Some Everyday Folk and Dawn | Page 5

no dieting or waiting upon. It is merely a heart trouble, and should it happen to finish me in your house, I will leave ample compensation, and will pay my board and lodging weekly in advance."
"I ain't a money-grubber," she hastened to assure me; "I was only explaining to you."
"I'm only explaining too," I said with a smile; and having arrived at this understanding of mutual straight-going, she intimated that I could inspect a room I might have.
In addition to a couple of detached buildings composed of rooms which during the summer were given to boarders, there were a few apartments in the main residence which were also delivered to this business, and I was conducted to where three in an uneven gable faced west and fronted the river.
"This is my granddaughter Dawn's, and this one is empty, and this one is took by a young party for the winter," said the old dame.
I selected the middle room, as it gave promise of being companionable with those on either hand occupied, and its window commanded an attractive view. A tangled old garden opened on a steep descent to the quiet river, edged with willows and garnished by a great row of red and blue boats rocking almost imperceptibly in the even flow, while a huge placard advertised their business--
BEST BOATS ON THE RIVER TO BE HIRED HERE.
MRS. MARTHA CLAY.
To the right was an imposing bridge, and on the other side of the water, right at the foot of the great range which in the early days had remained so long impassable, lay the quiet old settlement of Kangaroo.
"If you think that room will do, you are welcome to it," continued Mrs. Clay. "Seventeen-and-six a-week without washing--a pound with."
I agreed to the "with washing" terms, so the affable jehu hauled in what luggage I had brought, and at last I was installed at Clay's.
The only thing wanting to complete the incident was the advent of Dawn, but she was nowhere to be seen. As it was only eleven in the morning I sat in my room and waited for her and a cup of tea, but neither were forthcoming. In her own words, Mrs. Clay "was never give to running after people an' lickin' their boots." Eventually, having grown weary of waiting for Dawn and luncheon and other things, I went out on a tour of inspection. First find was a tall dashing girl of twenty-four or thereabouts, dusting the big heavily encumbered "parler" into which my room opened.
"Good morning!" heartily said she.
"Good morning! Are you Dawn?" inquired I.
"Dawn! No. But you might well ask, for it's nothing but Dawn and her doings and sayings and good looks here! You'd think there was no other girl in Noonoon. She won't take it as any compliment to be taken for me."
"Well, she must be something superlative if it would not be a compliment to be taken for you."
"Oh me! I'm only Carry the lady-help--general slavey like, earning my living, only that I eat with the family and not in the kitchen. In the summer they hire a cook and others, but in the winter there are only me and Dawn and the old woman," said this frank and communicative individual in the frank and communicative manner characteristic of the Clay household.
Proceeding from this encounter, I went out the back way past more gardens and irregular enclosures, where under widespreading cedar-trees I found a boy at the hobbledehoy age chopping wood in a desultory fashion, as though to get rid of time, rather than to enlarge the stack of short sticks, were the most imperative object. Driving his axe in tight and holding on to it as a sort of balance, he leant back, effected a passage in his nostrils, and after having regarded me with a leisurely and straightforward squint, observed--
"I reckon you're the new boarder?"
"I reckon so. I reckon you belong to this place."
"Yes, Mrs. Clay, she's my grandma."
"Is that your grandfather?" I inquired, pointing to the old man who had travelled with me on the day of my first visit to the town, and now supporting an outhouse door-post, while a young man with whom he talked leant against the tailboard of a cart advertising that he was the first-class butcher of Kangaroo, and had several other unsurpassable virtues in the meat trade.
"No, he ain't me grandfather, thank goodness he's only me uncle; that's plenty for me."
"Aren't you fond of him?"
"I ain't dying of love for him, I promise you. Old Crawler! He reckons he's the boss, but sometimes I get home on him in a way that a sort of illustrates to his intelligence that he ain't. Ask Dawn. She's the one'll give you the straight tip regarding him."
"Where is Dawn?"
"Oh, Dawn's in the kitchen. She an' Carry does