I
We wore no uniform at St. Peter's Orphanage, but there were plenty of
other reminders to keep us conscious that we were inmates of an
institution, and what is called a charitable institution at that. At
all events I, personally, was reminded of it often enough; but I would
not say that the majority of the boys thought much of the point. My
upbringing, so far, had not been a good training for institutional
life. And then, again, my ignorance of the Roman Catholic religion was
complete. I had not been particularly well posted perhaps regarding
the church of my fathers--the Church of England; but I had never set
foot in a Roman Catholic place of worship, nor set eyes upon an image
of the Virgin. Occasionally, my father had gone with me to church in
London; but, as a rule, the companion of my devotions had been a
servant. And in Australia neither my father nor I had visited any
church.
I gathered gradually that my father had once met and chatted with
Father O'Malley for a few minutes in Werrina, learning in that time of
the reverend father's supervisory connection with St. Peter's
Orphanage at Myall Creek, eleven miles down the coast. It is easy now
to understand how, pondering sadly over the question of what should
become of me when 'anything happened' to him, my father had seized
upon the idea of this Orphanage, the only institute of its kind within
a hundred miles. He had never seen the place, and knew nothing of it.
But what choice had he?
And so I became a duly registered orphan, and an inmate of St.
Peter's. The letter I took to Father O'Malley contained, in bank-notes,
all the money of which my father died possessed. To this day I
do not know what the amount was, save that it was more than one
hundred pounds, and, almost certainly, under three hundred pounds. The
letter made a gift of this money to the Orphanage, I believe, on the
understanding that the Orphanage took me in and cared for me. It also,
I understood, authorised Father O'Malley to sell for the benefit of
the Orphanage all my father's belongings on board the _Livorno_, with
the exception of the books and papers, which were to be held in trust
for me, and handed over to me when I left the institution. Knowing
nobody in the district, I do not see that my father could with
advantage have taken any other course than the one he chose; and I am
very sure that he believed he was doing the best that could be done
for me in the circumstances.
Like every other habitation in that countryside, the Orphanage was a
wooden structure: hardwood weatherboard walls and galvanised iron
roof. But, unlike a good many others, it was well and truly built,
with a view to long life. It stood three feet above the ground upon
piers of stone, each of which had a mushroom-shaped cap of iron, to
check, as far as might be, the onslaught of the white ant, that
destructive pest of coastal Australia and enemy of all who live in
wooden houses. Also, it was kept well painted, and cared for in every
way, as few buildings in that district were. In Australia generally,
even in those days, labour was a somewhat costly commodity. At the
Orphanage it was the one thing used without stint, for it cost nothing
at all.
As I was being driven to the Orphanage in Father O'Malley's sulky,
behind his famous trotting mare Jinny, I hazarded upon a note of
interrogation the remark that my father would be buried.
'Surely, surely, my boy; I expect he will be buried at Werrina
to-morrow.'
This was on the morning after my delivery of the letters in Werrina. I
had spent the night in Father O'Malley's house. Somehow, I conveyed
the suggestion that I wanted to attend that burying. The priest nodded
amiably.
'Aye,' he said; 'we'll see about it, we'll see about it, presently.
But just now you're going to a beautiful house at Myall Creek--St.
Peter's. And, if ye're a real good lad, ye'll be let stay there, an'
get a fine education, an' all--if ye're a good lad. Y'r poor father
asked this for ye, like a wise man; and if we can get ut for ye, the
sisters will make a man of ye in no time--if ye're a good lad.'
'Yes, sir,' I replied meekly; and, so far as I remember, spake no
other word while seated in that swiftly drawn sulky. I learned
afterwards that the reverend father was not only a good judge of
horse-flesh, but a famous hand at a horse deal, just as he was a
notably shrewd man of business, and good at a bargain of any kind. So
I fancy was every one connected with the Orphanage.
I did not, as a fact, attend my father's funeral, nor was I ever again
as far from Myall Creek as Werrina during the whole of my term at the
Orphanage.
There were fifty-nine 'inmates,' as distinguished from other residents
there, when my name was entered on the books of St. Peter's Orphanage.
So I brought the ranks of the orphans up to sixty. The whole
institution was managed by a Sister-in-charge and three other sisters:
Sister Agatha, Sister Mary, and Sister Catharine. No doubt the
Sister-in-charge had a name, but one never heard it. She was always
spoken of as 'Sister-in-charge.' There was no male member of the staff
except Tim the boatman; and he was hardly like a man, in the ordinary
worldly sense, since he was an old orphan, and had been brought up at St.
Peter's. He played an important part in the life of the place,
because, in a way, he and his punt formed the bridge connecting us
with the rest of the world.
St. Peter's stood on a small island, under three hundred acres in
area, at the mouth of the Myall Creek, where that stream opens into
the arm of the sea called Burke Water. Our landing-stage was, I
suppose, a couple of hundred yards from the Myall Creek wharf--the
'Crick Wharf,' as it was always called; and it was Tim's job to bridge
that gulf by means of the punt, which he navigated with an oar passed
through a hole in its flat stern. The punt was roomy, but a cumbersome
craft.
