‘It’s all Letty’s work, actually,’ Mary told him.
‘Is it?’ Clem tried to smile at Letty with his blue lips. Letty smiled back, happy with her effort. This would help make up for yesterday’s accident. The men sat with their backs against the sun-warmed trunk of the large gum that leaned out over the creek. Mary gave her husband the biggest piece of pie. Hogan was served last.
Harry spat his mouthful out. ‘Letty is a bad cooker,’ he announced.
Letty was annoyed. Harry had no idea how much care she’d put into it.
‘Don’t be rude,’ said his father. He shovelled a spoonful into his mouth.
There was a short silence. Then Mary said slowly, ‘Letty, what did you put in this pie?’
‘Rabbit, rosemary and salt,’ said Letty. She had been so caught up watching everyone else she hadn’t tried it herself yet.
‘That wasn’t rosemary, I don’t think,’ said Mary, putting down her plate. ‘That was the other bush by the steps. Lavender.’
Oh no, thought Letty. Dried lavender was what Lavinia put in her linen to keep moths away. No wonder it reminded her of her sister.
‘I reckon it wasn’t salt either,’ said Clem. ‘I think you got the sugar tin.’
Hogan snorted.
Letty tasted the mixture on her spoon. It was very strange – a meat jam with a soapy scent. Letty’s cheeks flamed in embarrassment, as hot as the baby’s burn.
‘Is lavender poisonous?’ Clem asked his wife.
Mary shook her head. ‘George puts it in shortbread sometimes.’
‘Waste not, want not, then,’ Clem said. He chewed methodically through his serving. Hogan made a face and did the same. Mary took the damper crust off hers and ate it. Letty scraped the meat sauce off Harry’s crust, too, but he still wouldn’t touch anything.
‘Go away!’ he said, shoving the plate aside.
Every mouthful of Clem and Hogan’s was painful for Letty to watch. She had failed as a servant. Harry wouldn’t go near her. She’d hurt the baby she loved. Now she had spoiled the special meal they’d been looking forward to.
Letty did like the Greys – except for Harry sometimes – and she wanted to please them. But she wasn’t good enough. Though only Harry would tell her she wasn’t welcome, all the Greys were thinking it, Letty was certain. Even the sheep gave her mournful looks.
Letty couldn’t bear to stay on. She made up her mind that she would climb onto the next cart that went past and leave the Greys’ sheep run for good.
THAT night, Letty lay awake thinking miserable thoughts. Whenever she tried to help – with the pie, with Harry, with Victoria – she only seemed to make more problems. Definitely the Greys would be better off without her.
She waited until the rest of the household had gone to sleep. Harry twitched under the blankets. There were no human sounds, only the scratchings of night.
Letty remembered how she had shared a bunk with Lavinia on the voyage out to Australia. And even before that, in their old house in England. She missed Lavinia and the rest of her family so much it hurt. Letty felt under her pillow for the tiny purse Lavinia had given her. It had ten silver coins from her sister.
Slipping out of bed, Letty got her brush from the wash-stand. She tied the strings of the purse around her brush. Then she rolled up her spare dress and petticoats, and shoved the brush inside. She didn’t own anything else to pack. There was nothing more she could do for now, but at least she’d be ready if someone came down the road.
Letty peered through the crack in the curtains. Outside the land was like the rump of an old horse, bony and sloped. The empty road meandered across lumpy hills. Of course nobody was travelling at night. It might be days before anyone passed by.
As she was about to let the curtain drop, Letty thought she heard something.Voices – low and grumbling. But nobody lived within miles.
‘Ma!’ Letty heard a cry. She looked quickly at the bed. Harry hadn’t moved. It wasn’t him. Or Victoria, who couldn’t speak yet.
‘Meh!’ came an answer.
It’s the sheep, of course, thought Letty. Clem had brought some of them up to the pens near the house.
But then Letty saw a figure moving along the fence line of the sheep pens, towards the shearing hut. The figure was bent over, almost creeping. Over each shoulder, Letty could see the long, steely glint of a gun barrel. Her heart nearly stopped.
Was it a thief? Should she wake Clem? But what was out here to steal, other than rocks and trees? The Greys’ small store of cash was hidden in the homestead – the man was moving away from the house. Letty was frozen to the spot. She ought to tell Clem and Mary, but what if she was wrong? She had been wrong too many times already. So she didn’t move.
