My Brilliant Career Miles Franklin (best mobile ebook reader txt) đ
- Author: Miles Franklin
Book online «My Brilliant Career Miles Franklin (best mobile ebook reader txt) đ». Author Miles Franklin
I borrowed something to read, but all that I could get in the way of books were a few Young Ladiesâ Journals, which I devoured ravenously, so to speak.
When Lizerâs back would be turned, the girls would ask me how I managed to live at Barneyâs Gap, and expressed themselves of the opinion that it was the most horrible hole in the world, and Mrs. MâSwat the dirtiest creature living, and that they would not go there for ÂŁ50 a week. I made a point of never saying anything against Mrs. MâSwat; but I fumed inwardly that this life was forced upon me, when girls with no longings or aspirations beyond being the wife of a Peter MâSwat recoiled from the thought of it.
My mother insisted upon my writing to her regularly, so once a week I headed a letter âBlackâs Camp,â and condemned the place, while mother as unfailingly replied that these bad times I should be thankful to God that I was fed and clothed. I knew this as well as anyone, and was aware there were plenty of girls willing to jump at my place; but they were of different temperament to me, and when one is seventeen, that kind of reasoning does not weigh very heavily.
My eldest brother, Horace, twin brother of my sister Gertie, took it upon himself to honour me with the following letter:
Why the deuce donât you give up writing those letters to mother? We get tongue-pie on account of them, and itâs not as if they did you any good. It only makes mother more determined to leave you where you are. She says you are that conceited you think you ought to have something better, and youâre not fit for the place you have, and sheâs glad it is such a place, and it will do you the world of good and take the nonsense out of youâ âthat itâs time you got a bit of sense. Sullivanâs Ginger. After she gets your letters she does jaw, and wishes she never had a child, and what a good mother she is, and what bad devils we are to her. You are a fool not to stay where you are. I wish I could get away to MâSwat or Mack Pot, and I would jump at the chance like a good un. The boss still sprees and loafs about town till someone has to go and haul him home. Iâm about full of him, and Iâm going to leave home before next Christmas, or my name ainât what it is. Mother says the kiddies would starve if I leave; but Stanley is coming on like a haystack, I tell him, and he does kick up, and he ought to be able to plough next time. I ploughed when I was younger than him. I put in fourteen acres of wheat and oats this year, and I donât think Iâll cut a wheelbarrow-load of it. Iâm full of the place. I never have a single penny to my name, and it ainât fatherâs drinking thatâs all to blame; if he didnât booze it wouldnât be much better. Itâs the slowest hole in the world, and Iâll chuck it and go shearing or droving. I hate this dairying, itâs too slow for a funeral: there would be more life in trapping âpossums out on Timlinbilly. Mother always says to have patience, and when the drought breaks and good seasons come round again things will be better, but itâs no good of trying to stuff me like that. I remember when the seasons were wet. It was no good growing anything, because everyone grew so much that there was no market, and the sheep died of foot-rot and you couldnât give your butter away, and it is not much worse to have nothing to sell than not be able to sell a thing when you have it. And the long and short of it is that I hate dairying like blue murder. Itâs as tame as a clucking hen. Fancy a cove sitting down every morning and evening pulling at a cowâs tits fit to bust himself, and then turning an old separator, and washing it up in a dish of water like a blooming girlâs work. And if you go to a picnic, just when the fun commences you have to nick off home and milk, and when you tog yourself on Sunday evening you have to undress again and lay into the milking, and then you have to change everything on you and have a bath, or your best girl would scent the cow-yard on you, and not have you within cooee of her. We wonât know what rain is when we see it; but I suppose it will come in floods and finish the little left by the drought. The grasshoppers have eaten all the fruit and even the bark off the trees, and the caterpillars made a croker of the few tomatoes we kept alive with the suds. All the cockeys round here and dad are applying to the Government to have their rents suspended for a time. We have not heard yet whether it will be granted, but if Gov. doesnât like it, theyâll have to lump it, for none of us have a penny to bless ourselves with, let alone dub up for taxes. Iâve written you a long letter, and if you growl about the spelling and grammar I wonât write to you any more, so there, and you take my tip and donât write to mother on that flute any more, for she wonât take a bit of
Comments (0)