CHAPTER III

“I almost feared I’d lost my little Bush mate.”

CHAPTER III

Yet long ago it was promised by Someone,Who lovingly help for the children implored,That if only you gave one a cup of cold water,You surely in no wise should lose your reward!

Yet long ago it was promised by Someone,

Who lovingly help for the children implored,

That if only you gave one a cup of cold water,

You surely in no wise should lose your reward!

—John Sandes.

I’VE an idea,” Mr. Linton said, putting down his morning paper.

Four faces gave him instant attention. It was breakfast time, and plans for the day were being discussed, a trifle lazily, as befitted people unused to over-night dissipation.

“We—ell,” said the squatter, and hesitated.

“You have lovely ideas, always, Dad,” Norah told him, kindly. “Tell us.”

“I don’t know that you’ll regard this one as lovely,” said her father. “Still, I’d like to do it.”

“Well, then, it’ll be done,” said Jim, with finality. “What is it, Dad?”

“If you keep up this mystery any longer, I won’t be able to bear it, Mr. Linton,” said Wally, much moved. “Prithee, sir——”

David Linton smiled.

“The mystery’s a tame one, you’ll think,” he said. “I thought of my plan before I left home—old Brownie has been knitting a big bundle for the Children’s Hospital, and she gave me the things to bring down. Then there’s a letter in this paper about the hospital. It’s getting near Christmas, you see; and I don’t suppose those little sick youngsters have much of a good time. Would you all think it a very slow sort of entertainment if we went to see them?” He looked round the four young faces—a little afraid of seeing their eagerness die out.

But Wally smiled broadly, leaning forward.

“I think it’s a ripping idea, sir,” he said. “I guess we all like kids, don’t we, chaps?”

The “chaps,” who evidently included the ladies of the party, assented with enthusiasm.

“Tell us more, Dad,” Norah said, “I know you’ve more plan.”

“Well—I’m open to suggestions,” her father answered. “We won’t go empty-handed; we can take up toys and books and things. It isn’t visiting day at the hospital. In any case, I think it would be better not to go at a crowded time. If I telephone to the Matron, I fancy she will let us come; and she can tell me something about the number of children. I—I’m a shocking bad hand at preaching, you know”—he hesitated, gaining encouragement from their friendly faces—“but—well, we’re looking out for a pretty good time ourselves, and it wouldn’t hurt us to share some of it.”

“But I think it will be tremendous fun, won’t it, Jean?” Norah said. To which Jean nodded vigorous acquiescence.

“Then we’ll get it done at once,” said Mr. Linton. “You can put your four wise heads together, and consult as to what we’re to take up—I don’t know what sick youngsters like.”

“That’s half the fun,” said Norah, happily. “Isn’t it, Jean?” And Jean nodded.

“Then I’ll go and telephone,” said the squatter; “by which time you hungry people may have finished breakfast—unless you mean to make this meal run into lunch, as doesn’t seem unlikely!” He made his escape, Norah regretting deeply that hotel etiquette prevented her from reprisals.

He joined them, a little later, in the lounge, where big leather-covered chairs and tall palms made a cool retreat in the hottest days.

“If there’s a more exasperating institution than the Melbourne telephone, I have yet to find it out,” said he. “I’ve been standing in that small Black Hole of Calcutta that they call a telephone box until I nearly died of asphyxiation, and all the response I could elicit was from a frenzied person who sounded like a dressmaker, and wanted to know desperately if I would have tucks on the bodice! However, I got the hospital at last, and we can go up when we like. So that means a busy morning. How soon can you girls be ready?”

“Three minutes, Dad!”

“Amazing women!” said Mr. Linton, regarding them with much respect. “I suppose, in a year or two, Norah, you’ll keep me waiting while you put on your hat; but at present you’re certainly an ornament to your sex in that respect. The car will be here in a few moments, so hurry up!”

The motor hummed up to the gate of the hospital a little later—a heavy gate, set in a high stone wall, behind which towered grim buildings. A neat maid admitted them to a wide corridor, with white walls and shining floor, where the Matron, white-gowned and gentle, welcomed them.

“No sweets, of course?” she queried, glancing at their parcels.

“No; we were afraid to bring them.”

The Matron nodded approval.

“Some children can have them,” she said. “But very many cannot, and there is no use in causing disappointments by making any difference. If you only knew how hard it is to make the mothers understand!”

“Poor souls!” said Mr. Linton. “I suppose they are keen to bring them something of a treat.”

“Yes—and one is sorry for them. But the risk to the children is very great—only they won’t believe it, and many of them think we are hard-hearted monsters. We always question the mothers as to what they are bringing the children, and watch them carefully; but even so, they manage to smuggle things past us. We had a dear little boy here in the winter—a typhoid patient, just pulling round after a very bad time. Of course he was on strict liquid diet, and equally, of course, he was very hungry.”

