School at Jimbaree

by Ethel Turner

SCHOOL AT JIMBAREE.

By Ethel Turner.

THE HEAD station on the Jimbaree run, when seen through a softening haze a mile or two away, looked quaint and disorderly enough to be picturesque.

But at close quarters the enchantment faded. Seven separate buildings comprised the dwelling?. Three were of galvanized iron, and turned their backs disdainfully upon each other. Two were of dead brown bark, peeling rapidly under stress of the weather. Two were of weatherboard, with the elements of architecture about them.

"If next shearing," said the squatter, Shannon, "turns out decently, I'll pull down all these ramshackles and build a house, brick if you like, girls, with a red tiled roof."

But the girls, after watching five good seasons pass without the redemption of the promise, lost heart and grew content with the old places that had sprung up one after the other, to meet the requirements of the growing family and the hands the station needed.

A letter had gone recently to the lady who managed a Governesses' Registry Office in Sydney. It was written on a sheet torn out of an exercise-book; the envelope was another sheet gummed together with unused two-penny stamps:—

"Dear Mrs. Grey," it ran (the writing was certainly that of a gentleman),—"Please send along another one without delay. Miss Jones is returning by to-night's mail; it's really not her fault, any more than it was Miss Martin's, so don't blame her. Get her a comfortable place; you can charge her board and lodging to me while you find her one. Jimbaree has completely broken her up, I'm afraid; she says her nerves will never recover, poor old lady! Don't put yourself out, but if you can send someone this week we'll be very glad. The wife's beginning to fidget because Mena didn't know what King Alfred did to the cakes, and fancied seven eights were fifty-four. Any salary you think fit, not seventy though, for I don't want to swindle the unfortunate woman who undertakes us. And charge all her expenses to me. I'll meet Thursday's train if she can come.—Yours, etc.,

Tom Shannon."

There was a postscript the other side, added in pencil:—

"Nothing unkind intended, but if, my dear Mrs. Grey, without any more trouble to yourself, you could send us someone with just the elements of good looks and youth, it would be a change. The battered, nerveless, smileless veterans of pot-hook lore begin to pall. Not that we deserve anything better."

Mrs. Grey took the reproach to heart, and found a young, slim, pretty thing, who had plenty of accomplishments, and was dazzled instantly by the £70.

"Are they very rough, uneducated people?" the girl said, her eyes glancing at the slovenly letter in the matron's hands. At her last place she had received £26 a year, but her employer used thick, scented notepaper with a lately found crest.

The matron was able to clear her client's character of the imputation. Both Mr. and Mrs. Shannon were educated, she said, and both came of good Australian families. She believed them to be very pleasant people indeed. But——

"What?" said the girl; the matron was looking at her with such kindly, pitying eyes it made her nervous about the life a-stretch before her. "Pray tell me, I would much rather be prepared for the worst. What is there against them, Mrs. Grey?"

Mrs. Grey folded the already signed agreement. Humour was at her mouth corners.

"They are good natured," she said.

"I might endure that," smiled the girl.

"Exceedingly good natured."

"There are worse things for obstacles."

The matron shook her head.

"Mismanagement has many tools, but good nature is the handle for them all," she said sententiously.

The girl was quite contented, however, and within a week was setting forth on her four hundred miles journey.

Mr. Shannon himself was there to meet her; forty miles by the road he had come to the place the coach passed. He was tall, thin, brown, commonplace-looking; when he was perturbed he rubbed his left eyebrow. Shyness invariably made him monosyllabic.

As they drove along Miss Emmerton tried conscientiously to interest him and be interested.

She would have given five shillings to a charity for a view to praise, green grass upon which to remark, horses that might honestly be admired. But what conversation could be made about scenery when the world seemed to have resolved itself into an eternal vista of spindly gums and mulga scrub? When the ground was either red and cracked, or brown and leaf-covered? When the horses, worthy beasts and cheerfully willing though they were, showed gaunt and great-boned, covered from mane to tail with a thick mud-coloured foam?

"I can praise the house presently," she thought, and lapsed, thus comforted, into silence to match his own.

And then it was Jimbaree that stretched itself out before her! Jimbaree in its summer setting of burnt, dusty brown! Jimbaree, panting and parched under the burning heavens of drought time! His heart smote him when he looked at it with her eyes. Most of the way he had been feeling exultant that he had such a treasure as this sweet-faced girl to take to his wife and family. Now he grew afraid she would not stay with them.

"It's a disgraceful place to take you to," he said humbly. "But really I'm going to build a good house presently, and we'll start a nice garden then. It's not been worth whiles before; we've kept on postponing it till we do build."

