 Some Every Day Focke and Dawn by Miles Franklin This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, auto-volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Kirsty Some Every Day Focke and Dawn by Miles Franklin First published in Great Britain by William Blackwood and Sons 1909 The dedication reads To the English men who believe in votes for women This story is affectionately inscribed Because the women herein characterised were never forced to be suffragettes Their countrymen having granted them their rights as suffragists in the year of our Lord 1902 M F Glossary of colloquialisms and slang terms Australian, Billy American equivalent, a tin pale English interpretation, a camp kettle Australian, blokes American equivalent, guys English interpretation, chaps, fellows Australian, boska American equivalent, dandy or dandy fine English interpretation Something meeting with unqualified approval Australian, galoot American equivalent, a roub English interpretation, a yokel A heavy country fellow Australian, larican American equivalent, a hoodlum Australian, moak American equivalent, a common knockabout horse Australian, narkt American equivalent, sore English interpretation, vexed to have lost the temper Australian, gin American equivalent, squaw English interpretation, an aboriginal woman Australian, quad American equivalent, jail Australian, solica American equivalent, somewhat equivalent to corker English interpretation, something excessive Australian, toff American equivalent, a sport or swell guy English interpretation, a well-dressed individual sometimes of the upper 10 Australian, to bob American equivalent, 50 cents English interpretation, two shillings Australian, to graft American equivalent, to dig in English interpretation, to work hard and steadily Australian, to scoot American equivalent, to vermouths or skadoo English interpretation, to leave hastily and unceremoniously Australian, to smooch American equivalent, to be a sucker English interpretation, to curry favour at the expense of independence Australian, gives me the pip American equivalent, makes me tired English interpretation, boars Australian, on a string or pulling his leg English interpretation, trifling with him Australian, cookaburra A giant kingfisher with grey plumage and a merry mocking inconceivably human laugh A killer of snakes and a great favourite with Australians End of glossary of colloquialisms and slang terms Chapter 1 of some everyday folk and dawn by Miles Franklin This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Clays The summer sun streamed meltingly down on the asphalted siding of the country railway station and occasioned for usual grumbling from the passengers alighting from the afternoon express. There were only three who effect this narrative. A huge red-faced, barrel-like figure that might have served to erect as a monument to the overfeeding in vogue in this era. A tall spare old fellow with a grizzled beard, who looked as though he had never known a succession of square feeds, and myself, whose physique does not concern this narrative. Having surrendered our tickets and come through a downhill passage to the dusty, dirty, stony, open space where vehicles awaited travellers, the usual corner pub, in this instance, a particularly dilapidated one, and three tin kangaroos fixed as weathercocks on a dwelling over the way, and turning hither and thither in the hot gusts of wind, were the first objects to arrest my attention in the town of Nounoun, near the river Nounoun, where away it does not particularly matter. The next were the men competing for our favour in the matter of vehicular conveyance. The big man, by reason of his high complexion, abnormal waste measurement, expensive clothes, and domineering manner, which proclaimed him really a lord of creation, naturally commanded the first and most obsequious attention, and giving his address as, Clays, engage the nearest man, who then turned to me. Where might you be going? To Jiminy's hotel. Righto, I can just drop you on the way to Clays, said he, and the big swell grunted up to a box-seat, while I took a position in the body of the vehicle, commanding a clear view of the grossness of the highly-coloured neck rolling over his collar. The journey through the town unearthed the fact that it resembled many of its compares. The oven-hot iron roofs were coated with red dust, a few lacquerdasical larricans upheld occasional corner posts, dogs conducted municipal meetings here and there. The silliness of the horses tied to the street posts, where they baked in the sun while their riders guzzled in the prolific pubs, bespoke of farming rather than a grazing district, and the streets had the distinction of being the most deplorably dirty and untended I have seen. The same could be said of a cook or some such individual of whom I caught a glimpse when landed at a corner hotel, where I sat inside the door of a parlour awaiting the appearance of the landlady or the publican, while for diversion I watched the third arrival wending his way from the station on foot and shouting something concerning melons to a man in a tray in the middle of the roadway. Evidently it was the land of melons and other fruits and vegetables. Over at the railway loaded wagons, trays, and carts were backed against a line of trucks, drawn up to convey such produce to the city and other parts of the country, while strings of vehicles similarly burdened were thundering up the street. Some carts were piled with cases of peaches, grapes, tomatoes, and rock melons, the rich aromatic scent of the last mentioned, strongly asserting their presence as they passed. On some wagons the watermelons were packed in straw and had the growers' initials chipped in the rind. Others were not so distinguished, and at intervals the roughness of the thoroughfare bumped one off. If the fall did not quite break it in two, a stray loafer pulled it so and tore out a little of the sweet and luscious heart, leaving the remainder to the ants and fowls. The latter were running about on friendly terms with the dogs, which they equalled in variety in number. Droves of small boys haunted the railway premises at that time of the year, and eagerly assisted the farmers to truck their melons in return for one, and came away with their spoils under their arms. Never before had I seen so many melons or so large, some weighed sixty and eighty pounds or more, while those from sixteen to twenty-five pounds, in all varieties, Cuban queens, Dixies, Halberts Honey, and Cannonballs, were procurable at one shilling the dozen, and nearly as much produce as sent away wasted in the fields for want of a market. An hour after arrival, having refused the offer of refreshments, which in such places are not always refreshing, I betook myself to a comparatively cool back faranda to further investigate my temporary surroundings. A yellow-haired girl with rings on her fingers sprawled in a hammock, reading a much thumbed, circulating library novel and eating peaches. This was the landlord's daughter, and a very superior young lady indeed from her own point of view. I learnt that at present there would only be one other border besides myself. He came up for the weekend and had just gone down to Clays to see someone there. If he could get a berth at Clays, he would not come back. But the only hope of being taken in there during the summer weather was to bespeak room a long way ahead, as there was a great run on the place. It was built right beside the river, and they kept boats for hire, which attracted a number of desirable young men from the city to engage in weekend fishing, picnicking, swimming, and such. And the young gentlemen attracted young ladies who found it difficult to be taken in at all, because old Mrs. Clay allowed her granddaughter Dawn to boss the place, and she favoured men-borders. The tone of yellow hair suggested that perhaps the men-borders favoured Dawn. At all events it was an attractive name, and aroused interested inquiry from me. Oh, yes, some thought her a beauty. There were great arguments as to whether she, or Dora Kalpa, another great big fat thing in a hay and corn store over the way, was the Belle of Noonoon. But for her part, yellow hair thought her too coarse and vulgar and high-coloured. Miss Jiminy was so and thin, and she was always making herself seen and known everywhere. One would think she owned Noonoon. There she is now, exclaimed the girl, pointing out another who was driving a fat pony in a yellow sulky, talk of the devil. Perhaps it is an angel in this case, I responded. For though she was thickly veiled, she suggested youth and a style that pleased the eye. Whether she and the boats were sufficient to make Clay's an attractive place of residence, I did not know, but already was painfully aware of conditions that would make Jiminy's hotel an uncomfortable location. I retired to my room to escape some of them, the foul language of the tiplas under the front veranda and the winds from two streets that also met there in a whirlwind of dust and refuse. There was nothing for me to do but kill time and no way of killing it but by simple endurance. I had been ordered to some country resort for the good of my health, but do not fear, reader, this is not to be a compilation of ills and pulses for no one more than the unfortunate victim of such is so painfully aware of their lack of interest to the community at large. There are, I admit, some invalids who find a certain amount of entertainment in inflicting a list of their aches upon people, blissfully unconscious of how wearisome they can be, but my temperament is of the sensitive order, knowing its length too well to similarly transgress. How I had struck upon Noonan I don't know or care, except that it was within easy access of the metropolis and I have no predilection for being isolated from the crowded haunts of my fellows. I had descended upon Jimini's hotel because in an advertisement sheet it was put down as the leading house of accommodation in Noonan. Now I had come to hear of clays and dawn and determined to ship myself there as soon as possible. This did not seem imminent, for