“Poor kid!” said Jim, sympathetically.

“That’s what his mother thought. So she smuggled him in two large jam tarts in her muff, and bent over him so as to hide him while he ate them.”

“And did they hurt him?”

“They would have killed him. Luckily Nurse became suspicious, and caught him, as she said, ‘on the first bite.’ She rescued every crumb from his mouth, and nearly choked him in the process. But if she had not we couldn’t have saved him.”

“And what did the mother say?”

“The mother? Oh, she said that Nurse was ’an in’uman brute,’ and nearly fell on her, tooth and nail. You can’t teach them. Many of them are terribly poor—but they will spend a few pence on some cheap and dreadful sweetmeat, or a cake that looks—and often is—absolutely poisonous, and expect to be allowed to watch a sick baby eat it. Visiting day has many anxieties!”

Something called the busy Matron away as they reached the first ward, and they hesitated in the doorway. It was a long, bright room, cheery with sunlight and gay with flowers and plants, while the red bed jackets made bright notes of colour against the white quilts. Many of the boys were sitting up, working or playing at boards that fitted across their cots to serve as tables. Others were lying quietly, and very often could be seen the structure beneath the bedclothes that speaks mutely of hip disease. There were framed placards over many cots, stating whose gift they had been; perhaps raised by the efforts of children, or given by some sad mother in memory of a little child. Looking down the long rows of bright faces it was hard to realize that they were all sick boys—that Pain lived in the ward night and day.

In one cot a little lad was crying softly—a tired cry, as if afraid of disturbing others. The nurse bending over him straightened up, patted his shoulder, said, “Be a good boy, now, Tommy!” and came to greet the visitors.

“You mustn’t mind the little chap who cries,” she told them. “His leg is hurting, poor man. He won’t speak to any one.”

The eyes that were buried deep in the pillow were the only pair that were not turned upon the group in the doorway. The hospital children knew nothing about the Billabong invasion; only the nurses had been told of the unusual offer that had come over the telephone that morning. It seemed to the Matron a little uncertain, peculiar; better, perhaps, not to excite the children by anticipation.

But the first glimpse of the newcomers was sufficient—the children of the very poor are not slow brained. Something like a thrill of delight ran through the ward. There was no mistaking these people—happy-faced and well-dressed, and laden with fascinating parcels that could only mean one kind of thing. The eyes were very bright, watching from the cots.

It was a surgical ward, and most of the inmates looked happy. Life is not at all unbearable when you are a surgical case. To be a “medical” means headaches, and fevers, and soaring temperatures, and other unpleasant things. You are not allowed to eat anything interesting, and you frequently desire only to keep extremely quiet. But the “surgicals” know fairly well what to expect. Pain comes, of course—plenty of it; and the daily visits of the doctors are apt to leave you a bit short of self-control, even if you bite the pillow extremely hard in your efforts to show that there is decent pluck in you. But after a time you forget that. The ache in your leg, or your back, or your hip, or perhaps all over you, becomes part of the programme, and you learn to put up with it; and there is much of interest with other “cases” to talk to, songs to sing, and games that the sick can play—and nurses who are often very jolly and delightful. The nurse in this ward was little and dark and merry, and the boys called her “Brown Eyes.” She had a knack of helping you through almost any pain.

She welcomed the newcomers cheerily now, though her eyes were a little tired. Behind her the faces were alight with silent eagerness.

“Can we talk to them?” Norah asked, shyly.

“Why, of course!” said the nurse. “You’ll find most of them great chatterboxes—except little Tommy there. His pain is bad to-day.”

The boys were quite ready to talk. They told all about themselves glibly, with a full appreciating of their value as “cases.”

“I had a daisy of a temp’rature, I had!” said a cheerful soul of nine. “Doctor he came three times a day. Better now.”

“Mine’s a leg,” volunteered another. “Broke—a cart runned over me. They brought me up from South Gippsland—sledge first, and then in the guard’s van.” He shivered—a reminiscent shudder. “Sledge was a fair cow!—bumped till I went an’ fainted with the pain.” He gave other details that set Jean and Norah shuddering, too. “But the guard’s van wasn’t half bad fun—y’see, I hadn’t never been in a train before. My word, that guard was a kind man! Went an’ bought me oranges with his own money!”

“Oh, I’m near right again,” a merry-faced little Jewish lad told them. “Had me stitches taken out this morning—an’ I never howled!”

“Well, I did then,” said his neighbour, sturdily, “I don’t think getting unpicked is any fun. But it don’t take long, that’s one thing.” The other boy grinned at him in an understanding fashion. “Y’see, he’s two years younger’n me,” he told Norah. “He’s only a bit of a nipper!”