She couldn’t see a face in the moonlight, but she could make out a shadow across the lower half of it. It looked as if the person was wearing a mask. A beard, Letty realised suddenly, that was it. Then she spotted a quick, dark shape slinking at the figure’s heels. A man with a beard plus a dog: Hogan. He must be guarding the sheep, she realised. Letty was glad she hadn’t woken the Greys. She crawled back under the blankets.
‘Do we ever get visitors here?’ Letty asked in the morning. What she really wanted to know was how soon she might leave.
‘Not usually. The nearest neighbours are fifteen miles away,’ Mary replied.
‘It’s spring,’ added Clem, lathering his face with soap. ‘Every landowner in the district is busy with lambing, sorting and shearing. No time for socialising.’
‘Oh,’ Letty said.
‘Why do you ask?’ Mary said.
‘I saw someone last night,’ Letty answered, not willing to say her true thoughts. ‘Then I thought it must be Hogan, guarding the sheep pens with his guns.’
‘What!’ Mary rounded on Clem. ‘You know I don’t trust that man.’
‘Ease up, Mary.’ Clem lowered the knife he was shaving with. ‘I wouldn’t give a gun to a convict. He carries a stick to protect the lambs from wild dogs. Don’t worry about it.’
They had looked like guns, Letty thought, but perhaps I was mixed up by the moonlight.
Over the next few days, the spring sun dried the sheep and coaxed the yellow wattle into bloom. Every day Letty offered to go outside and collect kindling, so she could watch the road. The Greys’ pile of firewood got bigger and bigger. Still nobody passed by except silent groups of kangaroos.
One morning, when Letty was rolling her dress up again, Harry reached onto the bed and grabbed the brush. He shook it and the coins jingled.
‘Why do you tie a purse to your brush, Letty?’ he asked.
Letty did not want to share her secrets with Harry.
‘Give that back!’ she said.
Harry ran into the kitchen still clutching the brush and dived under the table.
‘Please! Harry!’ Letty got on her hands and knees to go after him.
Harry giggled with delight. He scrambled out the other side of the table, straight into his mother. Mary took the brush from him. She handed it to Letty with a curious look.
To stop Mary asking about the purse, Letty said she would get more wood.
Mary looked at the large woodpile and arched her eyebrows. ‘Are you feeling the cold, Letty? We’ll be like strips of smoked cod if we sit by the fire all day. How about you entertain Victoria on the verandah, while I do some mending.’
Letty propped Victoria on her knees and played with her tiny fingers.
‘… And this little piggy went wee wee wee
All the way home.’
‘Only out here it should be “This little lambsy”, shouldn’t it?’ she said. Or this little Letty, she thought. All the way home.
Out of habit, Letty glanced at the road. She knew what it looked like in every kind of light from dawn to sunset to moonlight. She knew which grey shapes were rocks and which were grazing animals. Kangaroos nibbled and hopped, whereas sheep munched steadily and walked.
‘There are sheep way down on the ro
ad,’ Letty told Mary.
‘Find Hogan,’ she said. ‘He’ll round them up.’
Letty did not want to talk to the convict. She shaded her eyes and looked again.
‘They’re not sheep,’ she exclaimed. ‘They’re people!’
People at last! Letty wanted to jump up and run to them.
‘Can Victoria and I go and see?’ she asked.
Mary pursed her lips. ‘As long as you walk slowly and hold her tight.’
It seemed a long distance to the road. Letty stepped carefully over every shard of stone. But what she really wanted to do was hurry. The people were striding along the road. Three of them. She was afraid they would go past before she reached them. Would they hear if she called? Would they wait for her?
The travellers came level with the house and one of them waved at her.
‘Hoy!’ He left the road and crossed the top paddock towards her. ‘Is this the Greys’ place?’
Letty nodded.
‘Would your father be looking for shearers?’
‘Mr Grey is,’ Letty answered.
So they were looking for work. That meant they’d want to stay – for now at least. Letty’s hopes sank.
As they came closer, Letty noticed the third person. He’d obviously walked a long way. His feet were bare, except for a pair of boot soles tied on with string. He was more a boy than a man, with sandy freckles and long square limbs.