presently the bloated aristocrat came back to Jimini's pub for the evening meal, as he had been unable to get so much as to shake down at clays. This so aroused my desire to be a border at clays that I straightaway wrote a letter to its chattelain inquiring what style of accommodation she provided and could she accommodate me. And strolling up the broken street while a few lurricans at corners by way of entertaining themselves and me made remarks upon my appearance. I dropped it in the post-office, but had to endure a week's inattention at Jimini's and no end of yarns from outside folk I encountered as to how Mrs. Jimini robbed the swipes who took their poison at her bar before I was honoured by a reply from Mrs. Clay. The accommodation provided by me for people is clean and wholesome and the best is suits me. If it don't suit them there are other places near that makes more efforts to gather custom than I do. I can't take you in at present to fall for my taste as it is, yours respectfully, Martha Clay. This interesting rebuff inspired me to further effort and sitting on the back veranda under a giant fig tree shedding its delicious and wholesome fruit also to the thousand ants, I wrote, Dear madam, would you kindly apprise me when it would be convenient to accommodate me as I am anxious to be near the river where I could indulge in boating? To this I received a reply. There isn't any chance of me accommodating you till the cool weather, and then I don't take borders at all. I like to have them all in the summer and then have a little peace to ourselves in the winter without strangers, for the best of them have their noses poked everywhere they are not wanted. If you want to go near the river there are heaps of houses where there isn't no such rush of people as at my place. This family determined me to reside at Mrs. Clay's, a desired member of the household, or perish in the attempt. Alack! I had plenty time to spend in such a trifle, for I was but a derelict, broken in fear struggle, and hopelessly cast aside into smooth waters, safe from the stormy currents now too strong for my timbers. That I had means to light anchor in some genie or boarding-house, instead of being dependent upon charity, was undoubtedly food for thankfulness, and when one has burnt their coal heap to ashes they are grateful for an occasional charcoal among the cinders. No other place near the river but Clay's would do me, though the valley had much to recommend it at that season, when grapes, peaches and other fruits were literally being thrown away on every hand. So I repacked my trunk and the busman who had brought me took me once more along the excruble streets past the corner pub near the railway station, and it being late afternoon the railway employees 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. 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 Nanoon, 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 parlor 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 corn of pub, and its colleague a few doors on, and entering the principal street where Jiminy'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 outchrysanthemumed 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 super-abundant 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 a irregular plantation of cedar and pepper trees, pomegranates and other shrubs, and masses of chrysanthemums and cosmos that flourished in every available space. A 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 a maculet gown with carefully-adjusted collar and wavy hair combed back in a tidy knot and with still-a-dark shade in it. Then blessed white ants, she exclaimed, They very near got the place each down, so that you have to make a full of yourself opening the door, and that blessed fella I sent for hasn't come to dorm up yet, but some people. She finished so exasperatedly that I felt compelled to state my name and business without delay, and with a prim, indeed, she led the way across a narrow-lineliumed 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 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 borders out of necessity. They ain't all I've got to depend on," she said, with a fiery glance from her caloric blue-gray eyes. Certainly not. I'm sure of that by your style, Mrs. Clay. But, of course, I'd 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 something of an invalid. Unfortunately, yes. Well, this ain't no private hospital and never pretended to be. Sick people is a lot of trouble quatering and fussing around with. I couldn't, for the sake of my granddaughter, give her a lot of extra work that would mean nothing. This might have sounded hard, but with some people their very austerity bespeaks the 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 judged 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 thought 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 to, 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 wear three in an uneven gable faced west and front of 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 impossible, 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 jihu 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 giving to running after people and licking 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 pallor 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 Noonan. 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 slavery 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 wide-spreading cedar trees I found a boy at the hobbly-hoi age, chopping wood in a desultory fashion, as though to get rid of time, rather than to enlarge the stack of short sticks, which were the most imperative object. Driving his axe in tight and holding on to it as a sort of balance, he led back, affected 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 doorpost, while a young man, with whom he talked, lent 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 the grandfather. Thank goodness, he's only my uncle. That's plenty for me. Aren't you fond of him? I ain't dying of love for him, I promise you. Oh, crawler, he reckons he's the boss. But sometimes I get home on him in a way that sort of illustrates to his intelligence that he ain't. Ask Dawn. She's the one who'll give you the straight tip regarding him. Or where is Dawn? Oh, Dawn's in the kitchen. She and Carrie does the cookin' week about when the house ain't full. Grandma makes them do that. It saves rows about it not being fair. You won't catch sight of Dawn till dinner. She'll want to get herself up a bit. You bear new. She always does for a fresh person. But she soon gets tired of it. And you? Are you going to get yourself up because I'm new? Not much. Boys ain't that way so much as the women, he said, and the grin we exchanged was the gem of a friendship that ripened as our acquaintance progressed. I intended to settle down to the enjoyment afforded by my sense of humor. I had preserved it intact as a private personal accomplishment. On the stage, having steered clear of comedy and confined myself to tragedy, it had never been cheapened and made nauseous by sham and machine representations indigenous to the hated footlights, and was in an untapped preserve to be drawn upon now. So I was not to see Dawn till the midday dinner. She was to appear last, like the star at a concert. A star she barely was when eventually she came before me carrying a well-baked roast on an old-fashioned dish. Her lovely face was scarlet from hurry in the fire. Her bright hair gleamed in coquettish rolls, and a loose sleeve displayed a round and dimpled forearm, a fitting continuance of the tapered fingers grasping the cheap dish of the wholesome and liberal menu she had prepared. Old Uncle Jake took the carver's place, but Grandma Clay sat at his left elbow and instructed him what to do. He handed the helpings to her, and she supplemented each with some of all the vegetables irrespective of the wishes of the consumers, to whom they were handed in a business-like method. The puddings were distributed on the same principle. Grandma even putting milk and sugar on the plates as for children. And further she talked in a caloric way, as though the children were in bad grace owing to some misdemeanor. But that was merely one of her mannerisms, as that of others is to smile and be sweet while they inwardly fume. Accepting this, the unimpressive old smudges hung above the mantel, and probably standing for some family progenitors gazed out of their caricature eyes on an uneventful meal. Conversation was choppy and of the personal order, not interesting to a stranger to those mentioned. I made a few duty remarks to Uncle Jake, which he received with suspicion, so I left him in peace to suck his teeth and looked like a sleepy lizard, while I counted the queer and inartistic old vases, crowded in plum and corresponding pairs on the shelf over the fireplace. Miss Flip, the other border, was in every respect a contrast to me, being small, young, and dressed with elaboration in a flimsy style, which of the stage I have always scorned. Her wrists were laden with bangles, her fingers with rings, and her golden hair piled high just exaggerated of the exaggerated pompadour styles in Vogue. Her appetite was indifferent, the expression of her eyes bespoke either ill-health or dissipation, and she was very abstracted, or as Mrs. Clay put it, she acts like she had something on her mind, maybe she's love-sick for someone she can't catch and she's been sent up here to forget. This was after Miss Flip had retreated to her room, and Carrie continued the subject in her room with a table. She says she's an orphan read by a rich uncle. She's always blown about him and how fond he is of her. She's just recovered from an operation and has come up here to get strong. That's why she does nothing. So she says, only poke about and read novels and make herself new hats and blouses. But I think she'd be lazy without any operation. She'd want another to put some go in her. I'm waiting with a little of yours," said I, watching with what enviable vigor the girls' work sped before her as though afraid. I also retired to my room for a