Seven Little Australians

Seven Little Australians

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Title: Seven Little Australians
Author: Ethel Turner
Release Date: December, 2003 [EBook #4731] [This file was last
updated on October 7, 2003]
Edition: 11
Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVEN
LITTLE AUSTRALIANS ***

This etext was produced by Geoffrey Cowling.

Ethel Turner: Seven Little Australians

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
Chiefly Descriptive II Fowl for Dinner III Virtue Not Always
Rewarded IV The General Sees Active Service V "Next Monday
Morning" VI The Sweetness of Sweet Sixteen VII "What Say You to
Falling in Love?" VIII A Catapult and a Catastrophe IX Consequences
X Bunty in the Light of a Hero XI The Truant XII Swish, Swish! XIII
Uninvited Guests XIV The Squatter's Invitation XV Three Hundred
Miles in the Train XVI Yarrahappini XVII Cattle-Drafting at
Yarrahappini XVIII The Picnic at Krangi-Bahtoo XIX A Pale-Blue
Hair Ribbon XX Little Judy XXI When the Sun Went Down XXII And
Last

To MY MOTHER

Chapter I
Chiefly Descriptive

Before you fairly start this story I should like to give you just a word of
warning.
If you imagine you are going to read of model children, with perhaps; a
naughtily inclined one to point a moral, you had better lay down the
book immediately and betake yourself to 'Sandford and Merton' or
similar standard juvenile works. Not one of the seven is really good, for
the very excellent reason that Australian children never are.
In England, and America, and Africa, and Asia, the little folks may be

paragons of virtue, I know little about them.
But in Australia a model child is--I say it not without thankfulness--an
unknown quantity.
It may be that the miasmas of naughtiness develop best in the sunny
brilliancy, of our atmosphere. It may be that the land and the people are
young-hearted together, and the children's spirits not crushed and
saddened by the shadow of long years' sorrowful history.
There is a lurking sparkle of joyousness and rebellion and mischief in
nature here, and therefore in children.
Often the light grows dull and the bright colouring fades to neutral tints
in the dust and heat of the day. But when it survives play-days and
school-days, circumstances alone determine whether the electric
sparkle shall go to play will-o'-the-wisp with the larrikin type, or warm
the breasts of the spirited, single-hearted, loyal ones who alone can
"advance Australia."
Enough of such talk. Let me tell you about my seven select spirits.
They are having nursery tea at the present moment with a minimum of
comfort and a maximum of noise, so if you can bear a deafening babel
of voices and an unmusical clitter-clatter of crockery I will take you
inside the room and introduce them to you.
Nursery tea is more an English institution than an Australian one; there
is a kind of bon camaraderie feeling between parents and young folks
here, and an utter absence of veneration on the part of the latter. So
even in the most wealthy families it seldom happens that the parents
dine in solemn state alone, while the children are having a simple tea in
another room: they all assemble around the same board, and the young
ones partake of the same dishes, and sustain their parts in the
conversation right nobly.
But, given a very particular and rather irritable father, and seven
children with excellent lungs and tireless tongues, what could you do
but give them separate rooms to take their meals in?
Captain Woolcot, the father, in addition to this division, had had thick
felt put over the swing door upstairs, but .the noise used to float down
to the dining-room in cheerful, unconcerned manner despite it.
It was a nursery without a nurse, too, so that partly accounted for it.
Meg, the eldest, was only sixteen, and could not be expected