"And how long have you been here?" asked the girl, taking heart again at the thought that this condition was not to be a permanency.

"Only about thirteen years," said the squatter; "I had a run on the Bogan before that."

"Are there many children for me to teach?" she asked some minutes later, breaking a silence she had found necessary for the digestion of his last speech.

And "Yes" he answered, monosyllabic instantly from sheer nervousness and shame at the number. He gave no specific number, however, so she had to wait perforce till she had the evidence of her own eyes. Then she believed there were a dozen at least, so many figures scattered and fled as their jolting buggy drew up at one of the weather-board places.

A woman came out on the verandah to meet her—tall, high cheek-boned, large-mouthed. She was dressed in a very loose wrapper of expensive floral silk. Her welcome was kindly and hearty.

"It has been so hot lately that we quite thought you would not have come," she said, leading the way to a bedroom. "You really should have waited for a spell of cooler weather."

"But I knew you would have to send all those miles to meet me," the governess said in amazement.

"Well," returned Mrs. Shannon, "that would not have mattered; we could have sent again."

It was something of a shock to the girl to find three beds in the room to which she was taken.

"Mena and Tiny have to sleep here with you," Mrs. Shannon said, regret in her voice. "It's a shame that we can't give you a place to yourself, but it won't be for long, my dear; Mr. Shannon has promised to build us a nice big place soon."

While the girl washed and laid aside her things she went away. Returning presently with some dinner, the governess noticed that her face was heated and a-shine with good-will; gravy splashes were down the front of her dress, testifying to the fact that she had done the service with her own hands.

The tray held a large cup of tea generously sugared, and containing condensed milk—Miss Emmerton was sufficiently end-of-the-century to drink severely unsweetened tea; a very large mutton chop, fried, potatoes barely cooked, badly pared pumpkin a-swim in pale gravy, and a lump of pudding popularly known as plum duff.

"The bread is very dark and heavy this week," she said; "I'm almost afraid you won't be able to eat it, love. If it wasn't that our cook has three children dependent on her we should really send her away, she spoils everything she touches."

"Have you had her long?" asked Miss Emmerton, almost bringing the dimple at her mouth corner into view.

"Nearly six years," answered Mrs. Shannon, never noticing it; "but I have made up my mind to send her off if she does not improve soon."

There were only five children to be taught after all, the governess found: three boys with thick light hair that never seemed to be cut, and two girls, wild, shy, tall creatures, who accepted her overtures one day and fled from her the next.

"And if you do get any time over." Mrs. Shannon said almost apologetically—"not that I think yon will with five of them—and would just play and sing for us sometimes, we should be very glad."

At the end of the first week Miss Emmerton pointed out to the parents that all her time seemed "over." She was conscientious by nature, and £70 a year seemed to her a large enough sum to require honest earning. Seven whole days had drifted by, and all the work to show was a copy done by Mena and a reduction sum, wildly incorrect, by Tiny. The three boys she had been absolutely unable to catch. Tiny had had four headaches, and Mena toothache five times, and had obtained permission from their mother to ask the governess to read stories to them instead of doing lessons.

Miss Emmerton thought it must be the need of a proper schoolroom that made teaching impossible, and she went to Mr. Shannon with the startling request that one of the iron places might be cleared out and devoted to her use.

"I've been peeping in them," she said, "and this one"—she had drawn him to the door—"has only pumpkins and melons, and old chairs and rubbish in it. May we have it partly cleared out?"

The squatter pulled his eyebrow.

"What's wrong with the dining-room?" he asked.

Miss Emmerton looked at him gently.

"We are interrupted so often," she said. "I have been here a week now, Mr. Shannon, "and I have taught the children nothing."

"Oh," he said, "there's lots of time for that." He aired his favourite maxim about the building of Rome having occupied more than a day. The procrastination he excused with this saying was marvellous.

"But we really must have a place to ourselves," she urged.

He dragged at his eyebrow again.

"Oh, darn it all!" he said. Then he remembered he was speaking to the polisher of the speech of his children, and begged her pardon for the lapse of tongue.

"If you'll just wait a bit," he said, "they'll have finished shearing at Thargumindah. Then there'll be lots of men here, and I'll set some of them to clear the place out."

But a week had taught her his magnificent shiftiness.

"Have they started yet?" she asked, and dragged it from him that the wool was scarce half grown.

He joined in the laugh against himself and gave in to her.

"I'll set those lazy young dogs of mine to do it," he said, and looked at her with admiration for her energy.

