So it's to be sheep, is it? Well, I'd advise you to put some young
cattle on to some scrub country at the back, but you could certainly
run sheep on the cleared paddocks,” Mr. Linton answered. “We could drive
over and look at it to-morrow, if you like. The terms are easy; you'd
have money over to stock it, or nearly so. And there's plenty to be done
in improving the place, if you should buy it; you could easily add a
good deal to its value.”
“That's what I'd like,” Bob answered eagerly. “It doesn't take a whole
lot of brains to dig drains and cut scrub. I could be doing that while
the sheep turn into wool and mutton!”
“So you could; though there's a bit more to be done to sheep than just
to watch them turn,” said the squatter, with a twinkle. “I fancy Tommy
will be pleased if you get this place.”
“Tommy's mad keen to start,” Bob said. “She says Norah has taught her
more than she ever dreamed that her head could contain, and she wants
to work it all off on me. I think she has visions of making me kill a
bullock, so that she can demonstrate all she knows about corning and
spicing and salting beef. I mentioned it would take two of us quite a
little while to work through a whole bullock, but she evidently didn't
think much of the objection.”
“I'll see you get none fat enough to kill,” grinned Jim. “Norah says
Tommy's a great pupil, dad.”
“Oh, they have worked as if they were possessed,” Mr. Linton answered.
“I never saw such painfully busy people. But Norah tells me she has
had very little to teach Tommy--in fact, I think the teaching has been
mutual, and they've simply swapped French and Australian dodges. At all
events they and Brownie have lived in each other's pockets, and they all
seem very content.”
“Are you all talking business, or may we come in?” demanded a cheery
voice; and Norah peeped in, with Tommy dimly visible in the background.
“Come in--'twas yourselves we were talking about,” Jim said, rising
slowly from the armchair; a process which, Norah was accustomed to say,
he accomplished yard by yard. “Sit here, Tommy, and let's hear your
views on Australia!”
Tommy shook her head.
“Too soon to ask me--and I've only seen Billabong,” she said, laughing.
“Wait until I've kept house for Bob for a while, and faced life without
nice soft buffers like Norah and Mrs. Brown!”
“I'm not a nice soft buffer!” said Norah indignantly. “Do I look like
one, Jimmy?”
“Brownie certainly fits the description better,” Jim said. “Never mind,
old girl, you'll probably grow into one. We'd be awfully proud of you if
you got really fat, Norah.”
“Then I hope you'll never have cause for pride,” retorted his sister.
“I couldn't ride Bosun if I did, and that would be too awful to think
about. Oh, and Tommy's making a great stock-rider, Bob. She declared she
could never ride astride, but she's perceiving the error of her ways.”
“I thought I could never stick on without the moral support of the
pommels,” said Tommy. “When you arrange yourself among pommels and horns
and things on a side-saddle, there seems no real reason why you should
ever come off, except of your own free will. But a man's saddle doesn't
offer any encouragement to a poor scared new-chum. I pictured myself
sliding off it whenever the horse side-stepped. However, somehow, it
doesn't happen.”
“And what happens when your steed slews around after a bullock?” asked
Jim.
“Indeed, I hardly know,” said Tommy modestly. “I generally shut my eyes,
and hold on to the front of the saddle. After a while I open them,
and find, to my astonishment, that nothing has occurred, and I'm still
there. Then we sail along after Norah, and I hold up my head proudly and
look as if that were really the way I have always handled cattle. And
she isn't a bit taken in. It's dreadfully difficult to impress Norah.”
Every one laughed, and looked at the new-chum affectionately. This small
English girl, so ready to laugh at her own mistakes, had twined herself
wonderfully about their hearts. Even Brownie, jealous to the point of
prickliness for her adored Norah, and at first inclined to turn up a
scornful nose at “Miss Tommy's” pink and white daintiness, had been
forced to admit that she “could 'andle things like a workman.” And that
was high praise from Brownie.
The telephone bell whirred in the hall, and Jim went out to answer it.
In a few minutes they heard his voice.
