Some Everyday Folk and Dawn | Page 5

"Well, this isn't no private hospital, and never pretended to be. Sick
people is a lot of trouble potterin' and fussin' around with. I couldn't, for
the sake of my granddaughter, give her a lot of extra work that wouldn't
mean nothink."
This might have sounded hard, but with some people their very
austerity bespeaks a tenderness of heart. They affect it as a shield or
guard against a softness that leaves them the too easy prey of a
self-seeking community, and such I adjudged Mrs. Clay. Her stiffness,
like that of the echidna, was a spiky covering protecting the most gentle
and estimable of dispositions.
"My ill-health is the sort to worry no one but myself. I need 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,