The "lazy young dogs," her three boy pupils, took just a fortnight to clear the pumpkins out, and when she would have hurried them, Mrs. Shannon laughed at her.

"Where's the hurry?" she said. "You'll fall ill if you're so energetic this weather. Do you know it is 115 degrees in the back verandah shade this morning? The quarter's only just started, my dear; it won't hurt any of you to have a little more holiday."

The girl asked what she was to do about the boys.

"The minute they finish their breakfasts," she said, "they disappear. I was an hour looking for them the other morning and could not find them. I drove little Tom in at last and extracted a copy from him, but while I was setting him another he slipped off again."

Mrs. Shannon smiled, her husband laughed.

"Poor little beggars!" the latter said. "It's hard lines for them to be penned up and made to cudgel their brains this weather; I'd jib on it myself."

"But what am I here for?" asked the bewildered governess. "You wish them to be my pupils, do you not?"

Mrs. Shannon soothed her. Of course they wished the boys to be taught, and it was very good of her to trouble so much about them. But they were such boys for being out of doors that one could not help secretly sympathising with them.

"But now am I to obtain any authority over them?" said the governess helplessly. She looked almost fit to cry because they would not come to her help.

"You must use the cane, my dear," said Shannon; "all the governesses do. Trounce them as much as ever you like."

The girl looked distressfully at Mrs. Shannon; the idea was so distasteful to her, she hoped the mother's feelings would object to this. But that lady nodded cheerfully.

"I've no objection, I assure you. I'm too lazy to do it myself, but when anyone relieves me of the necessity I am most thankful. And I'll talk to the boys to-night, my love, and make them promise to stay with you to-morrow."

The next day the three light-haired boys presented themselves. In each of their pockets reposed a shilling and a handful of currants—the maternal bribe—and yet they looked sulky and ill-used. The governess shut the barn door and felt happy in her work for the first time.

"Tom," she said, "here is a nice little subtraction sum for you; go up to that end of the room—you can sit on that corn sack—and see how quickly you can do it."

Tom dragged the slate out of her hand and made a plunge across the floor to the place indicated.

"James," she said. The room roared with laughter and informed her that his name was Jim, with an i, not an e (Jem Brown, the boundary rider, spelt his name with an e, so their Jim spelt with i to discriminate).

"Well, Jim," she said patiently, "how far are you in arithmetic? You are twelve, aren't you. Are you as far as fractions yet?"

Jim looked at the wall while he answered, his face very sullen. He could only do subtraction like Tom.

But Mena and Tiny burst in excitedly to bring his veracity into question.

It was an awful cram, they said. Miss Jones had taught him decimals; he used to do them well.

"I never," said Jim.

"You did," they cried.

"Say I'm a liar!" said Jim, excitement on his face.

"You're a l——." The girls remembered their governess's ears. "You're a great big story. We'll tell pa. You've done lots of decimals. If three men build a brick wall in five days, how many houses can A and B build—that sort, hasn't he, George?"

George lived at perpetual enmity with Jim, though if there had been any cause for it he would have saved his life cheerfully at the expense of his own.

"Yes," he said instantly.

"I'll lame you for that," muttered Jim.

"Try it," said George, and bumped him up roughly against the table.

Jim kicked out sideways and secretly, and caught his brother in a tender place on the leg. The next minute they were fighting. From the eminence of the corn sack little Tom applauded them both.

"Go it!" he yelled; "nib it in, Porgie; hit his nose, Jimmie; give him one in the eye, Porgie."

Miss Emmerton looked on helplessly for a minute or two; the room seemed full of corn dust and the bounding and banging of two sturdy figures.

Mena and Tiny took it philosophically. "It's awful, isn't it?" they said; "still it's better to let them have it out—Miss Jones always did; we'll be showing you the printing we did with her, so lovely, all red ink and blue."

But the spirit of Miss Emmerton was higher than that of the late Miss Jones.

She rushed between the boys and tried energetically to catch one of the rapidly working arms.

"I don't want to hurt you," George said a little breathlessly. He stopped a minute and pushed her gently to one side, then closed with his brother again.

Again she ran between them. "If you don't stop this instant I shall keep you both in," she cried.

"He—he—he," cackled little Tom from his corner.

Mena and Tiny pulled her back by her dress. "You'll get hurt," they said. "Do let them alone, they'll have finished soon; can't you see Jim's nearly winded!"

"I will not be defied," cried Miss Emmerton; "go immediately and fetch Mr. Shannon, Mena!"