“Norah, just come here a moment.” He came back presently, leaving Norah
at the telephone.
“It's Dr. Anderson,” he said. “They're in trouble in Cunjee--there's a
pretty bad outbreak of influenza. Some returned men came up with it,
and now it's spreading everywhere, Anderson says. Mrs. Anderson has been
nursing in the hospital, but now two of her own kiddies have got it, so
she has had to go home, and they're awfully shorthanded. Nurses seem to
be scarce everywhere; they could only get one from Melbourne, and she's
badly overworked.”
“Norah will go, I suppose,” said David Linton, with a half-sigh--the
sigh of a man who has looked forward to peace and security, and finds it
again slipping from his grasp.
“Oh, yes, I'm sure she will. They have a certain number of volunteers,
not nearly enough.”
“I'm going,” said Tommy, and David Linton nodded at her kindly.
“What about you and me, Jim?” Bob asked.
“Well, Anderson says they have a number of men volunteers. Such a lot of
returned fellows about with nothing to do yet. I told him to count on us
for anything he wanted, but the need seems chiefly for women.”
“Must they go to-night? It's pretty late,” said Mr. Linton.
“No, not to-night,” Norah answered, entering. “It would be eight o'clock
before I could get in, and Dr. Anderson says I'm to get a good sleep and
come in early in the morning. Tommy, darling, will you mind if I leave
you for a few days?”
“Horribly,” said Tommy drily. “It would be unpardonably rude for a
hostess. So I 'm coming too.”
Norah laughed down at her.
“Somehow, I thought you would,” she said. “Well, Jimmy, you'll take us
in after breakfast, won't you? We'll have it early.” She perched on the
arm of her father's chair, letting her fingers rest for a moment on
his close-cropped grey hair. “And I've never asked you if I could go,
daddy.”
“No,” said David Linton; “you haven't.” He put his arm gently round her.
“But then I knew that you'd kick me out if I didn't. So that simplifies
matters. You'll take care of yourself while I'm away, won't you, dad? No
wild rides by yourself into the ranges, or anything of that sort?”
“Certainly not,” said her father. “I'll sit quietly at home, and let
Brownie give me nourishment at short intervals.”
“Nothing she'd like better.” Norah laughed. “I don't believe Brownie
will really feel that she owns us again until one of us is considerate
enough to fall ill and give her a real chance of nursing and feeding us.
Then the only thing to do is to forget you ever had a will of your
own, and just to open your mouth and be fed like a young magpie, and
Brownie's perfectly happy.”
“She won't be happy when she hears of this new plan,” Mr. Linton said.
“Poor old soul, I'm sorry she should have any worry, when she has just
got you home.”
“Yes; I'm sorry,” Norah answered. “But it can't be helped. I'll go and
talk to her now, and arrange things--early breakfast among them.”
“You might make it a shade earlier than you meant to, while you're at
it, Nor,” Jim observed. “Then we could turn off the track as we go in
to-morrow to let Tommy have a look at the place that has been offered
Bob--you know that place of Henderson's, off the main road. Bob can go
over the land with us when we're coming back. But once you and Tommy get
swallowed up in Cunjee, there's no knowing when we could get you out;
and Tommy ought to inspect the house.”
“Oh, I'd love to,” said Tommy enthusiastically. “No mere man can be
trusted to buy a house.”
“Don't go to look at it with any large ideas of up-to-date improvements
floating in your mind,” Jim warned her. “It's sure to be pretty
primitive, and probably there isn't even a bathroom.”
“Don't you worry, Tommy; we'll build you one,” said Mr. Linton.
“I'm not going to worry about anything; there are always washtubs,”
spoke Tommy cheerfully--“and thank you, all the same, Mr. Linton. I
didn't expect much when I came out to Australia, but I'm getting so much
more than I expected that I'm in a state of bewilderment all the time.
Someday I feel that I shall come down with a bump, and I shall be
thankful if it's only over a bathroom.”
