return trip until the bush became civilised. Yet, as time went on and the bush not only became civilised but baptised and colonised as well, old Harry and "the missus" never displayed any inclination to go back, although the Governor gave them their "walking ticket" often enough! Still, Mrs. Channing was a help to mother in the housework, and, in a way, company for her at times. In addition she cooked for the station hands, while Harry chopped wood and brought water, and pottered about the homestead growling and grumbling habitually of the hard work he had to do. But how they did quarrel with each other, that happy married couple. They would engage in real stand-up fights at times, always over paltry, trifling things that mattered little to anyone and often enough they had no idea what they were rowing about themselves... Comfortably quartered they were, too, in the kitchen, a detachment of three rooms, connected with the big house by a wide "gangway," shaded with flowering scrub vines.
"Now, Harry," I recollect mother almost pleading one night, while visiting the kitchen to procure some necessity or other before retiring to bed, "I hope you will let Mrs. Channing have a good rest tonight, and don’t fight with her any more, like a good man! She worked very hard to-day, and I’m sure she must be tired." Mother, kind soul, ever had a sympathetic thought in her heart for others, and always made allowance for the weaknesses and deficiencies of humans,
"I don’t fight with her, ma'am," and Harry, leaning