rest, intending to come out and pave the way for friendship with dawn by and by, for I quickly perceived she was not a character to go out of her way to make the first overture. Some time after, when strolling around in an unwanted fashion, I was pleased to again counter my friend Andrew. Evidently he had been sent to clean out the fowl-houses, for a wheel-barrow half full of manure stood at the door of a wire-netted shed, and in the middle of this task he had sought diversion by shooting rats from among the straw in a big old barn, where a great heap of unused hay made them a harbour. In this warm valley, carpeted in the irrepressible couch-grass, there was no lack of fodder that season, and even the lanes and byways would have served as fattening paddocks. Andrew leaned upon his gun, and having delivered himself of certain statistics in rat mortality and exhibiting some specimens by the tail, he began a conversation. Say, what did you think of Miss Thingamabob? Miss Flip, I mean. I didn't bother thinking anything at all about her. Andrew looked interrogatively at me and broke into a grin. Well, I reckon she's Cecilia's goat I ever came across. She came out to me and asked did I think she looked pretty, as her uncle was coming up to-night, and if she looks nice he'll give her a present or something. I reckon she'd have to look not such a mad-headed rabbit before I'd give her anything, but some advice to bag her head. And he must be a different uncle to Uncle Jake. I reckon he wouldn't give you nothing if you had on two heads at once. Here's Larry Whitkin coming back from his rounds, and he promised me a bit of whiskey. Here, whiskey! Whiskey! he roared, and a small canine pet that had been hunting rats desisted from the prey and ran with his master. I also walked with him, this without exception, even in slum scenes on the stage being the dirtiest escort I ever had had. His face was grime'd, his shirt like an engine-rag, and his trousers dusty, while from a hole in the seat thereof fluttered a flag out, such an ingratiatingly wholesome blunderbuss of a boy. Here you, Larry! He yelled. He promised me come on, whiskey! Why, ain't he a bosker? He enthusiastically exclaimed as the hideously unprepossessing little mongrel stood on his hind legs and yelped in excited begging. Hello, Andrew. Don't bust. Who's that you had with you? I had turned a corner. And you bought her, I suppose, rather an old piece. Yes, said Andrew. Her hair is a little white, but she ain't sour and stuck up. A chance for you to hang your hat up, Jake, said Larry. No, thanks. I'm cautious of them old mates. If you say a pleasant word to them, they can't be shook off. They might have you up for a breach of promise like with Tom Dunstan. I suppose there is a danger you being so fascinating chuckled the butcher and went inside with a premonition that should it come to taking sides in the clay household, if avoidable I would not be on Uncle Jake's. Who is Uncle Jake? said Carrie in response to my inquiry as she prepared four o'clock tea. He's Uncle Jake. That's what he is and enough for me too, that he is. The old swab once hanging up by the beard. Yes, but what place does he hold in the house? You're walking around poking his nose in everywhere and growling about things that don't concern him. Mrs Clay keeps him, gives him 15 shillings a week, because he's her brother and you think he'd owned everything. If you want to know what he is he's a terribly bad example to Andrew. He's the greatest, clumsiest, lumbering dirty lump. Oh, you should see his clothes, what they are like to wash and the only way to keep him clean would be to stuff him in a glass case. But for all that, he's a very fair kid. You can't expect much of boys, you know, and have to be thankful for any good points at all. Oh, Lord! she here exclaimed, looking out a window where a longer path through the orchard she described approaching a fine-buxom dame in a fashionably cut dress. Here's Mrs Bray in full sale. I suppose she saw the busman leaving you here today and her curiosity couldn't stand any longer without having on a tour of inspection. Who is Mrs Bray? She won't let you overlook who she is and what she owns and what she done. You'll soon hear it. She's the most inquisitive blowhard I ever came across. Dawn now appeared and invited me to afternoon tea, which was a friendly and hospitable meal spread on a big table on the back veranda, so enclosed by creepers and pot plants and little awnings leading in various directions as to be in reality more of a vestibule. Mrs Bray hoved into near view and took up a seat beside a bank of lovely maiden hair fern. How are you living? she asked Grandma Clay as she complacently shook hands. Nice cool weather now and not so many beastly mosquitoes. Bye, Jove. Did you know about mosquitoes here? Inquired Andrew of me. They're big enough to ride bikes and weigh a pound. You wait till you hear them singing tonight. If I were you I'd hold my tongue and not draw attention to my dirtiness," said Dawn. It's a wonder a garden doesn't sprout upon you. I was then introduced to Mrs Bray, who acknowledged me genially, and seemed so flourishing and was so complacent regarding the fact that it did one good to look at her. After addressing a few remarks to me she had to move, for the trimming of her hat caught in the cage of a parakeet, and she took another seat in the shelter of a tree fern . You have some lovely pet birds," I remarked by way of making myself agreeable to Grandma Clay. The infernal old nuisances, she said erasably. I wish they'd die. Andrew calls them his, but they'd starve only for me. I'm always saying I'll have no more pets and still they're brought here. Someday when he has a home of his own and people plague him he'll know what it is. On the other side of the veranda a big row of belated fruit hung like pretty pale green eggs and evil entering Andrew's mind he remarked to me, Wouldn't it be just Bosco if one of them fell on his old nut? I'm going out he returned with a pair of orange clippers. Where's Carrie got to? asked Grandma. I saw her out there doing a mash with Larry Whitcomb said Andrew. Now do you think there'll be anything in that? Interestingly asked Mrs. Bray. I suppose she'd be glad to catch anything for a home of her own. Well it's to be hoped the home she'd catch with him would be better than some of the meat we've caught from him lately. There was tough as old boots put in dawn. At this point Andrew succeeded in disturbing Uncle Jake. Succeeded beyond expectation. Uncle Jake had just sucked his fuzzy possum grey mustache in the noisy manner peculiar to him and was raising his tear again causing him to let fall the cup. Just like you, on the clean boards Carrie will be pleased I'm glad it's not my week in the house said dawn. What Uncle Jake said is unfit for insertion in a record so respectable as this intended to be and Grandma seemed to grow too agitated for verbal utterance but her facial expression was very fiery indeed as Andrew and Uncle Jake withdrew and settled their little score in a manner unknown to the company. Well, it's an el wind that don't blow nobody no good and though there's a cup broke it's got us rid of the men and there's never no talking in comfort where they are," remarked Mrs. Bray who had a facility for constructing sentences containing several negatives. Two, we learn in syntax have the effect of an affirmative but there being no reference to a repletion only that her utterances were unmistakably plain. Mrs. Bray might have reduced one to wondering the purport of her remarks. Did you hear the latest? She said, laughing boisterously you don't know the people yet she continued turning to me half along one scolding. Here she burst into a full flood of gossip regarding the misconduct of the leading residents but honest and straightforward though her communications were I cannot include them here for this is a story for respectable folk looked at the straight talk of the most respectable folk would be all together out of the question. I must confine myself to the statement that Mrs. Bray had found few beyond reproach and the latest, as she termed it concerned one Dr. Tinker whose wife, known colloquially as the old Tinkeress had recently administered a public horse whipping to a young lady whom the doctor had too ardently admired. Mrs. Bray had only just unearthed and was overwhelmingly interested in them. I told you what ought to be done with some people, said Grandma when Mrs. Bray halted for breath there's no respectability like they used to be in my young days in Goo Goo that's where I was read the people used to take up anything that wasn't straight there was a woman there she and her husband lived happy and respectable with no notion of anything wrong tell a fella a blessed fella, Grandma that was only selling things and making a living out of honest folk come to town and turned her head I won't say, but he was a fine-looking man had a grand-flown beard Grandma spread her hands out on her chest must have been lovely with a beard especially if it was like Uncle Jake's in to pose dawn how dare you miss Beards is a natural adornment gave to man by God and it's an unnatural notion to carve them off some of them do want adorning I'll admit said dawn he was a good-looking man persisted Grandma must have been with a beard scornfully contended the irrepressible dawn she must be smitten on some of these clean-faced articles said Mrs. Bray with a laugh which affected the collapse of dawn hold your tongue miss surely I can speak in my own house continued Grandma and he could sing and play and that sort of thing at any rate this woman was terribly gone on him and her husband was heart broke and they always lived so happy till then that the people of the town took it up they went to the sergeant and told him what they was going to do and he was in such sympathy with them that he got business that took him to the other end of the town for that night that'll tell you now exclaimed Mrs. Bray with interest and they went and collared him preceded the narrator that'll tell you now the faggot exclaimed Mrs. Bray again so they took him and put