Miss Bobbie, etc

Front matter

MISS BOBBIE " The Doctor . . . felt quite embarrassed with this little red-haired girl." Miss Bobbie.] [Page MISS BOBBIE BY ETHEL TURNER (Mrs. H. R. Curlewis) AUTHOR OF "SEVEN LITTLE AUSTRALIANS," "THE LITTLE LARRIKIN," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY HAROLD COPPING WARD, LOCK, & CO., LIMITED LONDON, MELBOURNE AND NEW YORK TO MR. WILLIAM STEELE (Of Messrs. Ward, Lock, & Co.). Dear Mr. Steele, It was to your kindly judgment and now is to your zeal on my behalf that I owe the gratification of being able to call myself and persuade my friends to call me an authoress, and to understand what is meant by the couplet, " 'Tis pleasant sure to see oneself in print, A book's a book altho' there's nothing int. Being thus indebted to you, I beg you to confer another obligation, and allow me to inscribe this book with your name.

Very faithfully yours, Ethel Curlewis. Mosman's Bay, Sydney. NOTE. Some of the chapters of this story appeared about four or five years ago in the Illustrated Sydney News, and it is owing to the courtesy of the proprietors that I am enabled to include them here. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. THE FAMILY HAT-RACK 9 II. X = ? . . . . . . . .22 III, IN WHICH ELECTRICITY, PEACH-STONES, AND OTHER MATTERS ARE INTRODUCED . . 39 IV. THE WAY UP 47 V. A SORROWFUL DITTY 56 VI. A LITTLE CAIN 7 1 VII. A PERI AT THE GATE 80 VIII. BLOODHOUNDS 9 1 IX. A FATTED CALF I03 X. EVELINA 113 XI. MEANS TO AN END 122 XII. "TEN YEARS OF YEARS" . . . -135 XIII. AFTERNOON TEA 146 XIV. IN WHICH SUDS ENJOYS HIS LUNCH . . CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE XV. BOBBIE'S FIRST LOVE . . . . l8o XVI. THE SORROWS OF SUDS .... 193 XVII. THE WONDERS OF THE DEEP . . . 205 XVIII.

AN APOLOGY 223 XIX. THE BLUE AUSTRALIAN MOUNTAINS . . 234 XX. THE END OF A GAME .... 242 XXI. IRISH V. COLONIAL ..... 254 XXII. THE WILD AUSTRALIAN EUSH . . . 260 XXIII. " SKELLETUNS " 26S XXIV. THE SEARCH-PARTY ..... 274 XXV. WHEN THEY AWOKE .... 283 XXVI. HEROINE OR DONKEY ? 290 XXVII. THE ART OF COOKING .... 300 XXVIII. " URCEUS EXIT "

Chapter I. The Family Hat-rack

' I "HERE were five hats in the hall, five boys' -*- hats, in various stages of batteredness. And there were five wooden pegs screwed into the wall for the express purpose of holding them. Four were generally filled ; it was the fifth that was accustomed to stick out bare and un noticed, while its hat, the smallest and most battered of all, lay on the floor, or flew high into the air, or was worried and brim-bitten by the puppy. But to-day it, too, hung motionless from its peg and let the sunshine through its broken places and displayed complacently its torn, dirty lining. Suds had hung it up himself; lest the wind should displace it, he had poked the peg-head through one of the apertures in the brim. " I don't see why," said the woman, who, un aided, did the enormous work of the Parsonage, — " I don't see why, Master Suds, she shouldn't have your peg ; you never hang your hat up."

" I'm sure," said Suds — he went close up to the peg and lodged his head-gear more securely still — " I'd just like to see her try it on, that's all." " Then I must put up another one," Bertha said, and sighed while she wondered where the hammer was, and whether there was a nail left after the depredations of all the amateur car penters. The third boy moved forward ; a rosy cheeked lad with curly hair, melancholy eyes, and a humorous mouth. He was thirteen, and was called Dick, probably because it had no connection whatever with his name, which was Stephen. " Let her keep it in her box," he said ; " girls always do. There's no room to put up another peg, Bertha ; if you put it at this end it would be next to mine. I don't want ribbons and things blowing about at my end." " But," objected Bertha, " she'd have to go up my nice clean stairs every time she wanted to go out in the garden."