Tommy alone declined to make friends. He burrowed into his pillow when they came to him, and refused to show so much as the tip of his nose. The sound of his sorry little wail followed them over the ward.

“Don’t mind him,” the nurse told the girls, as they turned away from the cot, with downcast faces. “He’ll be better after a while, and then he’ll be delighted with his presents. He’s homesick, poor mite.” They went on down the ward.

Jim turned back presently. He sat down near Tommy’s cot and took out a toy watch that had beautiful qualities in the way of winding. But he did not offer it to Tommy. Instead he sat still, dangling it from his fingers.

“Had a sick leg myself, once,” he remarked casually, apparently to the watch. As might have been expected, the watch made no response; neither did the black head burrowed in the pillow turn at all.

“Hurt it falling off a horse,” Jim went on. “At least, the horse fell too. Tried to jump a log on him—and he shied at a snake lying on the top of the log.”

The boy in the next cot was listening with all his ears. Tommy’s low crying had stopped.

“Big black snake,” said Jim. “Must have scared him a bit when he saw the horse rising. At any rate he slid off like fun—and my old horse shied badly, and went over the log in a somersault. Landed on his head, and pitched me about fifteen yards away!”

“Was you much hurt?” The boy in the next cot shot out an irrepressible question.

Jim was not in a hurry to answer. The black head was turning ever so little towards him, but he did not seem to see. He played with the watch in an absent-minded fashion.

“Hurt my leg,” he said at length. “I managed to catch the old horse, because he put his foot through the bridle, and hobbled himself; and I got on by a log and rode home. Didn’t jump any more fences though. And when I got home I couldn’t stand on that leg. Had to be lifted off. Makes you feel an ass, doesn’t it?”

The question was for the now visible Tommy, but Jim did not wait for an answer.

“Then I had to lie still for days,” he said. “My word, I did hate it! I feel sorry for any chap with a sick leg. It’s so jolly hard to keep still when you don’t feel like it.”

Something in the low, deep voice helped the little lad in the cot, with sore mind and body. This very large brown person understood exceedingly well.

“But legs get better,” said Jim. “After a while you forget all about them, and play cricket again, and go in for no end of larks.”

He shifted his position, still fingering the watch.

“The man that sold me this said it would go,” he said. “It’s got works all right, and I know it can tick, because he made it. But I’m blessed if I can get the hang of it!” For the first time he looked squarely at Tommy. “I suppose you couldn’t give me a hand with it?” he asked, casually. He held out the watch.

A small finger advanced about an inch, and the watch came nearer until it was within touching distance.

“Thanks, awfully,” Jim said. “I ought to be able to get it going now.” He fumbled with the stem Tommy had indicated. “No—I can’t! I don’t know what’s the matter with the silly thing.”

“Me!” said Tommy, with a great effort. It was hard to speak; but harder to lie silent, knowing quite well that you could extricate this other fellow from his difficulties. And so well Tommy knew where that watch ought to be wound.

“Well, perhaps you’d better,” said Jim, with relief. He handed over the offending watch. “I suppose it’s because mine’s a different make,” he said, drawing out his own. “See—mine winds so-fashion. I wouldn’t mind betting you can’t get a tick out of that one of yours.”

“Mine?” said an infinitesimal voice.

“Yes—it’s yours, of course. A pity you can’t make it go. Oh, by Jove, you have!” He bent over the cot, his brown face alight with interest. “However did you do it?”

Five minutes later, when the Billabong party were ready to leave the ward, Jim and his patient were deep in a discussion of watches. Once a weak little laugh rang out from the cot, and the nurse looked round quickly.

“That’s the first time that poor little chap has laughed,” she said.

Jim stood up, at last, and held out his hand.

“They’re waiting for me,” he said. “Well, so long, old chap. Buck up!”

Tommy shook the big hand solemnly.

“So long,” he said. He made a great effort to speak. “Is—is you’ leg quite well?”

“Quite well, old man. So will yours be if you keep your pecker up. Promise!”

Tommy nodded. His eyes followed the tall lad out of the room. Then he slipped his hand under his pillow for his watch, and lo, there was a pocket knife as well. And the boy in the next cot had one, too—so that presently they were friends. And something had taken the worst of the ache away from his leg.

It was Wally’s voice that guided Jim to the next ward.

Wally had been entrusted with a number of toy balloons, and in detaching one for an enthusiastic person of three with a broken ankle, he had let it slip through his fingers. A draught of wind took it down the ward—and Wally, hastily thrusting the others upon Mr. Linton, had pursued it frantically, his feet sliding on the smooth boards. The ward broke into a sudden shout of laughter.

Luckily, the string was long. It kept the balloon from rising quite to the ceiling; and just at the end of the room, Wally gave a wild leap into the air and caught the dangling end, uttering a school war cry as he did so. He brought it back in triumph, laughing; and the patients, evidently considering him a kind of circus let loose for their especial entertainment, shrieked with joy. The nurses were laughing as well, with an eye on the door lest an inquiring matron should appear. Hospital decorum was at a low ebb.