him on a horse naked except his trousers about 20 of them did it and rode on either side with tar pots and every time he turned his head any way to draw about what he'd do they'd swallow him in the mouth with it and they had bags of feathers and nearly smothered him with them till with the black tar sticking on every way and all in his great beard he would be mistook for never-cadnezzer when they got him out of the town he was let go and they said if he showed himself in it again worse than that would happen to him that's what the men of my day did with a bad egg concluded the old lady firming the belief of the superior virtue of her generation what prized beards in a case like that came from dawn that clean-faced fella of yours would have the advantage then said Mrs. Bray and now I'll tell you the point of that story it was just the men sticking up for themselves if that had been a woman harmed by her husband going away with some barmaid or other of them hussies men are so fond of there wouldn't have been nothing done to avenge her her heart could have broke and if she had said anything about it people would have sat on her but when one of the poor, darling men is hurt it's a different thing Mrs. Bray had yet more to tell and after another hearty laugh divulged a secret that should have pleased a government lately reduced to appointing a commission to inquire into a falling birth rate this, said Grandma, in explanation is a girl who used to be a milliner in Trash's store in Noonoon one of them give herself airs things like all these country jumpin' fools when you go to buy a thing off of them they look as if you wasn't fit to tie their shoe laces and they ain't got a stitch to their back only a few pence a week from eternal standard on their feet till they're all give way and only fit for the hospital I won't say but this one was a sprightly enough young body and carried her head high and there was a fella came to town was staying there at Jiminy's pub for a time and walkin' around as if Noonoon wasn't a big enough place for the likes of him to own he talked mighty big about meat export trade and that was the end of his glory he married this girl that was trimmin' hats and she thought she was doin' a stroke to catch such a bug and now she lives in that little place built bang on the road as you go into town Larry says he often takes her some meat he's afraid she'll starve and you know though he'll take you down in some ways he's terrible good natured in others and that is the way with most of us we have our good and bad points but the poor thing is that what she has come to I ain't had a family of me own not to be able to sympathise with her well she don't deserve no sympathy she upholds him in his pride said Mrs Bray pride? his pride snorted Grandma it's at the skunk order he'd make use of everyone because he thinks he's an English swell and they wouldn't speak to them if he met them out no more than they were dogs I don't think there's a single thing he could do to save his life there's a bit of wood to be chopped she's got to do it and yet he'd think a decent honest working man who was able to keep his wife and family comfortable wasn't made of as good flesh and blood as him that ain't what I call pride there's one thing if I ever fell in love with a man he'd have to be a man and not a crawler said Dawn some girls think if they get a bit of a swell he's something but I wouldn't care if a man were the Prince of Wales if he couldn't do things without muddling I'd throw water on him what about young Eewood are you going to throw water on him? laughed Mrs Bray thus Carrie she knows more about him than I do Dawn finds it handy to put her lovers onto me said Carrie who was washing away the spilt tea and airing some uncomplementary opinions of Andrew and Uncle Jake between wiles why don't you come and see me me Carrie continued Mrs Bray I can't be bothered I've got my living to earn and have no time for visiting said that uncompromising young woman anything new on here Dawn asked Mrs Bray turning to her no only Miss Flips Uncle is coming up by this afternoon's train and we're dying to see him there's been so much blow about him Andrew is going to get out a tub he'll be going now to get Bray his tea or there'll be a Joran and a Salkin match between us that's the way with men if you're not always bucking around gamin' and you think of somebody they get like a bear with a scalded head well come over and see me some day she said hospitably to me walk along a bit with me now and see the way to this I agreed and going to get a parasol heard the incorsious woman remark behind me made a gaunt look an old party ain't got no confliction I wonder was she ever going to be married don't look as if many would be breaking their necks after her does she Mrs Bray posed as a champion of her sex but could not open her mouth without belittling them however I was too well seasoned in human nature to be disconcerted and walked by her side enjoying her immensely she was so delightfully transparently patronizing there are many grades of patronage that from people who ought to know better and which is always bitterly resented by any one of spirit while that of the big splodging ignoramus who doesn't know any better to anyone possessed of a sense of humor is indescribably amusing Mrs Brays was of this order and would have been galling only to the snob whose chief characteristic is a lack of common sense lack of common sense being synonymous with snobbery you'll get on very well with old grandma, she remarked she ain't such a bad old sort when you know her she must have a bit of property too of course I find her a bit narrow minded but that's to be expected seeing I've lived a lot in the city before I come here and she's only been up the country but that carries the caution the hussy I only asked her over out of kindness being a woman with a good home as I have and did you hear her them hussies without homes ain't got no call to give themselves airs bits of things working for their livin I'm afraid I'm in the same category as I have no home I said by way of turning her wroth oh well yes but you're different you don't have to work for your livin have you any daughters I asked I had one but she soon married me she was snapped up as soon as she was old enough Mrs. Bray laughed delightedly here was a broad minded democrat who considered a woman lowered in becoming a useful working member of society instead of remaining a toy or luxury kept by her father or some other man and who while loudly bawling for the emancipation of women from the yoke of men nevertheless considered the only distinction a woman could achieve was through their favourable notice an attitude of mine produced by moral and social codes so effectively calculated to foster immoral and untenable inconsistency End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of some everyday folk and dawn by Miles Franklin this LibriVox recording is in the public domain becoming acquainted with Grandma Clay when I returned the busman was driving away after having brought Miss Flip's uncle and Andrew was assisting to fill a spring cart with pumpkins this vehicle had arrived under guidance of a tall fair young man with perfect teeth and a pleasant smile which kept them well before the public seeing they were not concealed by any hirsuit ambush gate regarding the adorning qualities of which Dawn and her grandmother were divided the former came out to inform Andrew that the pony had to be harnessed as Mrs. Clay had promised Miss Flip her uncle back to catch the train I hope the old thing won't smash up the sulky said Andrew he's the old bloke that come down here in the summer in a cheque suit and I told him you was all out and we was full up a few of him would soon fill up laughs the fair young man he looks as if he were always full up laughs well he's the purplest plum I ever saw said Dawn he's a complete hog he's one of those old noses all blue like the big plums that grew down near the pigsty I think he was grown near the pigsty too by the style of him it must have taken a good many cases of the best wine to get a nose just to that colour like a mere shum pipe it takes a power of colouring to get into the right tinge and his eyes hang out like this said the girl audaciously stretching her pretty long lashed lids in a way that would have been horrible for a beautiful or less successfully saucy girl but which in this case was irresistibly amusing the fair young man was convulsed his figure is like as if he had swallowed our great washing copper hole and then padded round it with hay bags and he has a great vulgar stand with one foot here and the other over there by the wheelbarrow he must be an acrobat or be made of wonderful elastic if he could stretch that far remarked Andrew he gets up a gold-rummed eyeglass and sticks it on his old eye like this and so I up with my finger and thumb this way in a ring and looked at him said dawn with a moo and the protrusion of a healthy pink tongue which for daredevil impertinence beat anything I had seen off the stage and I succumbed to laughter in chorus with the young man by some intangible indications Andrew and I felt impelled to leave he proceeding to harness the horse accompanying him just look here giddy giddy gout with his shed tail out exclaimed the lad breaking into one of the poetic quotations of which he was rarely guilty now I didn't know me pants was tall I must have looked a goat I offered to put a stitch in the breach so he brought needle and thread now don't you sew me on to me pants dawned on that once thought it was a great luck and I jelly well couldn't get out busted up the whole show and grandma joined in the husby-pusby and there's been no more larks like that thanks I must do a get and put the pony in did you notice that bloke filling up the cart with pumpkins he's gone on dawn he shows good taste do you reckon dawns fit to knock him in the eye? rather that's been a stranger when you are used to a person every day and they belong to you you don't think much of them and at the same time think more if you can understand what I mean is this when I'm busy fighting