Dick's head took its sideway, calculating position ; the scientific light came into his eyes. " I don't know that I couldn't rig you some thing up," he said ; " a sort of line thing, you know, with a pulley at each end. She could just tie her elastic to it at the bottom of the stairs, and give a pull and it would shoot up into her bedroom, or if she wanted to get it down, all she'd have to do would be pull at the other side." The melancholy faded rapidly from his eyes as he warmed to his subject. " Why, it would be the simplest thing in the world ; I'll start it at once, Bertha. Lend's hold of your pencil, Frank, and I'll just make a sketch of it." But Bertha rejected the splendid idea with surprising decision. " No you don't," she said. " I've had quite enough of your wires and breakneck strings and inventions, young man ; a plain peg '11 do for me, thank you."

" Well, as long as you don't put it next to mine," said the eldest boy. " She might get annoyed if I put it on by mistake and went to play football in it." His brown, happy-looking eyes smiled. " How'd I look, Dumps, in a scrim., with a flop hat turned up at the side with pink roses ? " The melancholy expression of Dick's eyes was merely a freak of nature ; he had the most sanguine, happy disposition in the world. But Arthur — Dumps — was constitutionally de spondent. He always expected his side to be beaten when cricket or football battles waged ; he had gloomy anticipations of wet weather whenever a picnic was mooted ; he always said it was no use trying for prizes, he knew he should get measles or mumps at the end of the quarter, and so lose all his marks. So young a pessimist — he was barely eleven — is seldom found.

" Oh ! " he said, and gazed unhappily at the five pegs and the five hats, " I know quite well how it will be, she will be stuck next to me, of course." A thing, which, seeing he occupied the space immediately between the pegs of Dick and Suds, would be difficult of accomplishment. Frank made no remark at all — it was his way — but all the same he hoped no blowing roses and lace and ribbon would come in his direction. " Upon my word," said Bertha — " Upon my word, you're nice kind boys, you are ; a nice welcome the poor child '11 get from you ; you ought to be well ashamed of yourselves. Her hat won't be charged with gunpowder or poison. If I hear another word of this, I'll tell the doctor, that's what I'll do. Now be off with you." Nobody moved ; every one began to argue but Frank, and he whistled so much out of tune, and stuck his hands so deep in his pockets that Bertha knew he, too, was against the new-comer.

Her kind heart was smitten with anxiety. Here she was, with five mutinous boys on her hands, and in less than an hour a little girl would arrive, who, the doctor had suddenly announced, was going to live with them for two or three years. And the home was a parsonage, too — a parsonage of the Church of England, where one might reasonably expect to find a kind and loving welcome awaiting a motherless little girl. It was this that troubled Bertha more than anything, for, far more than any of the graceless sons of the minister, she had a keen and ever-present sense of the dignity and responsibility attached to such a place. She was a thin, ridiculously tall woman, with a withered-looking face, sharp features, and sharper tongue. For five years, ever since the mother of the boys had died, she had managed the house from attic to basement, dispensed the charities, kept the gentle, absent-minded little doctor up to his duties, and taken entire charge of the meals, mending, and morals of five curiously difficult boys.

It is England that generally produces such wonderful servants — for an Australian, Bertha was a woman born in advance of her time. A week ago the little doctor had gone to her, nervously, diffidently, just after the conclusion of Sunday evening service. He told her about an old friend he had, a man who had been at college with him in Ireland. " I lost sight of him for years," he said, " when he entered the " SHE WAS A THIN, RIDICULOUSLY TALL WOMAN." army — indeed, when I came out here and left him stationed at Cork, I expected I should never see any more of him." " But you did ? " suggested Bertha. This was to recall his mind, which at this point went to wander leisurely in the pleasant rooms and quadrangles of Trinity. He came back to Australia and his shabby, book-lined study. " Oh yes," he said, " certainly, certainly, Bertha, —didn't I tell you ?