“Distressing picture of the valiant pioneer looking for discomforts and
failing to find them,” said Bob, laughing. “It's so difficult to feel
really pioneerish in a place where there are taps, and electric
light, and motors, and no one appears to wear a red shirt, like every
Australian bushman I ever saw on the stage.”
“Did you bring any out with you?” demanded Norah wickedly.
“I didn't. But honest, it was only because I had so many khaki ones, and
I thought they'd do. Otherwise I'd certainly have thought that scarlet
shirts were part of the ordinary outfit for the Colonies. And if you
believed all the things they tell you in outfitting shops, you would
bring a gorgeous assortment. We'd have even arrived here with tinware.
It was lucky I knew some Australians--they delicately hinted that you
really had a shop or two in the principal cities.”
“I've often marvelled at the queer collection people seem to bring out,”
said Mr. Linton. “It's not so bad of late years, but ten years ago a
jackeroo would arrive here with about a lorry-load of stuff, most of
which he could have bought much more cheaply in Melbourne or Sydney--and
he'd certainly never use the greater part of it. Apparently a London
shop will sell you the same kind of outfit for a Melbourne suburb as
if you were going into the wilds of West Africa. They haven't any
conscience.”
“They just never learn geography,” said Norah. “And 'the Colonies' to
them mean exactly the same thing, no matter in what continent the colony
may be. If they can sell pioneers tinware to take out to Melbourne, so
much the better for them. Well, I must see Brownie, or there may not be
early breakfast for pioneers or any one else.”
Brownie rose to the occasion--there had never been any known occasion
to which Brownie did not rise--and the hospital at Cunjee was still
grappling with early morning problems next day when the Billabong motor
pulled up at the door, after a flying visit to the new home--which
Tommy, regarding with the large eye of faith, had declared to be full of
boundless possibilities. Dr. Anderson came out to meet the new-comers,
Norah and Tommy, neat and workmanlike; Jim, bearing their luggage; and
Mr. Linton and Bob sharing a large humper, into which Brownie had packed
everything eatable she could find--and Brownie's capacity for finding
things eatable at short notice was one of her most astonishing traits.
The little doctor, harassed as he was, greeted them with a twinkle.
“You Lintons generally appear bearing your sheaves with you,” he said.
“Well, you're very welcome. How many of you do I keep?”
“Tommy and Norah, for certain,” said Mr. Linton. “And as many more of us
as you please. Want us all, doctor?”
“Well, I really don't; there are a good many men volunteers. But if
I might commandeer the car and a driver for a few hours, I should be
glad,” the doctor went on. “There are some cases to be brought in
from Mardale and Clinthorpe. I heard of them only this morning, on the
telephone, and I was wondering how to get them in.”
“We're at your disposal, and you've only to telephone for us or the car
whenever you want it,” said Mr. Linton. “How are things this morning?”
“Oh--bad enough. We have several very troublesome cases; people simply
won't give in soon enough. My youngsters are very ill, but I'm not
really worried about them as long as my wife keeps up. Our biggest
trouble is that our cook here went down this morning. She told me she
couldn't sleep a wink all night, and when she woke up in the morning
her tongue was sticking to the roof of her head!--and certainly she has
temperature enough for any strange symptoms. But we feel rather as if
the bottom had dropped out of the universe, for none of our volunteers
are equal to the job.”
“I can cook,” said Norah and Tommy together.
“Can you?” said the little doctor, staring at them as though the heavens
had opened and rained down angels on his head. “Are you sure? You don't
look like it!”
“I can guarantee them,” said Mr. Linton, laughing. “Only you'll have to
watch Norah, for the spell of the war is heavy upon her, and she'll boil
your soup bones thirteen times, and feed you all on haricot beans and
lentils if nobody checks her!”
“Dad, you haven't any manners,” said Norah severely. “May I cook,
Doctor?”
“You can share the job,” said Dr. Anderson thankfully. “I really think
it's more than enough for one of you. This place is getting pretty full.
Of course, I've wired to town for a cook, but goodness knows if we'll
get one; it's unlikely. Come on, now, and I'll introduce you to Sister.”
