  “I never thought it could be so nice,” said Eileen. “I never thought there were so many people in the world,” said Eva. “Why, we must have seen millions and millions and millions to-day!” “The sea was just lovely this morning. I could watch it all day long. We’re going out again the first moonlight night,” said Mollie. “I gave de ole organ man two pennies while you was away,” said Doris, “and he played all the choones I liked best.” “And I gave a penny to the old blind man near the Savings Bank,” said Eva. “And I bought a dear, darling little duck of a lace collar for sixpence,” said Eileen, displaying it. “Oh, I wish I’d saved my pennies for one,” said Doris, regretfully. “Never mind, you enjoyed the music,” said Eileen, consolingly. “Yes, but it’s all over now, and you’ve got the collar and I haven’t got anything.” Every evening they met and talked over the events of the day. They had been in Sydney a month, and were enraptured with all they saw. They had quite run out of a stock of adjectives. Everything was lovely, or beautiful, or great or grand! They had gone to the beaches and gathered great bags of shells. They had dipped in the surf and shouted with glee as the big white-topped waves dashed over them. They had gone to the garden and gallery, and Zoo and picture shows over and over again, and could go through the whole programme cheerfully again, till Mother remonstrated with Uncle. “You are spoiling them. Let them stay in and play in the garden,” she said. But Uncle only smiled. He knew the months of loneliness those little girls had put in in the country, and was determined to give them a feast of enjoyment. “I think Mosman must be the dearest place in all the world,” Mollie would say, as she gazed at the pretty homes nestling in their well-kept gardens. Their cottage was only about five minutes’ walk from the ferry, and when nothing better was on they would race down the hill and watch the boats come in and go out, and talk and wonder about all the people. They became quite familiar little figures on the Mosman wharf—the five of them together—as they sat and criticised and compared notes. They grew quite familiar with the postboy, and told him all about Teddy, and made him wish he was a country mailman. “It’s a wonder you don’t ride round with your letters,” said Eileen. “Ride round? I’d like to see a horse climbing these steps and hills. It’d have to be a different horse to any I’ve ever seen,” answered the post-boy. “Oh, yes, of course!” said Eileen. “I’d forgotten that. You see, up where we live there’s no hills or steps. It’s all as flat as—as the verandah here.” “I wish you’d bring some of your land to Mosman,” grinned the post-boy. They became quite friendly with the tradesmen, too—the baker and butcher and milkman. “It’s so funny to have you all coming here,” confided Eileen, “because up the country we bake our own bread and kill our own sheep, and old Joe milks the cows.” They grew to know the people in the post office, too, as they would call in occasionally to see if a country letter happened to be delayed or missed in the sorting. At first the officials glared at them, but by-and-by they came to know the merry faces of the bush children, and only smiled at their questions. They had only been a week in Mosman when they chummed up with the little boy next door. “I wonder who our neighbors are,” Mollie had said the day after they had arrived and finished unpacking. “I’d love to talk to them.” “Would you?” asked Mamma. “Well, we’ll have to wait a while. Sydney people are different to country; they know so many people that they mightn’t have time for more friends.” “There’s a real nice-looking girl in there I’d love to know,” said Eileen, “and if she doesn’t soon speak I’ll speak to her.” “And we want to know the little boy,” said Doris. A few days later Doris and Baby spoke to the little, well-dressed boy, as he was coming down the steps on his way to school. “Dood-day,” said Doris. “Day,” said Baby. “Good-morning,” said the little boy, politely. “We’se your new neighbors,” said Doris. “Yes,” said the little boy. “And we’se been waiting for you to speak to us. Don’t you speak to new neighbors?” “Oh, I don’t know!” said the little boy. “I want to speak to you, anyhow.” “Did you always live in