He lost his wife, grew tired of the service and came out here, to try a squatting life. Did I tell you he had a little girl ? " " No," Bertha said, and folded her best black gloves patiently ; then her thoughts went to the evil times that had come upon the country. " Of course he failed ? He didn't expect to have any luck, did he, when those who have tried for years get ruined ? " There was a certain amount of animus in her question, for it was a drought and a series of bad seasons that had taken from her her only chance of marriage and frosted over the natural kindliness of her nature. But the doctor did not reassure her. He was sufficiently well off, he said, for the loss to be a small one. And now — less than a month ago — he had married again, a young and fashionable wife, and was going to Europe with her to show her the world.

" Yes ? " said Bertha, and felt aggrieved for her lost lover who had not been "sufficiently well off." " And now he doesn't know what to do with his little girl, Bertha — a nice, lovable little thing, I believe. You see, he doesn't believe in boarding schools, and the new wife will not consent to taking her with them." " Ye-es ? " said Bertha, with the dawn ot under standing in her eyes. The doctor grew nervous again and played with the middle button of his coat ; it was hanging by a thread, as usual, and displayed its metal foundation under the thin, worn black. " Ye-es ? " said Bertha. " They wanted to know if I would have her here to live — here at the Parsonage with all our boys." He looked apologetically at his faithful hand maid. " Of course I told them it would be impos sible, Bertha."

Bertha untied her bonnet, set erect its drooping aigrette, and sat down on the sofa to put him more at his ease. "It wouldn't be a loss to you, would it?" she "THE DOCTOR . . . PLAYED WITH THE MIDDLE BUTTON OF HIS COAT.'1 inquired, with the cautiousness born of long years' cutting down of the Parsonage bills. " You said he was well off. Another mouth to feed is more than we could do." He reassured her. His friend wanted to place a very handsome sum at his banker's to be drawn upon for all expenses. " If she came," he said, " I should be able to give you an extra pound a week, at least, for household use." The woman's thoughts made a pilgrimage to her stocking-basket and reviewed the stockings of Dick, and Dumps, and Suds, the socks of Frank and Ted. It was more than a month since she had decided they were beyond the pale of salvation, and still her missionary darning-needle worked amongst them, for there had been no chance of new ones.

" Let alone their hats," she said, continuing her thoughts aloud. " Suds' best one is broken in three places, and Dick's is nearly black with sun and rain. And there never were such boys for boots." " It certainly would be a help," he said, and sighed. Bertha's eyes went to him critically. He, too, was shabby ; his long, black coat was shiny at the seams and rusty with the suns of several summers. And how thin and worn and old he looked ! He was a little man, very spare, even bent a trifle, though only just fifty ; the iron grey of his hair was bleached to white at the temples. He had worn spectacles for short sight since he was a boy ; the eyes behind them were very blue, very gentle — perhaps it was the glasses that gave them their far-away look. No one loved peace and order and quiet more than he, no one had less of it with those five noisy boys about.

" When do you want her to come ? " Bertha said, recognising how much those boots and hats and school-bills had to do with the shoulder bend. He straightened himself. "If she would add one atom to your work, I will not have her," he said. " I know just how full your hands are, and they are such willing, faithful hands, Bertha, I will not have them imposed upon." " Pooh ! " said Bertha, and scowled heavily. It was a way she had when a kind word surprised the frost at her heart into melting for a moment " When there are five there may just as well be six ; it's only an extra cup and saucer, and a bit more mud and noise. My troubles ! " " Then you really do not mind if she comes ? " The doctor looked at her gratefully. " I couldn't do with her to-morrow," she answered ; " but if you'll give me till Wednesday to get a room fixed up she can come then and welcome."