Sister proved to be a tall, capable, quiet woman, with war decorations.
She greeted the volunteers thankfully, and unhesitatingly pronounced
their place to be cooks, rather than nurses.
“I can get girls who will do well enough in the wards,” she said, “where
I can direct them. But I can't be in the kitchen too. If you two can
carry on without supervision it will be a godsend.”
So the kitchen swallowed up Norah and Tommy, and there they worked
during the weeks that followed, while the influenza scourge raged
round Victoria. The little cottage-hospital became full almost to
bursting-point. Even the rooms for the staff had to be appropriated, and
nurses and helpers slept in a cottage close by. Luckily for the cooks,
Cunjee now boasted a gas supply and its citizens supplied them with
gas-stoves, as Norah said, “in clutches,” so that they worked in
comfort. It was hard work, with little time to spare, but the girls had
learned method, and they soon mapped out a routine that prevented their
ever being rushed or flurried. And they blessed the cold weather that
saved constant watching lest supplies should go bad.
From Billabong came daily hampers that greatly relieved their labours.
It was a matter of some amazement to the Lintons that Brownie did not
volunteer for the hospital, and indeed, it had been the first thought of
Brownie herself. But she repressed it firmly, though by no means feeling
comfortable. To Murty she confided her views, and was relieved by his
approval.
“I know I did ought to go,” she said, almost tearfully. “There's those
two blessed lambs in the kitchen, doing wot I'd ought to be doing; and
I know Mrs. Archdale 'ud come up an' run things 'ere for me. But wot 'ud
'appen if I did go, I ask you, Murty? Simply they'd take the two blessed
lambs out of the kitchen an' put 'em to nursing in the wards, an' next
thing you knew they'd both be down with the beastly flu' themselves.
They're safer among the pots and pans, Murty. But when the master looks
at me I don't feel comferable.”
“Yerra, let him look,” said Murty stoutly. “'Tis the great head ye have
on ye; I'd never have thought of it. Don't go worryin', now. Are ye not
sendin' them in the heighth of good livin' every day?”
“That's the least I can do,” said Brownie, brightening a little. “Only
I'd like to think Miss Norah and Miss Tommy got some of it, and not just
them patients, gethered up from goodness knows where.”
“Yerra, Miss Norah wouldn't want to know their addresses before she'd
feed 'em,” said the bewildered Murty. But there came a suspicious smell
from the kitchen, as of something burning, and Mrs. Brown fled with a
swiftness that was surprising, considering her circumference.
Jim lived a moving existence in those days, flying between Billabong
and Cunjee in the car, bringing supplies, always on hand for a job if
wanted, and insisting that on their daily “time off” Norah and Tommy
should come out for a spin into the country. Sometimes they managed to
take Sister, too, or some of the other helpers. The car never went out
with any empty seats. Presently they were recovering patients to be
given fresh air or taken home; white-faced mothers, longing to be back
to the house and children left in the care of “dad,” and whatever kindly
neighbours might drop in; or “dads” themselves, much bewildered at the
amazing illness that had left them feeling as if neither their legs nor
their heads belonged to them. Occasionally, after dropping one of these
convalescents, Jim would find jobs waiting to his hand about the bush
homestead; cows to milk, a fence to be mended, wood waiting to be
chopped. He used to do them vigorously, while in the house “mum” fussed
over her restored man and tried to keep him from going out to run the
farm immediately. There were generally two or three astonished children
to show him where tools were kept--milk buckets, being always up-ended
on a fence post, needed no introduction, and the pump, for a sluice
afterwards, was not hard of discovery. The big Rolls-Royce used to purr
gently away through the bush paddock afterwards, often with a bewildered
“mum” looking amazedly at the tall young man who drove it.