“I really don’t think you’re the kind of visitor to bring to a place like this,” laughed Mr. Linton. “Will you ever have sense, Wally?”

“Don’t know,” said the culprit, sadly. “It doesn’t look very like it, does it? But aren’t they a jolly set of kids!” He broke into smiles again. “Takes such a little to make ’em happy, doesn’t it?”

It did not seem to take much. All the watching faces were smiling and eager; if some were white and lined with suffering they hid it bravely with smiles. These were girls, short cropped, occasionally, and looking just like the boys; or with long hair carefully braided to be out of the way. There were little touches of adornment here and there—a bright ribbon in the hair, a flower pinned to the red bed jacket; and dolls were visible on many beds.

But when she talked to them, Norah found that these small people were not as care-free as the boys. They brought their worries with them to the hospital.

“I simply got to get home soon,” one little girl told her. She was ten, with an old, worn face. “Daddy was here yes’day, an’ he says me mother’s sick—an’ there’s only me to look after the kids!”

“How many?” asked Norah.

“Four. The youngest’s not a year old yet, an’ he’s a reg’lar handful.”

“But you can’t look after them!” Jean protested.

The child stared.

“Well, I done it nearly all me life,” she said. “Mother, she goes out washin’, an’ I run the house—y’see, I got a doctor’s c’tificate that I needn’t go to school, ’cause of me hip, so that leaves me plenty of time. An’ then me jolly old hip must go an’ get worse on me! An’ now Mum’s sick.” Her lip quivered. “I don’t see how on earth they’re goin’ to get on if I don’t go home!” she said anxiously. “Do you think you could say somethin’ to Matron? An’ then, perhaps, she could put in a word for me with Doctor!”

Norah promised; it was hard to deny the pleading of the great brown eyes. But when, later on, she found her opportunity, the Matron shook her head.

“Poor little soul!” she said, sadly. “She does not know that she will never go out.”

“Not go out?” Norah stared.

“No; she has been here five months, and it is quite hopeless. And it is better so—she could never be strong.” The Matron patted Norah’s shoulder, looking gently at her aghast face. “You don’t know how many there are for whose sake we are glad when the end comes,” she said.

Out on the broad balconies many children were lying—there seemed no corner in all the great building that was not full of patients. One verandah had babies’ cradles only—such weary, old-looking babies that Norah could scarcely bear to look at them; it was so altogether extraordinary and terrible to her, that a baby could possibly look as did these mites from the slums. That was the saddest part of all the hospital.

Then there were medical wards, into some of which they could not go; they left their parcels with the nurses, since David Linton had planned that every child in the hospital should have a gift from his children. Some of these small patients were too ill to be disturbed. There were one or two beds round which a screen was drawn significantly, and the children near the screens were very quiet. But even where sickness or pain was hardest, there was but little complaining, and very seldom did a child cry. The children of the poor soon learn to suffer in silence.

“But they don’t all suffer,” said the nurse the boys called “Brown Eyes.” “Most of them are happy—and it hurts, sometimes, to see how many hate to go home. You see, many of the homes are so poor and comfortless—not even a decent bed. They dread going back, after having been cared for here—they know their mothers haven’t time or money to look after them properly. But there are always more waiting to come in—we have to send them out as soon as possible.”

The Billabong children were very silent as the motor whirred through the busy streets, and back to the hotel. Even Wally was quiet; he stared before him, whistling under his breath, in an absent-minded fashion. And Norah looked at Jim’s long legs, thinking of the crippled limbs that were so ordinary in the hospital day’s work.

But back in the hospital the tongues wagged freely. It would be very long before the Billabong visit was forgotten.

“Weren’t they jolly—just!”

“Didn’t they speak nice!”

“That long feller with the thin face—wasn’t he a hard case?”

“Them little girls wasn’t dressed a bit swell—they was only in print frocks. My best dress ain’t print—it’s Jap. silk!”

“They lef’ us lovely things. An’ the man said they was our very own. I’m goin’ to take my doll home to Myrtle when I go out!”

“They left brightness wherever they went,” said little “Brown Eyes”—who was not usually poetical. “I’m not even tired to-night!”

In the boys’ surgical ward, after the lights were out, there was still talking—it had been a great day, and excitement yet seethed. Little Tommy was silent. He had fallen asleep, one hand thrust beneath his pillow, where the watch had gone to sleep, too. The other hand held his new knife in a tight, hot clasp. There was the shadow of a smile on his thin little face. One might fancy that he had found his way to a Dream Country, where there were no crippled boys any more.

CHAPTER IV

A land of open spaces,Gaunt forest, treeless plain;And if we once have loved it.We must go back again.