Sydney?” “Yes, all my life.” “Wasn’t you ever away up in the country, ’undreds and ’undreds of miles?” “No, never!” “Well, that’s where we live.” “Do you?” gasped the little boy. “Oh, do tell us all about it,” he went on, eagerly, and he listened and asked questions till he found he was late for school, and jumped up and seized his books. “Oh, dear, I’m late! Whatever’ll teacher say?” “Oh, leave ole school!” said Doris, quickly, “and come and play with us.” “I can’t. But I’ll come in after school, if Mamma will let me.” “Oh, yes, do! Good-bye—good-bye.” Then a friendship sprang up, and little Willie spent most of his time with his new friends. He could listen for hours and hours about the horses and sheep and rabbits, and he asked such funny questions that the children would scream with laughter. “Oh, Willie! you ought to come up with us, and see it all,” they said one day. “It’ll be all pretty and green now, and you could learn to ride.” “Learn to ride!” Willie closed his eyes for sheer joy at the thought. Would ever such good luck come his way? “Oh! I wonder could I?” he gasped. “’Course you could!” said Doris. “I can ride ole Brownie when she walks slow.” “Sometimes Mamma lets me ride on the baker’s cart up to the Spit Junction, but it’s only very seldom,” he added with a sigh, “and I have to walk back.” “Our horses are better’n the baker’s,” said Doris. “Oh, lots!” said Eva; “an’ you’d soon learn to ride on ole Brownie.” “Oh, dear! do ask Mamma to let me go. Let’s beg and beg and beg, all of us,” pleaded Willie. “All right, we’ll all ask,” they promised. After that he haunted them like a shadow. “Ask yet?” he would say a dozen times a day. At first his Mamma wouldn’t even listen to it. What! let her little boy—her little Willie—go up to that outlandish place hundreds and hundreds of miles away: oh, she couldn’t hear of it! And Willie was heart-broken. “Why, there’s no doctor within miles of your place, is there?” she asked Eileen. “No, we don’t want doctors; nobody ever dies up there.” “Nobody ever dies?” echoed Marcia, Willie’s sister. “No. We’ve seen more funerals since we came to Sydney than we ever saw in our lives. And I believe Mamma only saw about three funerals up there, and she’s been there for years and years!” said Eileen, proudly. “Dear me! However does that happen?” asked Marcia. “Well, you see there’s hardly anyone up there, so I suppose that accounts for some of it,” went on Eileen. “Oh, well! no thanks to them for not dying if there’s no one there,” said Marcia, disdainfully. “I thought there might have been hundreds of people living to be about a thousand.” “Oh! but those that are there don’t die—well, hardly ever, except old Dave and a few more I know of,” went on Eileen. “And if a lot of old people I know keep on living for a long time yet, they’ll very likely be about a hundred when they do die.” But this argument did not move Mrs. Taylor in favor of Willie’s going. One day Willie came in with a very determined face. “I know what! If Mamma doesn’t let me go, I’ll run away!” “What! Run away to sea?” asked Eva, eagerly. “No, run away to the country, up to your place, silly!” “It’s too far to run,” said the practical Doris. “’Course, I don’t mean to run all the way. Whoever heard of such a thing?” “Well, dat’s what you said,” persisted Doris. “Ugh! just like a girl. If you were a lot of boys now, you’d run away with me—just to show ’em that you’re not afraid of anything. I mean to clear out and walk up to your place, and when I’m gone Mamma might be sorry she didn’t let me go with you in the train,” said Willie, almost on the verge of tears; “and I might starve and die on the track,” he went on, with tears of self-pity welling into his eyes. “So you might,” agreed Eva, mournfully. “You just might,” said Doris, ready to cry; “and we’d never see you again, and you’d never see us,” she went on, bursting into tears; “and the dingoes might come and eat you up.” At that Baby cried, too. Then Willie grew grave. “I’ll tell you what!” he said, suddenly struck with a bright idea. “Go and ask Mamma while you’re both crying. Quick—don’t leave off! You cry real hard, Baby!” And up the “next door” steps the two young rascals went, and cried copiously when Willie’s mother opened the door. “Why, my dears, what is