"He's gone to the sheds," said Tiny.

"Then Mrs. Shannon."

"She's gone with him; didn't you see her on old Wombat?"

The boys warmed more comfortably to their work at the pleasing news.

Miss Emmerton rushed off to the house: it was plain to her she must establish her authority this very morning or give it all up.

"Hit his eye, Georgie; flatten his nose, Jimmie; stick up to him like a man," sang out little Tom.

Then she came flying back with the cane which Mr. Shannon had given her. She had placed it on one side, saying she would rule by kindness and firmness.

But Jim was finished. Bleeding from the nose, his face puffed, his clothes dust-coloured, he was rising from the ground and moving away, the bitterness of defeat making his soul smart.

George was smiling. He was rather a handsome lad, finely-made, frank-eyed. He looked at Miss Emmerton quite without shame, even exultantly.

"Can I go out a minute?" Jim said. The defeat had sufficiently crushed his spirit to make him ask permission instead of walking out.

"No you cannot," answered Miss Emmerton sternly.

Mena ran out of her seat to give whispered advice.

"You'll really have to let him," she said. "Look at his nose! he must wash it; they always have to."

Miss Emmerton looked.

"You may go for just five minutes," she said; "then come straight back. If you are more than five it will be all the worse for you." Then she turned to George.

"I am going to cane you," she said. "You will know now what you have to expect each time."

"Fire away," said George pleasantly. He held both his hands out ready for her. Very tightly the girl closed her lips—they were trembling, and she did not want George to see. All the colour ran away out of her face, her eyes looked large and round like a frightened child's. She gave him two little strokes, then two a trifle harder, and two more again for the urgent need of authority establishment. The horny young hands remained outstretched, quite motionless under them.

"Finished?" he said at last, when she stopped; and her lips, broken away from their straight line, began to show their trembling. "Don't stop if you haven't. Hadn't you better give me a few on the shoulders—Miss Martin always did—I'll stoop them down to you as you're so little."

But the poor little girl flung the cane from her, sat down at the table, and burst into tears.

"There!" said Mena.

"See what you've done now!" said Tiny.

They sat and looked at each other nervously, and little Tom began to do his sum from sheer good feeling towards her.

George went up close to her and put his arm round her waist. "Don't cut up rusty," he said, "you're such a good little sort. I'm awfully sorry, upon my honour, but I really had to take it out of that young beggar. Say you'll be friends."

But the girl still sobbed breathlessly.

"Why should you mind?" he said. "Miss Jones never took any notice—you could easily pretend not to see. Look here, shake hands, there's a good fellow, and the next time I want to lay it on to the little beggar I'll take him half a mile away."

But Miss Emmerton lacked humour, a quality absolutely essential for the happiness of the life of a governess at Jimbaree.

"G-g-go away," she said, and dried her eyes on her little handkerchief.

He pulled a pile of books towards him. "Here," he said, "are these what you want me to do? Just mark anything—sums, Latin, parsing—everything, and I'll do the whole boiling like a lamb." Such warm, affectionate, merry eyes he had, such a gentle, rough young hand it was that patted her on the back and slipped itself comfortingly round her waist.

But she repulsed him coldly, took the books, and sent him to the end of the table with a severe task.

"Mena," she said, "go and tell Jim to come in; he has been more than five minutes. Tom, is your sum finished?"

She looked to the height at which she had last seen the smallest light head. But it was three feet lower now, though still on the corn bag. On mounting he had carefully cut a hole at one side near the bottom, and the gold and orange grains had oozed in a brilliant stream all over the floor till the bag was almost empty.

She went to him aghast. "What will your father say?" she said; "look what you have done!"

"It's your fault," he said, "you told me to sit on it."

"But there's a hole in the side; I believe you cut it; yes, here's your penknife, you naughty little boy," she cried.

"You never told me not to," he said, injury in his voice.

George crashed his chair back, strode up to him and boxed his ears hard. "I'll do that every time you worry Miss Emmerton," he said with glowing eyes.

But the governess rejected his championship, a move lacking wisdom, and ordered him back to his seat.

"I can manage without your help," she said. "Tom, go and get a shovel; I shall make you gather up every grain of that corn."

"Yes'm," said Tom, and walked sedately out with lowered eyelids.

Miss Emmerton began to make, with the aid of a ruler and a bottle of red ink, an elaborate programme of work for all future days.

And five minutes passed without a sign of the bruised Jim, or Tom with his shovel, or even the almost tractable Mena.

Ten minutes ticked along, twelve, and Miss Emmerton raising her head suddenly discovered George and Tiny winking at each other.

