Some Everyday Folk and Dawn | Page 4

it being late afternoon, the railway employés, as they came
off duty, were streaming towards it for the purpose of "wetting their

whistle" after their eight-houred day's work.
Leaving the misguided fellows thus worse than ignorantly refreshing
themselves, and the tin kangaroos showing that the breeze was from the
east, I travelled farther west to a summer resort in the cool altitude,
there to await from Mrs Martha Clay a recall to the vale of melons.
That I would get one I was sure, and so little was there in my life that
even this prospect lent a zest to the mail each day.
I had neither relatives nor friends. Fate had apportioned me none of the
former, and fierce, absorbing endeavour had left little time for
cultivating the latter, while pride made me hide from all acquaintances
who had known me standing amid the plaudits of the crowd--strong
and successful; and fiercely desiring to be left to myself, I shrank with
sensitive horror from the sympathy that is only careless pity.

TWO.
AT CLAY'S.
The long hot days gave place to cooler and shorter, and there was none
left of the beautiful fruit--peaches, apricots, figs, plums, nectarines,
grapes, and melons--which, for want of a market, had rotted ankle-deep
in some parts of the fertile old valley of Noonoon ere I received a
communication from Mrs. Clay.
"If you think it worth your while you can investigate my place now. All
the summer weather folk has gone. I would only take one or two nice
people now that would live with us in our own plain way and who
would be company for the family, so I could not undertake to give you
a separate parlour and table and carry on that way, but if you like to call
and see me, please yourself."
Accordingly, I lost no time in once more patronising the town 'busman,
and being his only patron that day, he rattled me past the tin kangaroo
weather-cocks, the battered corner pub. and its colleague a few doors
on, and entering the principal street where Jimmeny's Hotel filled the

view, turned to the right across fertile flats held in tenure by patient
Chinese gardeners.
Being a region of quick growth, it was of correspondingly rapid decay,
and the season of summer fruits had been entirely superseded by
autumn flowers. The vale of melons was now a valley of
chrysanthemums, and with a little specialisation in this branch of
horticulture could easily have out-chrysanthemumed Japan. Without
any care or cultivation they filled the little gardens on every side;
children of all sizes were to be seen with bunches of them; while
discarded blossoms lay in the streets, after the fashion of the
superabundant melons and orchard fruits during their season.
About a mile from the station we halted before a ramshackle old
two-storey house that was covered by roses and hidden among orange
and fig trees. The approach led through an irregular plantation of cedar
and pepper trees, pomegranates and other shrubs, and masses of
chrysanthemums and cosmos that flourished in every available space.
The friendly 'busman directed me to a gable sheltered by a yellow
jasmine-tree, where I tapped on the door with my knuckle. Footsteps
approached on the inside, and after some thumping and kicking on its
panels it was burst open by a nimble old lady in immaculate gown, with
carefully adjusted collar, and wavy hair combed back in a tidy knot and
with still a dark shade in it.
"Them blessed white ants!" she exclaimed. "They've very near got the
place eat down, so that you have to make a fool of yourself opening the
door, and that blessed feller I sent for hasn't come to do 'em up yet; but
some people!" She finished so exasperatedly that I felt impelled to state
my name and business without delay, and with a prim "Indeed," she led
the way across a narrow linoleumed hall, so beeswaxed that one had to
stump along carefully erect.
She invited me to a chair in a stiff room and began--
"I've only got another young lady in the place now, and if you come
you'll have to eat with the family."

I considered this an attraction.
"And there'll be no fussing over you and pampering you, for I'm not
reduced to keeping boarders out of necessity. They ain't all I've got to
depend on," she said with a fiery glance from her choleric blue-grey
eyes.
"Certainly not; I'm sure of that by your style, Mrs. Clay."
"But of course I like to make a little; this Federal Tariff has rose the
price of living considerable," she said, softening somewhat as we now
sat down on the formidable and well-dusted seats.
"But I believe you are somethink of a invalid."
"Unfortunately, yes."