A land of open spaces,

Gaunt forest, treeless plain;

And if we once have loved it.

We must go back again.

—Dorothea Mackellar.

WE haven’t too much time,” said Mr. Linton, looking at his watch.

The motor was standing before the door of the hotel. Norah and Jean were tucked into the back seat, knitting their brows over a lengthy shopping list. It was their last day in the city. Already, visions of Billabong and its welcome were making Norah seethe with an excitement that promised ill for the success of her purchases.

A clatter of feet upon the steps of the hotel, announced the arrival of Jim and Wally. They swung themselves on board; the chauffeur did mysterious things to the car, and in a moment they were gliding down Bourke Street. They crossed the Yarra over Princes Bridge, where, looking westward, the river seemed full of ships, and the wharves hummed like a hive of bees. A big inter-State liner was nosing her way gently up the centre of the stream, as if looking for an anchorage; they could see the passengers clustering on her decks, glad of the end of the journey. Something of the romance that never fails to cling about ships made the dingy old river beautiful.

“I remember,” said Wally, dreamily, “many a time——”

“In your long-dead youth?” asked Jim.

“In the early Forties, he means,” put in Mr. Linton. “Don’t disturb his eloquence.”

“My inborn respect for your father prevents my saying what I would like to both of you,” said the victim. “Anyhow, I remember——”

“Full well,” said Norah, with emotion.

“Oh, get out, you Linton tribe!” ejaculated the harassed one. “I’m talking to Jean.”

“Why?” queried Jean, unexpectedly. Mirth ensued at the expense of Wally.

“Never mind, Wally, old man,” said his host. “Mention what you remember.”

“I’ve nearly forgotten it now,” Wally answered, much aggrieved. “I believe I was pretty close to being poetical—that blessed old river always sets me thinking. Ever so many times I’ve landed there on a Monday morning, coming down from Brisbane; and I used to be such a homesick little shrimp. It was always a struggle to get off the oldBombala. I was great chums with the captain, and he made the old boat seem like a bit of home. Also, I never was sea-sick in her!”

“No wonder you loved her,” said Jean, fervently. She shuddered, with painful recollections of the voyage from New Zealand.

“Oh, she’s an old beauty—she can’t roll, I believe,” Wally answered. “Or if she can, she isn’t let—so it’s all the same. Anyway, I never liked leaving her and wending my lonely way down to school. There’s the old shop now!”

They had swung round across St. Kilda Road, and were running up Alexandra Avenue—on one side the river, and on the other trim gardens leading towards the trees of the Domain and the massed green of the Botanical Gardens. Beyond—Wally had spoken more by faith than by sight—the grey stone of the Grammar School, mantled in ivy, stood lonely, bereft of its usual cheerful hordes. Nearer, Government House loomed up, its square tower crowned with a fluttering flag, silhouetted against the summer sky; and the Queen’s Statue looked calmly towards the city. All the rocky slopes towards the gardens were clothed with creeping plants, now a sheet of vivid colour. A boy in a skiff was lazily pulling up-stream, his pale blue sweater a bright spot on the brown river; and motor boats were chugging gently down towards Melbourne, to lie off Princes Bridge. Across the stream a woman had come down to the water’s edge and raised an imperious hail of “Ferry!” and in answer, a battered old boat was putting off from a little landing, sculled by a very ancient mariner. It was all very peaceful and leisurely—a sharp contrast to the other side of the bridge, where the crowded wharves and shipping made the river a busy place either by day or night.

They turned south presently, and were soon slowing down amid the traffic of Chapel Street—that lesser Melbourne where the shops are always crowded, and where there are inhabitants who have never found it necessary to take the four miles’ journey into the city itself. Apparently it was the happy hunting ground of the baby. There were perambulators everywhere, propelled by busy suburban mothers, intent on bargain finding. Very often each perambulator held two babies, and perhaps a bigger child perched precariously upon a wooden step, and occasionally fell off. They all seemed well accustomed to shopping—the mothers had no fears about leaving them near the doorways while they sought the counters within. This frequently led to a glut of perambulators and a block in the traffic, and caused great wrath on the part of childless pedestrians—unavailing wrath, since the mothers were out of reach and the babies blissfully unconcerned. They ate biscuits contentedly, and favoured the world with a bland stare, except when their presence caused a disturbance of traffic, when they appeared to regard life as a stupendous joke, and laughed greatly. Norah found them very fascinating, and was with difficulty withdrawn from inspecting a cheerful pair of twins when the sterner necessities of shopping demanded her consideration.