She guessed the cause to be the extended absence of the other three, and rose to her feet.

"While I am away," she said coldly, "you are to go on with your work and not speak at all to each other."

"You'd better let me come with you," said George. "My eyes are better than yours."

"Sit down!" said Miss Emmerton. "Understand what I have said."

"I won't be left here alone," said Tiny; "he'll pull my hair. I'm coming too."

"Go back to your seat!" cried Miss Emmerton; "if you stir out of it I shall keep you in for an hour."

She sent her eyes a reluctant advance guard over the scorching, shadeless ground that led to the house. Then she tied her handkerchief over her hair to keep off the blinding glare, and took a step.

Tiny's voice followed her, eagerly aggressive.

"He's making faces at me; tell him to stop, Miss Emmerton. Miss Emmerton, cane him again, will you? Ma says she won't have him pulling faces at us."

Miss Emmerton affected deafness and hurried on, but the thin shrill voice pursued her all the way.

"He's doing it again, Miss Emmerton. Miss Emm-erton, make him stop. Miss Emm-m-m-merton, he's sticking his tongue out. O-o-h! O-o-h! make him stop! O-o-h! he's making awful faces at me."

In neither of the weatherboard buildings could the governess find any sign of her missing pupils, though she searched for them, with angry obstinacy, even under the beds and in the cupboards and behind the piano.

But at last, crossing to the storehouse, she caught sight of Jim and Mena creeping down to the horse paddock close to the fence.

All the pertinacity of her nature was aroused, and she gave chase to them despite the abnormal state of the thermometer.

"Mena," she called, "if you don't come back instantly I shall report you to your father. Jim, do you hear?"

She gained on them, she was within a hundred yards of them, when Jim whistled, a queer, low, far-carrying whistle, and two horses from the hill-top came whinnying down.

"Jim! " she cried, "Mena! Do you hear me? Come here immediately."

But they climbed the horses bare back, and headed away in the opposite direction to the sheds, at a speed that showed temperature was a thing beneath their notice.

Back to the house the girl went, her cheeks burning more from anger than the sun. The cook met her at the front door.

"That Tom's up the red gum over there," she said; "he's just bin in and stole three of my meat parsties, and a 'an'ful of sugar. He'll stop there all day, and the best place for him; don't you go trying to fetch hhim down, it's no good."

Miss Emmerton did not even attempt the task. She saw the little white head and cheerfully ugly face among the leaves, and passed without a word on her way back to devote the rest of the morning to George and Tiny.

But the barn, of course, was empty.

The cook shouted after her—

"Quick, quick, here they are; look sharp. Miss, I've got 'em."

But Miss Emmerton would not lose her dignity again by "looking sharp," and merely walked back to the house in the most stately way she could command.

The woman admitted her through the back door; she had locked all the others.

"If you don't look out, that girl 'll have gone to bed," she said.

Miss Emmerton made a straight line to the room she shared with her two girl pupils. And surely enough Tiny was in bed, actually undressed and beneath the sheets.

She had her eyes closed and both her hands pressed to her temples. "Do please be quiet," she said, in a faint, moaning voice. "Lessons have made my head bad again. I wish ma was home; oh, don't walk about."

But Miss Emmerton walked out of the room and let the wind bang the door behind her.

George was now scurrying down the verandah.

"I'll catch him, at all events," Miss Emnierton thought, and put out a hand that had the good fortune to seize his collar.

But he ducked and ran into a little building at the verandah end.

"You can't come in," he shouted when she pushed against the door. "Keep out, I'm undressing; I'm going to have a bath."

And the next second she heard him splashing and puffing and making grampus-like noises in the water.

When she was leaving a week later they loaded her with presents.

Both the girls wept unrestrainedly as she drove away; they invariably did when their governesses departed. All three boys accompanied the buggy on horseback and shook hands in the friendliest, most regretful manner.

"You will run up and see us sometimes, won't you?" they said. It was the twentieth time.

"Yes; don't forget. We shall be delighted to have you. Couldn't you come and stay the winter with us sometime?" said Shannon, great warmth in his tone and eyes.

"I'll come when the new house is built," said the girl, and the coach started off. "That's right," he called out with great heartiness.

"Hurrah!" shouted Jim and little Tom. But George, who was the sharpest of them all, had seen her eyes.

"She was laughing at you," he said.

"At me!"

"Us; everything; Jimbaree."

"Oh, you imagine things," said the squatter. But he rubbed his left eyebrow several times during the forty-miles drive back.