Meanwhile Bob Rainham, left alone with his host, set about the business
of his new farm in earnest, since there seemed nothing else for him to
do; and David Linton, possibly glad of the occupation, threw himself
into the work. The farm was bought on terms that seemed to Bob
very easy--he did not know that Mr. Linton stood security for his
payments--and then began the task of stocking it and of planning just
what was best to do with each paddock. The house, left bare and clean by
the last owners, was in good repair, save that the dingy white painting
of the exterior, and the varnished pine walls and ceilings within were
depressing and shabby. Mr. Linton decided that his house-warming present
to Tommy should be a coat of paint for her mansion, and soon it looked
new--dark red, with a gleaming white roof, while the rooms were painted
in pretty fresh colours. “Won't Tommy get a shock!” chuckled Bob
gleefully. The dinginess of the house had not escaped him on the
morning that they had made their first inspection, but Tommy, who loved
freshness and colours, had made no sign. Had you probed the matter,
Tommy would probably have remarked, with some annoyance, that it was not
her job to begin by grumbling.
Wally came hurtling back from Queensland at the first hint of the
influenza outbreak, and was considerably depressed at finding his twin
souls, Jim and Norah, engaged in jobs that for once he could not share.
Therefore he, too, fell back on the new farm, and found Bob knitting his
brow one evening over the question of furniture.
“I don't want to buy much,” he said. “Tommy doesn't, either; we talked
it over. We'd rather do with next to nothing, and buy decent stuff by
degrees if we get on well. Tommy says she doesn't want footling little
gimcracky tables and whatnots and things, nor dressing-tables full of
drawers that won't pull out. But I've been looking at the cheap stuff in
Cunjee, and, my word, it's nasty! Still, I can't afford good things now,
and Tommy wouldn't like it if I tried to get 'em. Tommy's death on the
simple life.”
“How are you on tools?” queried Wally.
“Using tools? Pretty fair,” admitted Bob. “I took up carpentering at
school; it was always a bit of a hobby of mine. I'm no cabinet-maker, if
that's what you mean.”
“You don't need to be,” Wally answered. “Up where I come from--we were
pretty far back in Queensland--we hardly ever saw real furniture, the
stuff you buy in shops. It was all made out of packing-cases and odd
bits of wood. Jolly decent, too; you paint 'em up to match the rooms, or
stain 'em dark colours, and the girls put sort of petticoats round some
of the things.”
“We began that way,” said David Linton, with a half-sigh. “There was
surprisingly little proper furniture in our first house, and we were
very comfortable.”
“Couldn't we begin, sir?” asked Wally eagerly. “This wet weather looks
like setting in. Bob can't do much on the farm. If we could get out
a few odd lengths of timber and some old packing cases from the
township--”
“Heavens, you don't need to do that!” exclaimed their host. “The place
is full of both; packing-cases have been arriving at Billabong since Jim
was a baby, and very few of them have gone away again. There's plenty of
timber knocking about, too. We'll go over to the farm if you like, Bob,
and plan out measurements.”
“I think it's a splendid idea, thanks, sir,” said Bob slowly. “Only I
don't quite see why I should bother you--”
“Oh, don't talk rubbish!” said David Linton, getting up. “I believe I'm
glad of the job--the place seems queer without Jim and Norah.”
“My word!” said Wally. “Let's all turn carpenters, and give Tommy the
surprise of her life!”
They flung themselves at the work with energy. A visit to the new house,
and a careful study of each room, revealed unsuspected possibilities to
Bob, whose English brain, “brought up,” as Wally said, “on a stodgy
diet of bedroom suites,” had failed to grasp what might be done by handy
people with a soul above mere fashion in the matter of furniture. They
came back with a notebook bulging with measurements and heads seething
with ideas. First, they dealt with the bedrooms, and made for each a set
of long shelves and a dressing-table-cupboard--the latter a noble piece
of furniture, which was merely a packing-case, smoothed, planed and
fitted with shelves; the whole to be completed with a seemly petticoat
when Tommy should be able to detach her mind from influenza patients.
They made her, too, a little work-table, which was simply a wide, low
shelf, at which she could write or sew--planned to catch a good light
from her window, so that as she sat near it, she could see the line of
willows that marked the creek and the rolling plains that ended in the
ranges behind Billabong. Tommy's room was painted in pale green; and
when they had stained all these exciting additions dark green, Bob
heaved a great sigh, and yearned audibly for the swift recovery of
the influenza patients, so that Tommy could return and behold her new
possessions.
