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Updated: May 19, 2025
I got into such a state of nervousness that I would jump at the opening of a door or an unexpected footfall. When cooling down, after having so vigorously delivered Mr M'Swat a piece of my mind, I felt that I owed him an apology. I was a young girl under his charge, and he would have in a measure been responsible had I come to harm through going out in the night.
Often I knelt on the parched ground beneath the balmy summer sky to pray wild passionate prayers that were never answered. I was under the impression that my nightly ramble was not specially noticed by any one, but I was mistaken. Mr M'Swat, it appears, suspected me of having a lover, but was never able to catch me red-handed.
I stamped and addressed these missives, and put them by till a chance of posting should arise. Mr M'Swat could read a little by spelling the long words and blundering over the shorter ones, and he spent the morning and all the afternoon in perusal of the local paper the only literature with which Barney's Gap was acquainted.
I would arrive in Yarnung about twelve or one o'clock on Thursday night, where, according to arrangement, Mr M'Swat would be waiting to take me to a hotel, thence to his home next day. My trunks and other belongings were stowed in the buggy, to which the fat horses were harnessed.
I inquired of Mr M'Swat which was the liveliest time of the year, and being told it was shearing and threshing, I opened one first in November: November 1896 1st. Fine. Started to muster sheap. 2nd. Fine. Counten sheap very dusty 20 short. 3rd. Fine. Started shering. Joe Harris cut his hand bad and wint hoam. 4th. Showery. Shering stoped on account of rane.
When I got well I must come back, and I wouldn't have as much work to do, but go for more rides to keep well, and so on. With a kindly light on his homely sunburnt face, M'Swat said, as he put me on the train: "Sure, tell yer father he needn't worry over the money. I'll never be hard on him, an' if ever I could help ye, I'd be glad." "Thank you; you are very good, and have done too much already."
My door opened with the dining-room, and from my bed I could see the proceeding. Mr M'Swat hitched his trousers well through the saddle-strap which he always wore as a belt, took off his coat and folded it on the back of a chair, rolled his shirt-sleeves up to his elbows, pulled his hat well over his eyes, and "shaped up" to the writing material, none of which met with his approval.
That letter wiped away ever vestige of my appetite for the dainties before me. M'Swat's! Send me to M'Swat's! I could not believe it! It must be a nightmare! M'Swat's! Certainly, I had never been there; but all those who had gave graphic descriptions of the total ignorance of Mrs M'Swat. Why, the place was quite tabooed on account of its squalor and dirt!
Setting the table was a mere sinecure, as there was nothing much to put on it; and the only ironing was a few articles outside my own, as Mr M'Swat and Peter did not wear white shirts, and patronised paper collars. Mrs M'Swat did the washing and a little scrubbing, also boiled the beef and baked the bread, which formed our unvaried menu week in and week out.
Mrs M'Swat returned carrying the tea, which was spilling by the way. She gave those boys each a clout on the head which dispersed them roaring like the proverbial town bull, and alarmed me for the safety of their ear-drums. I wondered if their mother was aware of their having ear-drums.
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