To make Christmas purchases in a Christmas crowd is an exercise demanding patience and tact, coupled with more business acumen than is ordinarily the lot of the country-bred shopper. The Billabong tribe found their stock of all these admirable qualities running low long before their own vague desires were satisfied, together with Brownie’s long list of commissions for the station. The shop was packed with busy people, each intent on errands like their own, and, apparently, in as great a hurry. Norah wondered if up-country express trains were waiting for them all, so wild and eager did they seem, and if she also looked as distraught; arriving at the conclusion that if she appeared as harassed as she felt she would certainly attract attention, even in that hurrying throng!

They parted company, since it was easier to work through the crowd singly than “to hunt in packs,” as Wally put it; and after a time Norah emerged upon the pavement outside, a little breathless, her arms full of parcels. Behind her could be caught glimpses of the interior—a huge place, with tables and counters in every direction, behind which stood hot and tired assistants endeavouring to obtain the wants of twelve people at once. The shop seemed full of children. Upstairs was a big display of mechanical toys and other Christmas delights, and it seemed that half of younger Melbourne had been brought to see the fun by devoted mothers and aunts. In one corner a gentleman who might have been four was evidently mislaid by his guardians. He stood, a figure of bitter woe in a white sailor suit, rending the air with his howls; and a very tall and gorgeous shop walker, who bent double in an attempt to soothe him, was routed with great slaughter. Then, from afar, came the mother, thrusting her way ruthlessly through the crowd in answer to her son’s voice. She had, presumably, heard those yells before. She gathered him up hurriedly, and withered the shop walker with a glance, clearly suspecting him of a wish to kidnap the lost one. The shop walker retreated, pondering on the ways of the world.

Near a counter devoted to what is vaguely known as haberdashery, Jean fought vainly for the right to purchase. Norah could catch an occasional glimpse of her square, blue-clad shoulders and the fair hair under her sailor hat. It was all too evident that she was not happy. People jostled her hither and thither, elbowing her away from the counter when it seemed that success was within her grasp. The assistants had no time for short people, when so many ladies, dressed like the Queen of Sheba, demanded their attention. Jean was not a pushing person, and only a person of push had any hope of catching the eye of the presiding goddesses. So she fought unavailingly, and Norah watched her, half in laughter and half in doubt as to whether she should go to her assistance.

From another part of the shop appeared Wally, shot out of the crowd in the manner of a stone from a catapult. He was propelled past Norah, tucked into a corner of the doorway, where she was out of the way of the throng that met in the entrance, fighting with equal vigour for exit and admittance. Seeing him thus fleeting from her vision, Norah gave a low and wholly involuntary whistle—and was forthwith overcome with confusion at her unmaidenly behaviour. Wally, however, was not given to criticism. He accepted the signal gratefully, and turned back.

“Thank goodness you whistled!” he uttered, pushing his straw hat off his forehead. “I’d never have found you if you hadn’t. Great Scot, Nor., did you ever see anything like it!”

“Never,” said Norah, fervently. “Is it always like this?”

“Pretty well—when it’s near Christmas. There ought to be a law to make people who can shop early finish by the middle of December—then they’d leave a little space for poor wretches like us, who don’t get away from school. Thank goodness, I’m about done—though I don’t in the least know what I’ve bought. How about you?”

“Finished,” said Norah, with brief thankfulness.

“Well, you ought to be,” said Wally, surveying her load. “Women were given eight fingers and two thumbs, so that they could hang parcels on each! I think you’ve done pretty well, young Norah. Where’s Jean?”

“Oh, Jean’s having a horrible time!” Norah answered, much concerned for the fate of her chum. “I wish you’d go and see if you could help her, Wally—you see, she’s so short, and she can’t get fixed up. I’ll hold your parcels.”

“I feel like a knight errant,” said Wally, handing over many bundles. “It takes no common order of courage to tackle that maëlstrom after having escaped from it once. However, with a damsel in distress it’s got to be, I suppose. Sure you can hold ’em all, Nor.? Where is the hapless wight I’ve to rescue?”

“She’s over there—you can get glimpses of her hat,” Norah said. “At the haberdashery place.”

“I’ve always wondered what that meant,” Wally said. “It’s got a sporting sort of sound about it, hasn’t it? Now, I’ll find out, I suppose, and probably my young illusions will be dashed to the ground—it really sounds the kind of place to buy polo sticks, but I don’t fancy that’s Jean’s business. Well, here goes! Oh, by Jove! She’s coming, Norah!”

Jean came, very red and indignant, with a knitted brow.

“I’ve had a perfectly awful time!” she gasped. “There isn’t an unbruised bit of me! And I can’t get what I want—I’ve been trying for ages to buy a belt buckle, and all the horrid woman has sold me is curling pins!” She held out a small parcel tragically. “And I don’t even use them!” she finished—whereat her hearers shrieked unsympathetically.

“Oh, Wally, go and make them take them back,” Norah begged, recovering calmness. “Go with him, Jean, and show him the buckle you want—he’ll manage it.”