with dawn and she's blowing me up for not doing things and telling grandma on me I can't see what the blokes can see in her but then if I caught anyone saying she wasn't good for anything if he was a bloke I felt fit to wallop I'd give him a nice soul like her under the ear and I wouldn't bother about any other girl do you see? yes I'll hold up the shafts for you thanks well that's Dora Eewyd that's doing a kill with dawn now Dora is a funny name for a man it ain't his name he's called it for a laugh because he was after a girl up in town named Dora Calper she serves in a hay and corn store at the corner things were getting on pretty strong and he used to be taking her out all hours of the night and day some reckon she's better looking than dawn and her mother put it around that Eewyd would make a brilliant match for her and that'd shoot him off at once I reckon if I was a girl and wanted to catch a man I'd hold me mag about it as I know two or three now has been turned off the same way perhaps Dora Calper didn't lose much well he has a boscafarm you see he keeps a power of pigs and fatens them then he went after one or two more girls and now he comes here buying these pumpkins is only a dodge to get a chip in with dawn he has plenty of loose and furries pigs but we have so many pumpkins rotting we're glad to get rid of them at two bob a load and I suppose that is cheap to get a yarn with dawn he ain't proposed to dawn yet but I'm sure he's going to because I asked him if he was going to marry Dora Calper and he said no dawn is only pulling his leg for him she's got all the blokes on a string you should see her with those it comes up in the summer it's worth being alive in the summer we had melons here in millions we used to open a big Dixie or Cuban Queen and just only claw out in the middle we used to fill the watercars with them to cool and every time Dawn came out to dive in her dipper wouldn't she rouse me and Uncle Jake used to race to see who could eat the most but he'd beat he's a solider to stuff when he gets anything he likes it's a wonder we didn't bust the oranges will soon be ripe that's good luck I can eat 80 a day easy for Bolivar a huge figure as described by Dawn came out of the house and company with Miss Flip and I recognized Mr. Paunch the heavy swell who had travelled in the bus with me on the day of my first arrival in Noonoon with repulsive clumsiness he climbed into the vehicle and then said roughly almost brutally to his niece get in, get in and scarcely gave her time to be seated ere he hit the pony and nearly screwed her off getting out of the yard cock-a-doodle-doo ain't it nice to have a sweet temper loudly remarked Andrew as he stood aside he just is a purple plum he's the kind of old crow I like to get real narked and then scoop wouldn't he splutter and think himself Lord Muck and that everyone ought to be licking his boots Dawn and Dora Eward were still hanging over a garden fence as Andrew went after his cows and I myself took to the house Uncle Jake was in conference with his sister and gave evidence of fearing I should pursue him so I mercifully betook myself to my own apartment Miss Flip presently returned and saying she had had tea uptown with her uncle and would not want any more shut herself in her room from whence I soon detected the sound of impassioned sobbing my first impulse was to ask her what was the matter born of a wide experience of grief led me to hold my tongue and tell no one what I had heard but to escape from the sound of that pithy of a weeping I went out into the garden where I was joined by Mrs. Clay did you see that young fella out there this afternoon fine stamp of a young man don't you think remarked she he should be able for a good day's work yes he's none of your tobacco spittin'd was end up little runts like you see hanging on to the corner posts in noon seems to admire your granddaughter and is not the first by a long way that has done that though she was only nineteen this month I can quite believe it she is a lovely girl and more than that a good one I've never had one moment's uneasiness with dawn she took after me that way I could let her go out into the world anywhere with no fear of her going astray she's got a fine way with men friendly and full of life but let them attempt to come an inch farther than she wants and then see but sometimes I'm inclined to wish she'd be a little more gentiller but then I look around and see some of them sleek things and it's always them as a no good and I'm glad that she's what she is there's some girls here in town the old lady grew caloric you'd think but I wouldn't melt in their mouths and they try to sit on dawn it's because they're jealous of her I wouldn't own them they'd run a man into debt and be a curse to him but there's dawn the man that gets her he'll have a woman that will be of use to him and not just an ornament he'll have an ornament too perhaps so I've spent a lot of money on her education she's been taught painting and dancing I had her down at the ladies college in Sydney for two years finishing and she's had more chances of being a lady than most some of these things in town here turn up their noses at her and say she's only old Mrs. Clay's granddaughter who keeps an accommodation house but I pay me bills and I only shame to walk up town and look them all in the face but it's generally those who are the most who have the most lordly man you're right I could point you out some of them up town as hasn't a share to their back and they look as they owned everything the brazenest things the old dame's indignation he likes to startling in its intensity but I was going to tell you about young Ewood I've set me hard on him for Dawn he's something worth looking at and worth having too he knows how to farm and make it pay and owns one of the best pieces of land about Noonan all his own Dawn don't seem to take to him as she ought he was after a girl here in town Adora Kalpa and so she says she ain't going to take any livens she can be sure of that for if he'd wanted Dora Kalpa they'd have snapped him up and I think as long as a young fellow don't go making too much of a fool of a girl a little flirtation's only natural this has been the mischief with Dawn there's a lot of people here in the summer from the city and they're all taken with her and forever lasting telling her she's wasting her talents here that she ought to be on the stage it's a wonder people can't mind their own concerns the old dame grew caloric again it makes her think what I can give her ain't good enough it's all very fine and a good comfortable home of her own with love and protection around her do you think people mean that sort of thing and that when she walked out in the world they would be anxious to worship her just let her go out and try and she'll find it all moonshine but when I tell her she only thinks I'm an old pig and only she is that stubborn I know she'd never come back I would be the same myself when young so I can't blame her I'd let her have a taste of hardship to bring her to a barrens but while I'm alive she'll never have my consent to be an actress when I was young they was looked upon as the lowest hussies I'd like to hear what my mother would say if I had wanted to be one patin' myself up and kickin' up my heels and shine myself before men in the loudest manner I concluded not to divulge my profession while at clays and to boot I held much the same point of view she thinks she'd like to marry some fine fella and be a toff and she's got this danger that's always a drawback of a girl being pretty so many fellas come after them at the start they get finicky and think they can marry anyone and leave it too late and in the end they marry some rubbishing fella and don't come out half so well as the plain ones that was content with a fair thing when they had the chance of it just the same with a boy it's a bad thing for them to be able to do everything they're so terribly smart they end up by doing nothing the same fellow they grinned at for being a booby because he's stuck to one thing comes out on top just so want of concentration plucks one every time that's what I want to save dawn from it's all right while I live and I don't want her to be chuckin' herself at the head of any tome or dick but I won't live forever and marriage is like everything else you want to have your eye on a good thing and not humbug too much when I'm gone I wouldn't like to think of her I've spent so much money on and read with my own hand as I did her and her mother before her growin' old and sour and lonely or bein' a slave to some worthless crawler the old voice grew perilously soft and saved itself from a break by a swift crescendo as I say I suppose she's waitin' for some great impossible fella to come along like we do when we're young but these upper ten is the worst match there's too many trying to catch them in their own rank I've had lots of them here and to see these swell girls the way they try to catch someone would make you ill don't you think so well, my sympathies are always with the swell girl in the matrimonial market she has a far harder time than those of the working classes you see so many of the world to do eligible prefer working girls actresses, chorus, singers and barmaids which in addition to marriage in their own class gives these girls a chance of stepping up whereas the swell girls cannot marry grooms and footmen and raise them to their rank as their brothers care in their housemates and ballet girls to be a success the society girl must marry a man of sufficient means to keep her as an expensive toy and this description of bachelor being scarce in any case never wonder she has to hunt hard and try to protect her preserves from poachers think of it that way in that, and that's why I'd like to see Dawn have young Eewood who's a man I'd be happy to leave her to but I didn't say a word she's mighty touchy and would flush up that she'd leave if I want to get rid of her but while I've got breath in my body there's one thing I will set me foot on and that's these good-for-nothing skunks like bankered sons and them sort of high and mighty pauper