Drifting Apart
I TOLD you how we took up a selection at Lahey's Creek, and how little Jim had convulsions on the road out, and Brighton's sister-in-law saved him; and about the hard struggle we had for years, and poor Mrs. Spicer, who was "past carin'," and died like a broken-down horse; and how I was lucky, got to be a squatter, and bought a brand-new, first-class double buggy for Mary—and how her brother James brought it as a surprise to Lahey's Creek. And before that I told you all about how I first met Mary at Haviland Station, and how we fell in love, courted, and got married. Ah, well! How the time goes by!
I had luck, and did well for three or four seasons running. I was always going to build a new brick-and-shingle house for Mary—bricks and shingles are cooler than slabs and iron—but that was one of the houses I never built except in the air. I've lived on the bank of the creek, and the place looked about the same as ever—and about as dreary and lonely and God-forsaken. I didn't even get any more furniture, in a good many of 'em.
So we still lived in the old slab-and-bark house and Mary got tired of bothering me about it. I'd always