“Not for me, thank you,” said her chum decisively. “I wouldn’t plunge in there for forty-eight buckles! I’ll go to another shop and try. What am I going to do with those horrible pins? They were sixpence!”

“They mustn’t be wasted,” said Wally, with solemn joy. “I’ll buy ’em from you, Jean, and put ’em in Jim’s sock for Christmas. He’ll be so pleased!” He pocketed the pins and repossessed himself of his own parcels. “I’d never have had the pluck to go and buy those things,” he said, “but the beautiful instinct of friendship tells me that they’re the articles for which my soul has longed for Jimmy!”

“Take care—he’s coming!” Norah laughed. They greeted Jim with an air of innocence that would certainly have failed to deceive any one less heated and annoyed than that worthy.

“What a place to be out of!” he ejaculated. “And some people go shopping for fun! Where’s Dad?”

“Coming,” Norah said, watching her father’s tall head in the crowd. “He likes it about as much as you do, Jimmy, judging by his expression.” She smiled at Mr. Linton as he fought his way up to them. “Ready, Dad?”

“Yes, thank goodness!” said her father. “Come along—here’s the car. Now, there’s a poor soul!”

He stopped, looking at a little crippled hunchback in a wheeled chair; a boy who might have been any age, from child to man, so small was he, and yet so old and weary his face. He was gazing wistfully at the gay little group round the big motor. A tray of matches lay across his knees; tied to the arm of his chair was a cluster of many-coloured balloons—a pitiful contrast to the dull hopelessness of his face. Jim whistled softly.

“Poor little wretch,” he said. “Can’t we buy him out, Dad?”

“We’ll do our best—even if the populace thinks we’re the advance agents of a circus!” replied Mr. Linton. “Go and buy his balloons, Norah.”

“What—all of them, Dad?”

“Yes—all of them.”

He followed her across the footpath. The hunchback looked up at the grave little face.

“Balloons?” he said, half sullenly. “How many—two?”

“I want them all,” Norah told him, smiling.

“Not—the whole lot!” A dull red came into the boy’s white face.

“Yes, we do. My father says so.”

He stared at her, bewildered.

“There—there ain’t many days I sell more’n five or six all told,” he said. His voice shook a little. “You ain’t havin’ a loan of me, I s’pose?”

“No, indeed I’m not—truly,” Norah said, pitifully. “We’re going to buy you out.”

The boy began to unfasten the string with uncertain fingers.

“Nothin’ like this ain’t happened to me before,” he said. “It’s—it’s a bit of a slow game sittin’ here all day, hot or cold—an’ people starin’ at you. I wouldn’t mind ’em so much not buyin’—but—but they look at a cove. You’re sure you want the lot?”

“Yes, I want them,” Norah answered—“if you’re sure you can spare them all.”

“Spare ’em!” he laughed. “Why, I’ll be nex’ door to a millionaire, bringin’ off a sale like this!” He gave the string into her hand and looked at the money Mr. Linton dropped into his match tray.

“No—I say!” he said. “That’s too much, sir. Can’t you get change?”

“No, thanks,” Mr. Linton said, with a smile. “Good-bye, my lad. Come on, Norah.”

“Good-bye,” Norah said. Near the car she suddenly turned back, fishing hurriedly in her little purse. The boy looked up at her with a dazed face of joy.

“Happy Christmas!” she said. She put a shilling into his hand—and fled. The car glided off into the jumble of traffic.

The hunchback sat in his corner throughout the day, selling a box of matches now and then. The busy crowds went back and forth past him, casting curious or pitying glances at his deformity. For once, the glances did not hurt him. Norah’s smile yet lay warm at his heart.

“Said ‘Happy Chris’mas!’ she did,” he muttered. “I don’t believe she never even saw me back!”

The balloons proved rather exciting to the crowd until the next block in the traffic gave Mr. Linton an opportunity to present them gravely to a gaping urchin with the immediate result that his gape intensified alarmingly, and threatened to become a permanent fixture. Then they sped back to the city, with hasty visits here and there, to pick up parcels, and a hurried attempt at afternoon tea in the crowded lounge of the hotel. Their luggage was awaiting them, a big pile in the corridor, and presently it was loaded into a cab, and the motor was following it up the street towards the train.

At the big station they found themselves in another crowd—a hurrying, impatient crowd, armed with suit cases and dress baskets, and pursuing harassed luggage porters with incoherent instructions regarding trunks that appeared non-existent. Nobody had the slightest regard for anybody else—to get through the throng was to court death-dealing blows from the sharp corners of luggage, delivered with vehemence and without apology. Bells rang continually, with distressing effect upon would-be passengers, who ran very fast in divers directions at each ring, imagining it to be the final summons to trains which were very likely not even backed into the platform! Porters shouted instructions, very much in earnest, but wholly unintelligible. The shrieks of newsboys added to the clamour, together with the wails of many babies, protesting against travelling so early in life. Wild-eyed mothers clutched at wandering children, endeavouring frantically to keep them under the maternal wing. Beyond, in the station yard, engines whistled shrilly and shunting trains banged and rattled.