" It is very good of you, Bertha," he said. " Pooh ! " she returned, and rose jerkily. She picked up her gloves and bonnet and umbrella and prayer-book, and shook up the cushion she had dented with sitting upon it. At the door she looked back. " Bring your surplice home to morrow," she said ; " I want to give it a rub over, the shoulder's all creased."

Chapter II

X = ? TT7*HEN Mrs. Wallace was alive, the large * * light attic at the top of the house had been used for sewing meetings, cooking classes for the poor, and such purposes. For these things had been her delight. But when Bertha's rougher fingers picked up the dropped reins, that part of the Parsonage work was left untouched, and the women in the poor cottages had to cut out little frocks without assistance, and go back to the monotony of unintelligent cookery. It was when the little boys became less docile, and sermon-making was interrupted and visitors found bats and museums and scientific inventions on the hall steps or the drawing-room sofa, that Bertha, recognising the urgent need boys have of a place in which to rampage, scrubbed out X = ? 23 the attic, took away all things of any value, and presented it to the five.

The queerest place they had made of it. It reminded one irresistibly of the amicable arranger ment entered into by the Boffins as to the dividing line between comfort and fashion. Only here there were the tastes of five to be provided for — or four, at all events ; Ted's pastimes were chiefly of an outdoor nature, and he did not trouble the den over-much. Frank had a corner where the roof sloped suddenly. There was not very much individuality about it. It contained merely a black horsehair bolster, a heap of tattered books with covers on which scarlet and blue pirates, soldiers and cow boys predominated, and an old tin box fastened securely with a padlock. It was the least ad vantageous square yard in the room and in the worst light, but the other boys had known he was too lazy to stand out about it and had made their selection accordingly.

Dick had the best place ; the whole of the window came within it and more than half of the whole floor space. It held a work-bench, whereon were brought into shape inventions of the most astounding ingenuity and complexity. It held an experiment-shelf, where the vilest chemical smells were generated. It held glue-pots and fret-saws and home-made boomerangs, stamp collections, boxes of flower seeds, sickly plants that were being persuaded to grow blue roses and red violets. It held a boy touched with a genius for inventing useless articles, a genius hampered with a marvellous instability. A rope fenced off this allotment from the unhallowed footsteps and mischievous fingers of Dumps and Suds. Dumps lived chiefly under the big table that stood against the wall ; his laws against trespassers were very rigid.

He allowed the others to sit at the table to do their lessons, but if their legs sprawled an inch beyond the line he had chalked, he would instantly retaliate by getting over the rope fence and scattering the bits of wood that were representing some wonderful invention, or making a rush for Frank's corner and throwing the brilliant pirates and cut-throat prairie kings all over the room. For guinea-pigs and white X = ? 25 mice were the solace of his disconsolate days, and here stood their cages and runs. A straying leg or too adventurous boot was apt to intrude on the place where the largest family of white mice took its exercise. Marbles, half-eaten apples, and a multitude of boxes, represented the division of the most youth ful of the Wallace lads — Suds to wit. The boxes held " collections " — he was an enthusiast in the craze.

Common stamps, ends of match-boxes, pen-handles, pins, buttons, shells, all had served their turn. At present he was collecting peach stones, and had got up to two hundred and ninety-seven by patient gatherings and an excel lent young appetite. He was a thin little boy, with ragged, sandy hair, a large number of freckles, light blue eyes, and a pugnacious mouth. The moment the watched-for cab came into sight round the bend of the long suburban road, it was up to this room that the five boys retreated with the promptitude and unanimity of an army under orders to fall back from a hot fire. "She'll put her face up and want to be kissed," Dick said, striding up two steps at a time. " Some one '11 have to hold her doll for her," said Frank. " I know just how it '11 be," said Dumps, going up very fast indeed; "they'll expect me to stop and talk to her."