Did she know him?
Could it be …
‘Abner Jones!’ she exclaimed.
‘Aye? Letty!’ Abner broke into a grin so wide it felt like a hug.
‘It’s you!’ Letty and Abner both said at once. Then they laughed.
‘What are you doing here?’ Letty exclaimed.
Before Abner could answer, Hogan sauntered up. ‘What’s so funny, ye pair of kookaburras?’
The men tipped their hats to him. ‘Mr Grey?’
‘Not likely! I’ll find him for ye.’
Hogan led them around the back of the shearing shed to where Clem was mending a gate. Clem stopped work and shook hands with the shearers. ‘You’re new?’ he asked Abner.
‘This is Seaman Abner Jones,’ said Letty proudly.
‘Seaman?’
Abner blushed. The shearers and Hogan gave him an odd look.
‘Well, I’ve done a bit o’ that,’ said Abner, quickly. ‘I can tie a tidy rope, mend spars and climb nearly anything. All right with my hands, I am.’ Letty had forgotten how pleasant his down-and-up accent was.
Clem looked Abner over. ‘Were you helping with the shearing down at Macarthur’s?’
‘He was,’ the shearers said.
‘He’s very strong,’ Letty added.
The men laughed.
Clem passed Abner his tools. ‘Any man’s hands are good hands, this time of year. If you get this gate to swing, then you can lay your swag in the shearers’ hut with the rest of them.’
‘Thank you, sir!’
The men went off to inspect the sheep with Clem. Abner got to work on the gate. Letty sat close by with Victoria, bursting with so many things to talk about that she didn’t know where to start.
‘So why are you here?’ Letty asked.
‘Missed the ship,’ Abner mumbled, looking on the ground for a dropped nail.
He looked sad, Letty thought. She felt like hugging him. ‘Surely it wasn’t your fault, Abner,’ she said. Letty was so glad to see him, she wanted to bounce about on the grass like a spring lamb.
He leaned on the gate and looked seriously at Letty.
‘So then I went looking for you, in Sydney,’ he said. ‘Lavinia told me you were here. I came to tell you I didn’t reach you-er Da in England to give him news of you. I’m sorry, Letty.’
Letty could hardly believe someone would walk halfway across New South Wales to see her. Her heart swelled with pleasure.
‘Never mind.’ She smiled.
‘Ah!’ He stopped and reached into his pocket. ‘A letter for you, I have. From Lavinia.’
Letty squealed with delight.
It wasn’t a long letter. Lavinia said she was flat out sewing a new gown for her mistress, but Abner wouldn’t stay another hour in Sydney. ‘Of course the Mistress is in desperate need of spring clothes, as she has only five or six light dresses, and everybody else’s business will have to WAIT! I fear that I will soon bite my tongue right OUT. Wish you were here.’ Lavinia signed off in large squirls.
Letty hugged the letter to her heart. ‘I wish I was there, too,’ she said. ‘I want to go back to Sydney, you know, Abner.’ Letty told him all about Harry, the rabbit pie and Victoria’s burn.
‘You want to run away?’ said Abner.
She nodded.
‘Running away is for mugs and cowards, Letty. And you’re neither. Just you think it over now.’ Abner tapped the last nail in smoothly.
Letty sighed with the huge relief of getting everything off her chest. She felt as if she had been fixed up, too, just like the gate. She had a friend again. Things would change for the better. She kissed the wispy curls on Victoria’s head. For now, Letty would stay with the Greys.
IN the evening, Letty smiled as she watched Abner cross the paddock to join the shearers in their hut.
‘Who’s he?’ Harry asked. Letty pulled him off the kitchen table.
‘He’s my friend,’ she said.
‘What’s that?’ said Harry.
‘You mean what’s a friend?’
Harry nodded.
‘Oh!’ Letty had never thought about it, but how could Harry know, when there were no children here to play with? ‘Well – a friend is someone you like, who likes you,’ she said. Not like Jemima on the ship, who only seemed to like Letty when it suited her. A friend was someone like Abner, who made her feel understood.
‘Mm,’ Harry said thoughtfully.