“We could make washstands,” said Mr. Linton, when they had fitted out
the two remaining bedrooms. “But washstands are depressing things, and
would take up a good deal of space in these little rooms. You have a
good water supply, Bob; why not have built-in basins with taps, and lay
on water through the bedrooms?”
Bob whistled.
“My aunt! Is that really possible?”
“Quite, I should say. It wouldn't take elaborate plumbing, and the pipes
could discharge into an irrigation drain for your vegetable garden. It
would save Tommy ever so much work in carrying water, too. There's a
fearsome amount of water carried in and out of bedrooms, and I can't see
why pipes shouldn't do the work. It need not cost you much--just a shelf
across a corner, with an enamelled basin let in.”
“Save you buying jugs and basins,” said Wally. “Great money-saving
idea!”
“Rather,” said Bob. “Is there anyone in Cunjee who can plumb?”
“Oh, yes; there's a handy man who can do the whole thing. We'll get Jim
to go and see him tomorrow.”
They left this job to the handy man, who proved equal to all demands,
and went on themselves to higher flights. Kitchen and pantry were
already fitted with shelves, but they built in a dresser, and found a
spare corner, where they erected a linen press warranted to bring tears
of joy to the eye of any housewife. Round the little dining-room and
sitting-room they ran a very narrow shelf, just wide enough to carry
flowers and ornaments, and they made wide, low window seats in each
room. Then, becoming bold by success, they turned to cabinet making,
and built into the dining-room a sideboard, which was only a glorified
edition of the kitchen dresser, but looked amazingly like walnut, aided
by a little stain; and for both sitting-rooms made low cupboards,
with tops wide enough to serve as little tables. Even the verandah was
furnished with wide shelf tables and a cupboard, and with low and broad
seats.
“And it's all done by kindness--and packing cases!” said Jim, surveying
the result with admiration.
“Indeed, I'm afraid a lot of your father's good timber has gone into
it,” said Bob half ruefully. “He was awfully good about it, and the
supply of just-what-you-want timber on Billabong seemed inexhaustible.”
“No, you really used very little good stuff,” David Linton said. “It's
chiefly packing cases, truly, Jim. But we had plenty of time to plane it
up and make it look decent. Bob ran an electric light into the workshop
and we worked every night. I believe it's kept us from getting influenza
from sheer boredom, with all you people away.”
“They'll soon be home,” Jim said cheerfully. “Influenza's dying out, I
believe. No fresh cases for three days, and all the patients are getting
better. The little Andersons are up and about. By the way, Dad, couldn't
we bring those kiddies out to Billabong for a change?”
“Why, of course,” his father answered. “Tell Mrs. Anderson to come too,
or, if she won't leave her husband, Brownie will be delighted at the
chance of getting two children to look after again. Are the cooks quite
cheery, Jim?”
“As cheery as possible,” Jim answered. “They got off early to-day, and I
took them and Sister and the Anderson youngsters out for a run. Did 'em
all good. I'm coming home to-night, and they don't want me to-morrow,
because they're going to afternoon tea with some one or other. Flighty
young things, those cooks! So I can help you carpenters or do any odd
jobs.”
“We've lots,” said Wally, who was putting a finishing coat of dark green
enamel to a rod destined as a towel rail for Tommy's room. “Simple jobs,
suitable for your understanding. Take care, Jimmy, I've a wet paint
brush, and you have a good suit on! I want to put shelves from floor to
ceiling of the bathroom, because the walls are rough and unlined, and
nothing on earth will make it a beautiful room. So Tommy may as well
store there all the things she doesn't want anywhere else. And you can
make her a medicine cupboard. I shan't have time to look at any of you
unskilled labourers, for I'm going to build her a draining-rack for
plates and things over the kitchen sink. And I can tell you, that takes
brains!”
“Then it's not your job!” said Jim definitely.
