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She bent over Jim and held him up close to her and rocked herself to and fro. I went to bed and slept till the next afternoon. I woke just in time to hear the tail-end of a conversation between Jim and Brighten's sister-in-law. He was asking her out to our place and she promising to come. 'And now, says Jim, 'I want to go home to "muffer" in "The Same Ol' Fling". 'What? Jim repeated. 'Oh!
But, some time after I brought Jim home from Gulgong, and while I was at home with the team for a few days, nothing would suit Mary but she must go over to Brighten's shanty and see Brighten's sister-in-law. So James drove her over one morning in the spring-cart: it was a long way, and they stayed at Brighten's overnight and didn't get back till late the next afternoon.
Brighten's sister-in-law splashed and spanked him hard hard enough to break his back I thought, and after about half an hour it seemed the end came: Jim's limbs relaxed, he slipped down into the tub, and the pupils of his eyes came down. They seemed dull and expressionless, like the eyes of a new baby, but he was back for the world again. I dropped on the stool by the table.
As I started to go in I heard Brighten's sister-in-law say, suddenly and sharply 'Take THAT away, Jessie. And presently I saw Mrs Brighten go into the house with the black bottle. The moon had gone behind the range. I stood for a minute between the house and the kitchen and peeped in through the kitchen window. She had moved away from the fire and sat near the table.
I never saw such a change in a woman as in Brighten's sister-in-law that evening. She was bright and jolly, and seemed at least ten years younger. She bustled round and helped her sister to get tea ready. She rooted out some old china that Mrs Brighten had stowed away somewhere, and set the table as I seldom saw it set out there.
Then she started to pull grey hairs out of my head and put 'em in an empty match-box to see how many she'd get. She used to do this when she felt a bit soft. I don't know what she said to Brighten's sister-in-law or what Brighten's sister-in-law said to her, but Mary was extra gentle for the next few days. 'Water Them Geraniums'. I. A Lonely Track.
I knew a haggard, worked-out Bushwoman who put her whole soul or all she'd got left into polishing old tins till they dazzled your eyes. I didn't feel inclined for corned beef and damper, and post-and-rail tea. So I sat and squinted, when I thought she wasn't looking, at Brighten's sister-in-law.
But it was this: I'd heard talk, among some women in Gulgong, of a sister of Brighten's wife who'd gone out to live with them lately: she'd been a hospital matron in the city, they said; and there were yarns about her. Some said she got the sack for exposing the doctors or carrying on with them I didn't remember which.
I suppose that's all right, Joe, he said. 'I I beg your pardon. I got thinking of the days when I was courting Mrs Black. Brighten's Sister-In-Law. Jim was born on Gulgong, New South Wales. We used to say 'on' Gulgong and old diggers still talked of being 'on th' Gulgong' though the goldfield there had been worked out for years, and the place was only a dusty little pastoral town in the scrubs.
And at last Mary said, 'Do you know, Joe, why, I feel to-night just just like I did the day we were married. And somehow I had that strange, shy sort of feeling too. The Writer Wants to Say a Word. In writing the first sketch of the Joe Wilson series, which happened to be 'Brighten's Sister-in-law', I had an idea of making Joe Wilson a strong character.
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