In the den they bemoaned their hard lot louder than ever. It had all been arranged so quickly. They had been entirely ignorant that she was coming until the day before, and they felt them selves very much aggrieved that an unknown quantity should be introduced into the family equation without their sanction and approval. " Why, we don't even know her name ! " said Dumps in a much-injured tone. The doctor was so absent-minded ; he had actually, as Dick expressed it, " been and gone and forgotten all about it, but that it began with R" " I'd rather never have a new hat while 1 live," said Dick. Bertha had told them how helpful would be the money paid for the little stranger. X = ? 27 " What's a patch on your boot ? " said Ted. " I'd rather go without boots altogether than have a girl knocking about the place."

" They're such faddy, finicking things," said Dick. " Jones 2 was telling me about his sisters. He has an awful time of it ; he can never lay his hands on a thing, they're always dusting and tidying so. I know what it '11 be, she'll be wanting to tidy this room." He looked jealously round at his precious litter. " Well, all I can say is, she'd better not come inside this rope." But his selfishness fired the others. " It 'ud be a deal worse if she began putting my books in rows," Frank said. "If there's one thing I hate, it's an ordinary bookshelf ; there's nothing like keeping your books in a heap when you want to get at one in a hurry." " She'd better touch my peach-stones, that's all," said Suds. " I hope she burns all your silly old rubbish — serve you out ; you had free peaches this morning and never kept the stones."

Dumps' face wore its most gloomy expression. " She'll get cleaning out my guinea-pigs," he said, " that's what she'll do ; or she'll want me to keep them in the garden. Oh, what's the use of any tiling ? " " A jolly good job if she does," was Ted's un feeling answer. " I'll pitch them out of the window myself one of these days ; the place is unfit to sit in." " A nice time we'll have of it," Dick said. " The pater says we'll have to let her play with us. Fancy cricket with a girl let loose on the ground. She'd make us use a tennis-ball for fear of getting her thumbs smashed." " She'll bring her doll to the table, and feed it with bits of bread ; Jones 2 says his sister always does." It was Frank who spoke. " Tom Harrison has sisters, and they squeal like anything if the white mice get loose."

Dumps caressed one that was running up his sleeve, and looked aggressive. " Yes, I know," said Dick, " and they threw away Jim's aquarium, just because it smelt." " Well, she needn't think I'm goin' to be always washin' and washin' my hands, just 'cos she's a girl," said Suds. Before any one else could bring in a crowning X = ? 29 condemnation there was a quick, firm step on the stairs, and the next minute a tall, broad-shouldered " HANGING PERILOUSLY OVER THE BANISTERS." man with the carriage of a soldier and the beard of a squatter entered the room. He only stayed two or three minutes, for he had to catch a train ; he said he did not ask them to be good to his little girl, for he knew they were their father's boys and would be ; they must make her one of themselves, and teach her to be brave and fearless ; then he shook hands warmly with each boy, tipped them half-a-sovereign each all round and hurried away.

It certainly gave a temporary golden lining to the cloud. But darkness hid it from view again at the disgusted statement of Dick, who had been to reconnoitre by hanging perilously over the banisters. " She's got red hair," he said. " Red ! " " Go on ! " " All right, you'll tell me carrots are black, next. And she's howling like anything. Didn't I tell you she'd howl ? The hall's all jammed up with her boxes — full of dolls, of course — and her dress, all lace and frippery — ugh ! " Downstairs, the little doctor and his new charge were staring at each other in silence. The doctor, X = ? 31 who could be eloquent enough in his own pulpit, felt quite embarrassed with this little red-haired girl. He had forgotten her name and did not like to ask it, thinking it might hurt her feelings that he had not remembered.

And he wondered nervously whether she would cry again soon, or if she had finished. She had sobbed convulsively while clinging to her father at the last minute, but was quite calm now, and sat with her eyes fixed on the doctor's face, neither speaking nor moving. It was a vivid, brilliant little face with a pair of clear brown eyes, and it was set in a framework of tawny, wonderful hair. It was not absolutely red, as Dick had stated with a boy's blindness to artistic effect ; at least it was not a bit like the idea we usually have of red, not to say " carroty " hair. It was a kind of bright auburn, and looked as if the sunlight had been trapped in its curly, rippling masses. She was eleven, tall for her age, finely made. One could see she would make a splendid woman. Her frock was a delicate blue, lace trimmed, tied with a white soft sash — Dick's " frippery " ; she wore tan-coloured gloves, black silk stockings and expensive shoes.