“It’s a nice Christmassy place!” said Wally, surveying the scene. “Makes you feel no end festive, doesn’t it? If you two girls hold each other’s hands tightly, cling to my coat tails, and utter frequent bleats, it is possible that we shan’t lose you!”

“Just take care that you don’t get lost yourself,” Jim uttered. “A trifle like you straying about in a crowd ought to have a bell on its neck. Take Dad’s arm, won’t you?”

“He’d better not,” said Mr. Linton, hurriedly. “I could employ more arms than I’ve got, as it is.” His eye, roving over the throng, caught sight of a familiar face. “Ah, there’s my porter!” he said, with relief, as that functionary hastened up. “That’s right, Saunders—bring another man with you. Now we needn’t worry—our compartment’s reserved.” He sat down on an empty luggage truck and mopped his brow. “Give me Billabong!”

Then, somehow, they were all on board, the carriage overflowing with miscellaneous bundles; and presently the train was slipping out of the station, and leaving the suburban roofs behind as the wide spaces and green paddocks came in view. Further and further, until the sun went down in a red sky and the short Australian twilight faded to dusk and a star-lit night.

Norah grew a little silent. She leaned back, her shoulder against her father’s, glad of his nearness: all the dear voices of the country calling to her, above the roar and rush of the train. The memory of her long homesickness came over her with a rush. She could scarcely realize that it was over, and Billabong drawing near. Until a year ago Billabong had meant all her world—all that counted. Now she had a wider horizon. But still home and home’s dear ones dwarfed all the rest.

Then it was time to collect parcels hurriedly. The train stopped with a great grinding of brakes, and they all tumbled out upon the Cunjee platform. It was only a little place; the train seemed to pause just to shake itself free of them, and then it puffed away into the darkness; and Norah was pumping the hand of a big sunburnt man with a wide smile of welcome.

“Oh, Murty, I’m so glad to be back!”

“It is Billabong that’s glad to have ye,” said Murty O’Toole, head stockman, and Norah’s friend from her cradle. “Blessed hour! Ye’ve grown into a young lady, so ye have.”

“Indeed I haven’t,” said Norah indignantly. “I’m just the same. Isn’t it true, Jim?”

“She’s worse, Murty,” said her brother, laughing. “No signs of improvement. She’s lost all respect for me. It’s very trying.”

“Ah, g’wan wid y’!” said the Irishman. “I’ll tell y’ about him to-morrow, Miss Norah—wanderin’ about for the last week like a lost foal, makin’ believe he was puttin’ on extry polish for ye! There’s the dog-cart, sir”—to Mr. Linton—“an’ another trap for the luggage.”

“We’ll need it!” said Mr. Linton dryly. “Miss Norah doesn’t travel as light as she used to, Murty.” He pulled his daughter’s hair. Murty, however, remained unmoved.

“An’ how could she?” he inquired. “Ye can’t have her growin’ up on y’ an’ expect her to go about wid a collar an’ a toothbrush!”

Mr. Linton sighed.

“I don’t know how much discipline they gave Norah at school, Jean,” he said—“but she’s sure to want an extra allowance next year, after the spoiling I foresee she’s to get at home. I appear to be the only person likely to keep her in order—and what am I among so many? Neither do I see why the statement should move either of you to such ribald mirth! Here’s Billy, and I hope he’ll be stern.”

But the black boy who held the horses was a grinning image of delight. He did not attempt to make any remarks; not, Jim said, that they were in any way necessary. You could not get beyond Billy’s grin. Even the stationmaster came up with a word of welcome.

“It’s very exciting—getting home,” Norah said.

Then they were in the high dog-cart; Jean and herself tucked into the front seat beside her father, while the boys made merry at the back. The brown cobs were making light of the fourteen-mile spin along the country roads that were all so dear and so familiar. It was beautiful to be behind them once more—to see their splendid heads tossing the jingling bits, and their glossy quarters gleaming in the light of the lamps. Yet it seemed long until they turned into the homestead paddock—and then the mile drive, fringed with pine trees, was the longest of all.

Lights flashed out ahead as they turned a corner; Billabong, every window shining with welcome. And at the gate was a smiling group, and every one seemed to want to shake hands with her at the same moment. But behind them was Mrs. Brown, her old face half laughter and half tears, and speech wholly beyond her. She held out shaking arms to the tall girl who had been her baby for so long, and Norah went to them, hugging her tightly—not very sure of speech herself. It was not every day that one came home to Billabong.

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