wrong?” she asked, in dismay, as she drew them inside. “We—we—wa-nt—Willie,” sobbed Doris. “Want Willie!” echoed Baby, and cried out loudly. “But he’s not at home, my dears. Isn’t he in at your place?” “Ye-es, but we wa-wa-nt him up the country with us, an’ if you do-do-don’t let him come, he’ll—he’ll run away to sea,” went on Doris, getting mixed up in her story; “an’—an’—die on the track—an’—an’ the dingoes’ll eat him all up.” Then Baby roared real genuine tears of distress. “Dear, dear!” said Mrs. Taylor, “he’d never do that, would he?” For she saw through their conspiracy and guessed that Willie was waiting next door, all impatience to hear how his two little champions got on. “Ye-es, he’s goin’ to run away soon,” went on Doris. “An’ he’ll die!” shrieked Baby. Then Willie’s mother talked quietly to them. “Well, well, we’ll see about it. Perhaps I’ll let him go with you, after all.” And then, because Willie’s Mamma had a sense of humor and guessed that her small son was waiting to hear the news, she kept the little girls for quite a time, and gave them lollies and dates, and they quite forgot about Willie waiting to hear the answer. Willie met them with a very angry face when they trudged up their own steps ever so long after. “It’s a wonder you ever came back,” he said, sarcastically. “Did you forget I was waiting? What did she say? Quick!” “She said, she said——” “Go on! what did she say?” “She said p’raps, an’ she’d see. An’ I think she means to let you come.” “Is that all she said, all the time you were in there? ‘P’raps, and she’d see!’ A lot of sense there is in that! Didn’t she say anything else, Baby?” “She gave us lollies.” “Oh, hang the lollies!” cried Willie, in despair. “Did you cry when you got in there, or did you chew lollies?” “But she means to let you come, I do believe, Willie,” said Doris, earnestly. “Oh, yes, Willie! If she said perhaps and she’d see, I think she means to let you go. Another time she wouldn’t listen to us,” put in Eva. “Yes, I believe she means to let me go, too,” said Willie, hopefully. “Oh, if I could only go, I’d stay there months and months!” “You might get lonely,” said Mollie, who had just come in. “No, I wouldn’t get lonely. I’d never get lonely if I stayed there all my life,” said Willie. “And I might stay there all my life, too. I might grow up a big man up there, and I might never come back.” “Might never come back?” asked Eva. “No, I might stay there and help your father with the horses and sheep, and after a while I might buy your place.” “No, you won’t!” said Doris, stoutly. “All right, then—but I might, all the same,” he went on under his breath. “I’ll tell you what!” cried Eileen. “Let’s get Mamma to go in and ask your Mother while she’s thinking about letting you come.” “Oh, yes! let’s ask your Mother to go in right away,” cried Willie. So Mother was persuaded to go and ask, and in the end she won the day. A great friendship had struck up between Eileen and Marcia. Eileen admired Marcia’s dainty dresses and ribbons and hats, and took to copying her. And then they commenced to go out together to little tennis parties, for Marcia had many school friends who had musical evenings and little entertainments, and she always asked Eileen to go with her, and Eileen enjoyed them all immensely. It was nice to sit in the beautiful drawing-rooms and lounges and have ices and salads and coffee handed to you, and to be asked all kinds of questions about country life, and to be considered someone wonderful because you could ride so well, when up the country they took it as a matter of course. And Eileen, like many another girl, began to wish that this kind of life would last for ever. Marcia was kept very busy at school, and had many studies. She was very keen on physical culture, and perhaps some day would become an instructor. She would come in and give demonstrations in Hudsons’ drawing-room or kitchen, and have them all twisting and turning furiously, trying to manage exercises that she could go through so gracefully. Then one day an idea came to Mrs. Taylor. Why not ask Eileen to stay with them, while Willie went to the country? So the question was put, and it was agreed that Eileen would remain for a few months with Marcia. |
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