nobodies they're fearful matches for anyone I know too much about the swells and the old families of the colony there's one of them my father came out here a long time ago and I was born out here he was a sergeant in the police I'm near 76 and can remember playing for 70 years back in the days when there was plenty of convicts and me father seeing his position was put to see the flogging of them me and another little girl that's dead now used to climb up a tree and look over the wall like children would we were stationed in Golben then for nine days the men used to be stripped to the waist and tied on a triangle and walloped till they were cut to pieces till they screamed like little children for mercy and poor old dretches that had run the world for 60 years used to screech mother, mother like little children it was heart-rendering and what use they to be flogged for do you think for the pigishness of the swells mostly I'll tell you there was an old fellow lived out at Caligua that's more than 20 miles the other side of Golben and there's Paris Lagoon there called after him till this day he was an old roard muck if ever there was one and by reason of that got a land grant and men assigned and he ought to have been give to them to kick would have been the right thing and then he had a lot of skunks of sons took after their father of course and hadn't had much chance of being anything else and when they used to ride to town they used to have a man tied to the stirrup just to hold it what was that for what was it for she raged it was because they was those skunks of swells that think other people has only made his floor wipes for him and this fellow used to have to run all the way to town and if he hadn't strength to run all the way he'd be dragged and if he'd give any lip the parries would report him and the father says he's often seen and flogged till their backs were like plowed and then have to run the 20 miles home the father used to come in every day down and cry and sob as if his art would break and say he'd rather starve than stay in the police now the parries got up and one of them had a sir sent out to his name and you'll see him rid about as one of the few old families and I hope that dawn come from better stock than them and has more to be proud of in a grandfather he had some heart in him and lord there's miss flips uncle one look at him ought to be sufficient warning to any girl the likes of him is common among the swells too much stuffing and drinking and debauchery nice thing if dawn married a swell and he developed into an old pig like that I can tell you another great family of swells the go-burns entertain the royalties when they was out here and are such bugs one of a married the governor's daughter they got up about the same way in the old days when things were caliser and land wasn't much the old clock of all had the surveyor that was gone on his daughter measure in the land and got him to slice in great pieces by false measurement and work the lives out of convicts as big a brood as the parries that's the breed of the swells and I have a horror of them the people as I consider ought to be the swells in this country as them that came out first the free immigrants and honestly worked up the colony with their own hands and their children done the same for four or five generations them's the only proper Australia aristocracy we've got that's why I have such a contempt for this runey mollineur Mrs. Bray was telling of only times as different he'd be the same he's got that sort of pride that thinks his wife is a black gin because she was only a milana out past the placard advertising Mrs. Clay's boats gleamed the high road and from where we walked could be seen a now unused old stone mile peg carved in Roman lettering it's legend differing somewhat from that in modern figures painted on the miniature wooden post by which it had been deposed it was one of many relics of the dead and gone convicts who had done giant pioneer labour in this broad bright land in the days when Grandma Clay's mother had been young final grandma daughter of a final dad who had wept for the cruelty endured by the men who had worked in chain gangs and were flogged under his superintendents and thinking thus I turned to the old dame who had ceased talking and said and what of your father did he get away from seeing the convicts flogged yes my mother thought he was going mad he used to sob in his sleep and call out and squirm that he couldn't bear to see them flogged and leap up in bed in a sweat so he gave up the police and we went a long way farther back to Gugul on the Yaren Gang a tributary of the Muram Biji the training them days was only a little way out of Sydney and my father got a job of driving coven co-coaches from Gugul to Yaren Doji and me and my mother and sisters and Jake there used to live in a little tent at the first stage out of Gugul and take care of the horses I was fond of them horses and used to sneak out to harness them on the swingle bar when I was no higher than the table it's a wonder I didn't get my brains knocked out and Jake there with the horses though it ain't supposed to be a girl's work but it came natural to me and I think in that case it's right that's why I was never one to narrow girls down and say you mustn't do this and that because you're a girl I've always found in spite of their talk the best and gamest mothers is the ones that grew out of the tomboy girls well it come that me father being a steady man and very kind and well liked and he got on surprising and soon the tent gave place to a bar cut that's the way people worked up in my days and what they had was their own they didn't want to start in mansions and eat off silver at the expense of others like in these times after that we moved a long way down and took up a position on the Mara Mara run beside the Sydney Road where the coaches passed in the night my mother made hot coffee for the passengers and we drove a raw and trade to get girls in to help and put up a large accommodation house and respectable people always made to us the old head went high and the eyes flashed because we was clean temperance people there never was no DTs or sly grog where we had the rule and that's why I always like to have a few people in the house to this day I'm used to their company like and feel there's nothing going on or doing without them well I grew up in time I can't say it myself but them as knew me then could tell you I wasn't disfigured in any way or a cripple and had no luck of admirers man my two sisters had them by the score wait until we grew old enough to be married I can tell you there were some smart fellas among them those were the times my sisters made what is called swell matches and not being used to being cooped up their lives was failures I was the only one married in my own circle and my life was a pattern to the others I was the oldest and waited last and my mother was that disappointed in me that I had to run away and I have no reasons for fear and dawn is on for as well I've seen my sisters lives I call them unwholesome marriages when girls marry these fellas and their narrow-minded people sits on her and as that depraved they turn him again her Mrs. Clay was vehement when Dawn's mother grew up in Dawn's image and we was keeping an accommodation house too that is Jim Clay and me and Dawn's mother was reckoned to the prettiest and best girl in them parts and had lovers from far and near but there came a fella up from Sydney to stay nothing to blow about neither but he was dreadfully gone on my daughter he seemed all right but I was again him Diana Swell told me daughter threatened she'd run away with him and ruined me own youth I let her have him in spite of me misgivings she went home with him and it appears he was like these crawling fellas couldn't do nothing only what their parents give them and when they found he'd married a fine good wholesome girl instead of one their own style one of the parries for instance they cut him off with a shillin and poor thing she nearly starved and took to work to keep him and he always growling at her like the coward he was that only for her he'd have been well off a mess alliance his people called it but the mess wasn't from poor Mary's side well when it come that she was to be a mother his people took her in and told her if you please that if it was a boy they'd take it their selves and educate it fit for their family but if it was a girl they wouldn't the poor thing not being able for anything and too proud to come home stood their insults as long as she could and at last she sneaked out at night and set off to walk to me it is pitiable to think of the poor old voice trembled she had more than a hundred miles to travel and it took her days but some folk was good and one cold night about three hours before daylight she startled me by coming into my room I remember it like yesterday mother she says I'm ill I'm going to die you won't let them take my child will you I thought her wonderin and she was so gentle it frightened me for we was always saucy ladies I can tell you every one of us and you can see dawn is the same now but that's only a way when I'm ill she's as tender as anything it's grandma wouldn't this do you good and that do you good and her little hands is very clever and nice about my old bones when they ache well her mother was took bad and me and her father done our best and her baby came into the world a poor miserable little wingin thing and its mother turned and over said what's that light mother coming in is it the dawn and looking up I see it was the dawn and she never spoke again but went off simple and sudden just then and that's how dawn come to get her name I never thought she'd live to be called by it though little wingin thing had to feed her on the bottle and everything disagreed with her we had to keep her old cow a special I remember her as clear as yesterday a big old cow with a two lap and crumpled horn we called her lady bird because she was spots all over as for them getting dawn they had the cheek to write and say if it was a boy they'd take it they had the cheek after what happened that