‘Friend or foe, the boy’ll do,’ said Clem cheerily. ‘We’ll start shearing at first light tomorrow,’ he told his wife. ‘Mary?’
Mary lifted the iron pot from the fireplace and dumped it on the table. ‘What?’
‘If we had someone to pack bales, the Jones boy can rouseabout, and four of us could shear. Can you help in the shed?’
‘While I look after a baby and cook for eight?’
‘What about –’ Clem cocked his head at Letty.
Letty guessed what they were thinking. Someone was needed to do the cooking for all the workers, but they didn’t think she could. Neither did she. Letty felt clumsy and in the way, like a piece of furniture in the wrong place. She wished she could find the right place. She wished she could be with Abner.
‘Is there a job for me in the shearing shed?’ she asked.
Clem stroked his sideburns. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ he admitted. ‘You being a girl. But it’s an idea. We’ll try this: you be rouseabout and Jones will pack bales.’
Letty didn’t know what a rouseabout was, but she was glad to be useful somewhere.
‘Morning.’ Clem nodded to Abner and the shearers. Hogan’s kelpie jumped the gate ahead of them. Her tail wagged so hard that her body wiggled with it.
As Clem explained how he wanted the shearing to run, Hogan eyed Letty.
‘Ha! Good one, boss,’ said Hogan. ‘Pull the other leg, why don’t ye! A girl in the shearing shed.’ He spat on the ground.
‘ “Boss” is right,’ said Clem, standing tall and still. ‘Don’t forget it.’
‘Sir.’ Hogan’s lip curled up as if he wanted to spit again.
‘We’ll start on the broken-mouthed lot. To get our hand in.’ Clem nodded towards the far pen.
‘So if the girl stuffs up it don’t matter,’ Hogan muttered. He whistled to his dog. ‘Push up!’ he ordered.The kelpie leapt to her feet and ducked under the fence. She ran back and forth behind the sheep, rounding them towards the far gate.
‘A good ’un, she is,’ said Abner.
‘Of course,’ said Hogan.
Letty envied the kelpie, so full of con
fidence.
Clem opened the gate part way, and let a few sheep into a smaller pen inside the shed. It was Letty’s first time in there.The shearing shed was like a booth: it had a bark roof on forked posts, over a wooden floor. Two walls were made of split timber; the other two sides were open.
Hogan called off his dog. The men went into the pen. Each took a sheep by the scruff of its neck. They sat the bleating animal on its bottom and dragged it onto the shearing board.
‘What do I do?’ whispered Letty to Abner, as the men began to slice into the wool.
‘As rouseabout? Pick up the fleeces,’ Abner told her.
‘Oh!’ Letty dashed in between the men, keeping an eye on the snipping shears. She reached for a piece of snowy wool falling on the floor.
‘Hey!’ yelled Hogan.
Clem looked up from his sheep. ‘Put that down!’ he ordered.
Abner pulled Letty back. ‘You-er a bit quickish,’ he said. ‘Not like that. When he’s all done, you lift the whole piece and take off the dags. Show you, I will.’
Letty went red with embarrassment but Abner did not look bothered. He showed Letty how to scoop up the fleece from the board and shake it out over the wool table. She soon found out what dags were: dirty, stuck-together bits that were chucked in a separate basket.
‘Make sure you pull off the poo and the prickles.’ Abner smiled. ‘It’s my bare feet that tread the wool in.’ He pointed to a wooden frame, a few steps from the wool table. The frame held a large white sack.Abner packed the finished fleece in this square bag and stomped it down.
Letty liked the way the whole fleece peeled to the floor like a big, soft robe. On the outside the wool looked grey and knotty, but inside it was white as sea foam. The naked sheep hopped over it, like a young lady stepping over her dress into the bath.
Letty began to feel the rhythm of shearing. The men snipped; the sheep bleated; their feet skittered; she swept the fleece away; Abner stuffed the bales. The fork-post shadows shortened. Before she knew it, it was tea break, then lunch.
Lunch was mutton stew and damper, as usual. But Letty was hungry. Clem sat on a full bale to eat his meal with Mary, Harry and Victoria. The other men took their plates out to sit round the back of the shed. Letty wasn’t sure whether she should follow them. Abner did, so she went with him.
Letty on the Land Page 3