“Isn't it? I'll show you, you old Bond Street fashion plate!” Wally
stretched his long form, simply attired in a khaki shirt and dungaree
trousers, much be-splashed by paint, and looked scornfully at his neatly
dressed friend. “You needn't think, because you come here dressed like
the lilies of the field and fresh from motoring girls round the country,
that--”
“My hat!” said Jim justly incensed. “And I after cleaning out and
whitewashing the hospital fowl-houses all the morning! Young Wally, you
need some one to sit on your head.” He took off his coat slowly.
“Ten to one,” said Wally hastily, “if we had time to look into the
matter we'd find you'd whitewashed the fowls as well! These Army
Johnnies are so beastly impractical!” He gathered up his brushes and
fled, pursued by his chum. Sounds of warfare came faintly from the
distance.
“It's a good thing some of us are sane,” said Mr. Linton laughing.
“Nearly finished, Bob?”
He was painting a shelf-table, screwed to the wall within a space at
the end of the verandah, which they had completely enclosed with wire
mosquito netting. Bob was hanging the door of this open-air room in
position, a task requiring judgment, as the floor of the verandah was
old and uneven.
“Nearly, sir,” he mumbled, his utterance made difficult by the fact
of having several screws in his mouth. He worked vigorously for a few
moments, and then stood back to survey his job. “This is going to be
a great little room--though it's hard just now to imagine that it will
ever be warm enough for it.”
“Just you wait a few months until we get a touch of hot weather, and
the mosquitoes come out!” said David Linton. “Then you and Tommy will
thankfully entrench yourselves in here at dusk, and listen to the
singing hordes dashing themselves against the netting in the effort to
get at you!”
“That's the kind of thing they used to tell me on the Nauru,” Bob said
laughing; “but I didn't quite expect it from you, Mr. Linton!”
The squatter chuckled.
“Well, indeed, it's no great exaggeration in some years,” he said. “They
can be bad enough for anything, though it isn't always they are. But an
open-air room is never amiss, for if there aren't mosquitoes a lamp will
attract myriads of other insects on a hot night. That looks all right,
Bob; you've managed that door very well.”
“First rate!” said Jim and Wally approvingly, returning arm in arm.
“You're great judges!” David Linton rejoined, looking at the pair. “Have
you returned to work, may I ask, or are you still imitating the lilies
of the field?”
“Jim is; he couldn't help it,” said Wally. “But I have been studying
that oak tree out in the front, Mr. Linton. It seems to me that a
seat built round it would be very comforting to weary bones on warm
evenings--”
Bob gathered up his tools with decision in each movement.
“Wally has come to that state of mind in which he can't look at anything
on the place without wanting to build something out of a packing case
in it, or round it, or on top of it!” he said. “When the sheep come I'll
have to keep you from them, or you'll be building shelves round them!”
“Why, you're nearly as bad yourself!” grinned Wally.
“I know I am, and that's why I've got to stop. I'm going to leave nice
little chisels and spokeshaves and smoothing planes, and mend up the
pigsty; it needs it badly, and so does the cow-shed. And then I've
got to think of ploughing, and cutting that drain across the flat, and
generally earning my living.”
“Don't you worry,” said David Linton. “You couldn't have done much
outside in this wet weather, and at least your house is half-furnished.
And we'll help you through with the other things.”
“You're all just bricks,” said Bob, his fair skin flushing--“only I
begin to feel as if I were fed with a spoon. I can't always expect to
have my work done for me.”
“You haven't shown much wish to leave it for anyone else,” Jim said
drily. “Neither you nor Tommy strikes this district as a loafer. Just
stop talking bosh, old man, and think what Tommy's going to say to her
mansion.”
“Say?” queried Mr. Linton. “Why, she'll point out to us all the places
where she wants shelves!”
“Shelves?” yelled the three as one man.
“Yes, certainly. There was never a woman born who had enough. Don't lose
sight of your tools, Bob, for you'll go on putting up shelves as long
as you've an inch of wall to put them on. Come along, boys, and we'll go
home.”