spells for you again I written them one letter in return that I reckon ought to last them to their dying day I told them it wasn't any matter to them what my child was that they had murdered one already let that be sufficient for them that they'd get no more unless over my dead body and that all I regretted was that the child had any of their cowardly blood in it that it almost discouraged me about its raring and dawn don't know her name and won't unless she's married her father married again I had to say never had another child and I believe Hank is for dawn and he will hanker for my part and I've got dawn tooted up again him too now you can see the blow it would be to me if she took up with a squel there's no happiness marrying out of your own religion or class mine was what I'd call a love match now Jim Clay was a lover I've seen him come in a team of five all buckin' and it's snowin' and never anything but a laugh out of him he'd ride miles and miles to see me the crawlers about these parts nowadays truddle about on bikes or sit like great-grandfathers and sulkies and if it was to sprinkle they'd think half a mile too far to go to see their sweetheart I think the heart of the world must be dying out you'll tell me about Jim Clay won't you I said for I am an Australian one of those you consider entitled to be termed a real aristocrat my people for several generations have practically worked in the building of the state though I must admit they belong to the leisure class at home well that ain't nothin' again when they don't make it nothin' again if you understand if as well can prove his self as good and useful a man as another he deserves the credit and comes out ahead too because he has the education and sometimes that is useful I'll tell you about me young days lately my mind seems to be going back more and more to old times grandma called dawn's rich young voice come to tea Andrew and Carrie wanted to go up to town after as I turned and looked at this glowing vision I laughed to think of her as a little whinging thing and was grateful to the good officers of old Lady Bird with their doolap and a crumpled horn you needn't be in such a hurry all of a sudden said Grandma Crossley it's a different tune when you're hanging over the fence talkin' somewhere there's no hurry roundin' me into tea then we lingered a while watching the afterglow above the great range dividing the coast land from the vast stretches of the interior and which was no longer an impassable barrier to the people of the state now the train toiled over a style-like way connecting east and west and Noonoon and Kangaroo divided by a mile on the river nestled immediately at the foot of the zigzag climb they lay asleep against the ranges in a slow-going world of their own their little house was gleaming white in the fading light there was a flush on the old woman's face as she turned houseward also an afterglow it was a fitting look for her present days that a kind of those splendidly vigorous years behind what satisfaction to look back on strenuous fruitful years and be able to afford rest during the last stages I too had rest but it was only the anonymous idleness of a young boat with a broken propeller yarded among honourably worn-out craft to a weight of foundering End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of some everyday folk in dawn by Miles Franklin this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Dawn's Ambition After tea Grandma took to reading the Noonoon advertiser a full sheet weekly publication containing local advertisements weather remarks and a little kindly gossip about townspeople this was her usual Saturday night entertainment Carrie and Andrew went to town to participate in the unfailing diversion of a large percentage of the population this was tramping up and down the main street in a stream till the business places closed from which exercise they apparently derived an enjoyment Uncle Jake and Miss Flip not being in evidence Dawn and I were the only two unoccupied and noticing that she was prettily dressed I resorted to a point of common interest in promoting friendliness between members of our sex and invited her to look at a kimono I had bought for a dressing gown this had the desired effect a look of pleasure passed over the face that charmed me so and she arose willingly I'm glad it is my week to stay in and make the bedtime coffee she said as we examined the gorgeous kimono a garment of dark-flowered silk and Dawn having all the fetchily and long-ingended feminine love of self-decoration was delighted with it put it on I suggested and the girl complied with alacrity she did not make a very natural Jack being more on the robust than petite scale but she was a very beautiful girl with my impassioned love of beauty I could not help exclaiming about hers and the foolish platitude you ought to be on the stage inadvertently escaped me seeing this as the highest market for beauty in these days when even personal emotions can be made to have commercial value do you think so too she said eagerly betraying what lay near her heart do you know anything about the stage you don't think all actresses bad women like Grandma does do you scarcely some of the most sweet and lovable women I've ever seen are owning their living on the boards I'm intimately acquainted with several actresses and will show you their photograph someday oh I'd love to be on the stage exclaimed the girl tell me why and how you first came to have such a wish well it's this way said Dawn pulling my kimono close about her beautifully rounded throat leaving her pink feet on a wallaby skin at the bedside as she sat down upon them I heard Grandma telling you something about me this afternoon and I suppose you think I'm a terrible girl a beautiful one I said reveling in the curling lips and rounded cheek and chin don't make fun of me said Dawn huffily blushing like noon good gracious now you are making fun of me I'm only stating a patent fact mirrors and men must have told you a thousand times that you are pretty oh them they say it to everyone look here there's the ugliest little runts of girls in Nanu and they're always telling their conquests and that this man and that man say they're pretty when a blind cat could see that they are ugly and the men must be just stringing them to try and take them down so when they say it to me I always make up my mind I'd have more gumption than to take notice for I can't see any beauty in myself I'm too fat and strong looking all the beauties are thin and delicate looking in the face not a bit like me I know I'm not cross-eyed or got one ear off but that's about all I had been want to think the only place unconscious beauties abounded was in high flown unreal novels but here was one in real life and that the exceedingly unvarnished existence of Nanu not that I would have thought any the less of her had she been conscious of her physical loveliness for beauty is such a glorious powerful intoxicating gift that had I been blessed with it I'm sure I would have admired myself all day and the wonder to me regarding beautiful men and women is not that they are so conceited but on the contrary that they are so little vain I want to tell you why I want to be on the stage I couldn't tell how I hate Nanu it's all very well Grandma to settle down now and want me to be the same but when she was young you get her to tell you some of the yarns their tip top she wasn't as quiet as I am by a long way just fancy marrying some galute about here and settling down to wash pots and pack tomatoes and live in the dust among the mosquitoes always I'd rather die I tell you the whole thing while I'm about it you won't mind as I'm sure she had trouble too as her white hair doesn't look to be age comparison of her midget irritation with those that had put broad white streaks in my hair was amusing but the rosy heart of a girl magnifies that which it doesn't contract Grandma wants me to marry did you see that fellow who was after pumpkins he ought to make one of his head the great thing Grandma has a fancy for me having him but I wouldn't marry him if he were the only man in Nunu do you know they actually call him Dora because he was breaking his neck after a girl of that name he used to be making red hot love to her young Andrew there saw him go up the lane by a braze with his arm round her waist mugging her for dear life and then he'd come over here and want to kiss me if he had seen me up a lane hugging the baker I wonder what he want me then Dawn's tone approached tears for thus are sensitive maiden hearts outraged by an inconsistent double standard of propriety and its consequences great and small Grandma says that's nothing if it's not worse for that's the way of men but I'd rather have someone who hadn't done it so plainly right under my nose people wouldn't be able to poke it at me then I've got him warded off proposing and while I guard against that it's all right now this is why I'd like to be on the stage I'd love to have been born rich and have lovely dresses and I'm sure I could hold receptions and go to balls and the stage would be next best to reality but why not marry someone who could give you these things where would I find him you may bet that's the sort of man I'd like to marry if I did marry at all and the dullest observer could have seen she was heart whole and fancy free certainly there would be a difficulty in procuring that brand of eligible there was but a limited supply of him on the market and that was generally confiscated to the use of imported actresses and could society journals be relied upon it was the same in England so Dawn showed good instinct in wanting to bring herself into more equal competition with the winners can you sing I'd never been trained she said but at my request went to the piano in the next room John Cleo Mezzo it was a good voice undoubtedly so there are many such to be heard all over Australia girl singing at country concerts without instruction or the ignorant instruction more injurious than helpful these voices are marred to the practised ear by the style of production which in a year or two leaves them cracked