This is a faithful, correct por trait of her small person as she sat in the doctor's shabby little study, wondering within herself when her new guardian would speak, and when he did speak what he would say. There entered Bertha on the scene. " Timothy Reeves is really dying this time," she said. " You'd better go down at once. Put on your alpaca coat — it's cooler — and don't walk too quickly ; he'll last till you get there, right enough. The boy's waiting for you." " You don't say so, Bertha ? " said the doctor, jumping up. "Dear, dear, this is very sad ; I must go at once." He picked up his hat, which had tumbled on the floor, and began to rummage about his study-table for a prayer-book, muttering all the time, " Dear, dear ; poor old Timothy ; well, we must all go some time. Poor Timothy, poor Timothy."

When he got to the door he remembered Bertha's injunction, came back and exchanged his thick coat for the thin one, and set off again. X = ? 33 He had quite forgotten his young charge's existence ; in fact, he did not think of her again until he was reading the prayers for the sick at Reeves' cottage and saw a little girl there, sitting on a chair in a similar attitude to that other little girl. Bertha, coming in a few minutes after the doctor had gone, and finding the poor child still sitting, looking uncertain what to do, dried her hands — ■ she was doing her washing — led her to the foot of the stairs and, pointing to the door of the den, told her to " go and play with the boys." " It's hard on her, I'll own," she said, going back to her tubs and an obstinately dirty coat of Suds ; " but she'll have to get used to it.

I shall do more harm than good if I interfere any more ; she'll just have to shake down into place the best she can." Up the stairs went the little girl, her feet weighted by an odd kind of nervousness. Few children were less shy than she, but the thought of facing all those boys — her father had said he was not sure, but thought there were about a round dozen of them — was really somewhat oppressing. As she neared the foot of the second flight five heads were hastily withdrawn from the upper banisters, a hollow bump or two, occasioned by the hastiness, and a rueful exclama tion floated down to her, then there was silence. " They were peeping to see what I was like," said the little girl to herself, and laughed. When she reached the door of the den she found all the boys occupying themselves with great industry and indifference.

" I suppose I can come in," she said at last, when a minute passed and she had received no invitation to enter. A swift, whispered altercation took place. You'll have to speak," said Dick to Ted. No, you, there's a good chap," said Ted to Dick. Yes, you, Dick," said Frank. But Dick sawed away assiduously. " Ted's eldest," he said ; " he'll have to." "What'll I say? I can't think of anything" poor Ted said, the nervous colour of self consciousness aflame in his face. " Oh, hurry up ; she will think us rude," whispered Frank. Ted took a half-desperate step for ward. X = ? 35 " Come in," he said ; " won't you sit down ? " Thus adjured the girl took a step into the room ; but it was one thing to be asked to sit down in that place and quite another to find a chair. Three were supporting a piece of flooring-board, necessary to Dick, a fourth had lost a leg, and the fifth was covered with bits of tin and wood.

" How can she, silly ? " said Suds, with his little, squeaky laugh. " That's just like Ted." Frank, being nearest, with one movement of his hand swept the rubbish from the fifth chair and handed it to the visitor. But before she could accept it Suds had bounded across the room and was throwing pirates and cow boys about in all directions. He was red with anger, his light blue eyes blazed. "You'll smash up my loclomotif another time, will you?" he said, actually jumping on the "Midnight Assassin" in his wrath. Then he walked back, picked up the bits of tin and wood and put them on the chair again. But Ted, with much outward calm, lifted him up by the collar and set him kicking and shouting for his " loclomotif," on the high mantelpiece. " The only way to treat him when he's obstreperous," he explained, seeing the admiring look his prowess had excited in the visitor's eyes.