Page 11 - An Australian Lassie

CHAPTER III

"THE DATLY ROUND--THE COMMON TASK"

Betty's boots and stockings were on once more, and her school frock exchanged for one whose school days
lay far behind it. Tn spite of "lettings down" and repeated patchings and mendings it was in what its small
wearer called the "ragetty tagetty" stage of its existence, and was donned only when she was about the dirty
part of "cleaning up."

Tt was Saturday morning now, and she was very busy. Her mother could never capably wield a broom, or
scrub, or dust, or cook--she had done all four, but the results were pathetic. Even Nancy knew the story of her
life, which began with "once upon a time, almost twenty years ago," and was told in varying fragments
whenever a story was begged for.

There was the story of the jolly sea-captain and his one wee daughter--their own mother--and of how they had
sailed the seas and seen many people and many lands. There was the story of the old house within the iron
gates--built by convicts more than fifty years ago--and of how the sea-captain had bought it and built a tower
and spiral staircase and a roof promenade, which he called his "deck." And of how he and his small daughter
settled down in the great house together; and how her wardrobe was always full of beautiful clothes and her
purse full of real sovereigns; and two ponies she had to her name, and a great dog that was the terror of the
neighbourhood, and a little dog that lived as much as it could in her lap. There was the story of her garden full
of rare flowers, and her ferneries of rare ferns, and her aviary of rare birds.

Then there was the story of the little girl "grown up," with hair done on the top of her head, and long sweeping
dresses, and a lover chosen by her father himself--by name John Brown; and of the pale young author who
lived beyond the iron gates, in a small weather-board cottage with an iron roof who wrote dainty little sonnets
and ballads, which he read to her under the old gum trees.

And lastly, there was the story of the captain's pretty daughter slipping away from the great house--to become
mistress of the wee cottage behind the pine trees. And of how the captain returned all letters unopened and
sailed away to other lands for five years; of how afterwards the poor author lay ill unto death, and the little
wife--"mother" now-carried pretty Dorothy to the great house and sent her trotting into the library, saying
"grandpa" as she ran; and of how the little girl had been lifted outside the house by a servant, who had civilly
stated the orders he had received, never to allow any one from the author's house to "cross the threshold" of
that other great one.

And now it was to-day--and besides Dorothea there were the twins (Cyril and Elizabeth), Nancy and the baby;
a goodly number for the small weather-board cottage to shelter and for the author, who had only had one book
published, to bring up.

So it fell out that there was only a rough state girl to do the work of the cottage, and much sweeping and
dusting was Elizabeth's "share"; much "washing-up" and tidying. To Nancy belonged the task of setting the
tables and amusing the baby; and Cyril was engaged at a penny a week to stock the barrel in the kitchen with
firewood and chips, and bits of bark to coax contrary fires. He was the only one who received payment for his
work, and no one demurred, for was he not the only boy of the family and in the eyes of them all a sort of
king!

So Betty was dressed in working garb and was bestowing her usual Saturday morning attention upon the
"living-room"--drawing-room they had none. The little room that had evidently been destined by its builder to
fulfil such a mission, had been seized and occupied by the author in the beginning of his residence at The
Gunyah.