and awful this widespread lack of voice preservation is the result of a want of public musical training with all the training in Paris Dawn would never have been a Dolores or Calve but with other ability she had sufficient voice to make a success in comic opera or in concerts a second fiddle to a star soprano you must sing again for me I said and I'll discover whether you have any ability for the way to wean anyone from a desire is not by condemnation of it don't you say anything to grandma about me and the stage or she'd very nearly turn you out of the house you just ask her what she thinks of it sometime and it will give you an idea but I hate noon and will run away only grandma goes on so terribly about hussies that go to the bad and she's very old and you know how you feel that a curse might follow you when people go on that way said the girl in bidding me good night Dawn had many characteristics that made one love her and a few in spite of which one bore her affection her method of dealing with her native tongue came among the latter it was reprehensible of her too seeing the money her grandmother had spent in giving her a chance to be a lady that is the type of lady who affects her blindness concerning the stern plain facts of existence and who considers that to speak so that she cannot be heard distinctly is an outward sign of innate refinement she had made poor use of her opportunities in this respect but if to be honest, healthy and wholesome is ladylike then Dawn was one of the most vigorous and thoroughly ladylike folk I have known and what really constitutes a lady is a mutable point based largely upon the point of view End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Some Everyday Folk and Dawn by Miles Franklin this LibriVox recording is in the public domain I did not sleep that night Dawn and her grandma had given me too much food for cogitation I felt I had incurred a responsibility in regard to the former upon which I chewed tough cud at the expense of sleep while there was hard common sense in the old grandmother's point of view it was also easy to be at one with the girl's desire for something brighter more stirring than old Noonan afforded the fertile valley was beautiful in all truth but with the beauty that appeals only to a storm-wrecked mariner worn with a glut of human strife and glad to be at anchor for a time rebuilding a jaded constitution upon a first impression this girl did not seem abnormally anxious for the mere plaudits or the notoriety part of the stage-struck's fever nor was she alight with that fire called which will burn a hole through all obstacles till it reaches its goal she appeared rather to regard the stage as a means to an end a pleasant easy way in the notion of the inexperienced of obtaining the fine linen and silver spoon she desired had she been a boy doubtless she would have set out to work for her ambition but being a girl she sought to climb by the most approved unusual ladder within reach the stage was all married the lovely, rich often titled young gentleman who sat in rows in the front seats and admired the high class stars and worshipped the ballerinas and chorus girls or so at least a great many people believed being led astray by a certain columns in gossip newspapers which doubtless have a colouring of truth in as much that the women of the stage are idealised creatures idealised by limelight and advertised by a pushing management the benefit of the box office now Dawn had ample ability and appearance for success on the stage if her parents had been there before her so that she could have grown up in touch with it but whether she had sufficient iron and salt to push her way against the barriers in her pathway I doubted only sheer genius can get to the front in any line of art with which it is not in touch and even giant talent is often so mangled in the struggle that when it rests recognition it is too spent to maintain the altitude it has attained at the expense of heart, sweat and blood the girl worried me and it worried me more to think that after all my experience I was so foolish and sentimental that I could be worried regarding her she had a comfortable home a loving guardian youth, health, good appearance and, to a certain extent fitted her surroundings there was nothing of the ethereally aesthetic about her and no stretch of sickly imagination could picture her as pining to be understood notwithstanding this there was I longing to help her so much that, in spite of my health and an acquaintance that was only 12 hours old I was contemplating entering society for her sweet sake the fact was this little orphan girl who had taken up the life her mother had laid down at dawn of day 19 years ago had collected my scalp and was at leave to string it on her belt as that of an ardent faithful lover who never entertained one unworthy thought of her or wavered in affection from the hour she first flushed upon her I desired to save her from such savage disappointment as had blighted my life not that she would ever have the capacity to feel my frenzy of griefs but remembering my own experience I was ever anxious to save other youngsters from the possibilities of a similar fate the best disposal to be made of dawn was to settle her in marriage with some decent and well-to-do man on the sunny side of 30 but where was such a one thus I lay awake and heard the hours chime and the trains go roaring by till all the household but Miss Flip had returned she entered from the outside did not come in till after midnight and was not alone her uncle accompanied her my room had French lights opening into the garden in the same way as Miss Flip's and as my ailment was a heart-affection it was sometimes necessary for me to go outside to get sufficient air and in this instance I had the door windows wide open and the bed pulled almost to the opening Miss Flip apparently had her window open too for despite the conversation in her room being in subdued tones I heard it where I lay it contained startling disclosures an entity's two persons relations and characters and when Mr. Paunch went his way with the uneven footsteps of the overfed and of accumulating years he left me in a painful state of perturbation what course should I pursue casting on a pair of slippers and a heavy cloak I took a little path leading from my window through the garden to the pier where the boats were moored and here I sat down to consider experience had taught me to be cherry of entering matters that did not concern me but it had not made me sufficiently callous to preserve my equanimity in face of a discovery so serious as this Miss Flip had sinned the sin which, if discovered put a great gulf twist her and Grandma Clay Dawn, Carrie and myself but which would not prevent her fellow sinner from associating with us on more than terms of equality should Grandma Clay become aware of what I knew she certainly would bundle the girl out neck and crop as she would be justified in doing but the girl was in a ghastly predicament and more sinned against than sinning when one heard her grief and remembered the age of her betrayer which should have made him the protector instead of the seducer of young women times out of number the dramatic critics have termed me an artist of the first rank and it is this temperament that is the faculty of rebounding all shades and consequences of life's issues unabashed and with the power to distill knowledge from good and bad and use it experimentally rather than as a judge condemnatory I determined to keep the girl's secret and show myself sympathetically friendly otherwise hoping she would extend me her confidence so that in a humble way I might be privileged to stand between her and perdition it was a beautiful night one of those when the moon relinquishes her court to the little stars vehicular traffic had ceased and the only sound breaking the stillness of the great frostless silver-spangled darkness was the panting of the steam engines and the murmur of the river where half a mile down it took a slight fall over boulders the electric lights of the town twinkled in the near distance and farther east was a faint glow beyond the horizon rightly or wrongly attributed to the lights of the metropolis after a time it grew chilly and I was glad to return to my bed Dawn was separated from me by a thin wooden partition and her strong healthy breathing was plainly discernible as she lay like an opening rose in maiden slumber but there was now no sound from the room of the other poor girl a rose devoured by the worm at its core next morning however she appeared at breakfast for Clays was not a house wherein one felt encouraged to coddle themselves without exceptional reason and to all but a suspicious or hypocritical observer she seemed as usual Carrie was going to church I haven't been able to go this three weeks because my dress wasn't finished and next Sunday will be my week in the kitchen so if I don't go now I won't be able to show it for a fortnight she announced well I ain't going to see Grandma give me back your porridge I forgot to dose it this to Andrew on whose oatmeal she had omitted to put sugar and milk I've always found church is a good deal of bother when you have any important work I contribute to the stipend that ought to be enough for them if one spent all their time running to church they would have no money to give to it and I never yet see praying make a living for anyone but the Parsons and her uncle Jake keeping her company there while he perused the noonoon advertiser which descended to him on Sunday morning Andrew having gone away with Jack Bray and Miss Flip being invisible Grandma and I were left to enjoy a small fire in the dining room so I took this opportunity of inquiring how Jim Clay had managed to capture her this sort of thing interested me I liked life in the actuality where there was no counterfeit or make-believe to offend the sense of just proportions not that I do not love books and pictures but they have to be so very very good before they can in any way appease one while the meanest life is absorbingly interesting invested as it must ever be with the dignity of reality