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"I takes him, and I says to yer pappy, 'Dominie, I knows that ye don't like me nor my Daddy, but here air a brat what air sick to death.... He can't find God by hisself 'cause he air too little, and God won't try and find him if he ain't sprinkled. Will ye do it?" Teola shifted her position, and looked into the squatter's face. It was gleaming with heavenly resolve and uplifted faith.
I have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite. These are all the materials excepting the timber, stones, and sand, which I claimed by squatter's right.
Here and there old trees had been felled the autumn before; or a squatter's roughly-built and decaying cottage had disappeared. Margaret missed them each and all, and grieved over them like old friends. They came past the spot where she and Mr. Lennox had sketched.
Suddenly Lem rose up, stretched his legs, yawned, and said: "I'm goin' out, Lon, and I'll be back in a little while. Ye'd best be a thinkin' of what I said," he cautioned, "and keep yer eyes skinned for travelers." "All right. Don't be gone long, Lem," responded Lon. Fledra was not too abstracted to notice the uneasy tone in the squatter's voice. "Nope; I'm only goin' up the hill."
"Oh, never mind them, Kitty, I'm for work not sport; but come now dry up your tears, and while I am away be sure and make yourself a proficient in housekeeping, because you know, if we succeed in forming a station, as soon as we can get up a decent sort of a 'humpie, and comfortably settled, I will come and fetch you; and know thou, my Kitty darling, if you do not make your brothers as contented as they in their gracious will shall desire, they will publish throughout the length and breadth of the land the short-comings of their pert little sister; and the decree once gone forth that our Kitty is a useless little baggage, and not fit to be a squatter's wife, what will she do then?"
Dick stationed Gable in a convenient tree, with strict orders to cry 'nit' should anybody come in sight from the black clump of fir-trees surrounding the squatter's house. Then he led his party over the fence and along thick lines of currant bushes, creeping under their cover to where the beautiful white-heart cherries hung ripening in the sun.
Lucia went on to mention the things really needed by the squatter's family. Mrs. Costello turned to Bella, "Do you really mean," she asked, "to keep them on the farm after this winter?" "Yes. I certainly shall not allow them to be turned out as long as they like to stay. I am going to have the land cleared and put under cultivation.
Where the weakness of some of Boldrewood's characters is not due to deficiency of interest in them on the part of the author, it is the result of an attempt to copy life with an accuracy which sacrifices picturesqueness. The attempt to preserve absolute truth in every detail of the life-story of John Redgrave, the hero of The Squatter's Dream, seems distinctly a case in point.
"Yer faith wasn't as big as a speck of dirt, then, were it?" she queried. "And maybe mine ain't for Daddy. But the student air a-prayin' for him! It air a damn shame ye ain't got him a-prayin' for yerself and the kid.... Ye'd a seen yer man before now, and the brat would 'a' died, too." With a start caused by the squatter's words, Teola laid the child down, crouching back upon her feet.
The baby called "Flea" leaned over and rubbed the face of the baby called "Flukey," who touched the dimpled little hand with his. Then they both lay down on a rough, low cot in the squatter's home and forgot their baby troubles in sleep.
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