The orphans ranged in age all the way from about three years on to the
twenties. Alf Loddon was twenty-six, I believe; but he, though strong,
and a useful hand at the plough, or with an axe, or in the shafts of
one of our small carts, was undoubtedly half-witted. We had several
big fellows whose chins cried aloud for the application of razors. And
none of us was idle. Even little five-year-olds, like Teddy Reeves,
gathered and carried kindling wood, and weeded the garden; while boys
of my own age were old and experienced farm hands, and had adopted the
heavy, lurching stride of the farm labourer.
I suppose there never was a 'charitable' institution conducted more
emphatically upon business lines than was St. Peter's Orphanage. The
establishment included a dairy farm, a poultry farm, and a market
garden. Indeed, at that period, so far as the production of vegetables
went, we had no white competitors within fifty or a hundred miles, I
think. As in many other parts of Australia, the inhabitants of this
countryside regarded any form of market gardening as Chinaman's work,
pure and simple. There were any number of settlers then who never
tasted vegetables from one year's end to another, though the ground
about their houses would have grown every green thing known to
culinary art. In the townships, too, nobody would 'be bothered'
growing vegetables; but, unlike many of the 'cockatoo' farmers, the
town people were ready enough to buy green things; and therein lay our
opportunity. We rarely ate vegetables at St. Peter's, but we
cultivated them assiduously; and sixpence and eightpence were quite
ordinary prices for our cabbages to fetch.
So, too, with dairy products. We 'inmates' saw very little of butter
at table, treacle being our great standby. (The sisters had butter, of
course.) But St. Peter's butter stamped 'S.P.O.' was famous in the
district, and esteemed, as it was priced, highly. Exactly the same
might be said (both as regards our share of these commodities and the
public appreciation of them) of the eggs and milk produced at St.
Peter's. Save in the way of occasional pilferings I never tasted milk
at St. Peter's; but between us, the members of the milking gang, of
which I was at one time chief, milked twenty-nine cows, morning and
evening. I have heard Jim Meagher, the chief poultry boy, boast of a
single day's gathering of four hundred and sixty-eight eggs; but eggs,
save when stolen, pricked, and sucked raw, never figured in our bill
of fare. At first glance this might appear unbusinesslike, but the
prices obtainable for these things were good, as they still are and
always have been in Australia; and the various items of our
dietary--treacle, bread, oatmeal, tea, and corned beef--could of course
be bought much more cheaply.
Father O'Malley did most of the purchasing for the Orphanage, and
audited its accounts, I believe. Sister Catharine and the
Sister-in-charge, between them, did all the collecting throughout the
countryside for the Orphanage funds. And I have heard it said they
were singularly adept in this work. I have heard a Myall Creek farmer
tell how the sisters 'fairly got over' him, though, as he told the
story, it seemed to me that in this particular case he had been the
victor. They were selling tickets at the time for a 'social' in aid of
the Orphanage funds. The farmer flatly refused to purchase, saying he
could not attend the function.
'Ah, well, but ye'll buy a ticket, Misther Jones; sure ye will now,
f'r the Orphanage.' But Mr. Jones was obdurate. Well, then, he would
give a few pounds of tea and sugar? But he was right out of both
commodities. Some of his fine eggs, or, maybe, a young pig? Mr. Jones
continued in his obduracy. He was a poor man, he said, and could not
afford to give.
'May we pick a basket av y'r beautiful oranges thin, Misther Jones?'
They might not, for he had sold them on the trees.
'Ah, well, can ye let us have a whip, just a common whip, Misther
Jones, for we've come out without one, an' the horse is gettin' old,
an' needs persuasion.' Mr. Jones would not give a whip, as he had but
the one.
'Ah, thin, just a loan of it, Misther Jones, till this evening?' No,
the farmer wanted to use the whip himself.
'Well, well, thin, Misther Jones, I see we'll have to be gettin'
along; so I'll wish ye good-morning--if ye'll just let us have a cup
o' milk each, for 'tis powerful warm this morning, an' I'm thirsty.'
At this the farmer forgot his manners, in his wrath, and said
explosively:
'The milk's all settin', an' the water tank's near empty, so I'll wish
ye good-morning, _anyhow_, mum!' And this valiant man moved to the
door.
But I am well assured that such a defeat was a rare thing in the
sisters' experience. Indeed, Mr. Jones made it his boast that he was
the only man in that district--'Prodesdun or Papish'--who ever
received a visit from the Orphanage sisters without paying for it. On
the other hand, it was very generally admitted that no farm in that
countryside was more profitable than ours; and that no one turned out
products of higher quality, or obtained better prices. These smaller
rural industries--dairying, market gardening, and the like--demand
much labour of a more or less unskilled and mechanical sort, but do
not provide returns justifying the payment of high wages. In this
regard St. Peter's was, of course, ideally situated. It paid no wages,
and employed twenty pairs of hands for every one pair employed by the
average producer in the district.