there was any one ----' then she stopped.
`Why aren't you dancing?' I asked her.

`Oh, I'm tired,' she said. `It was too hot in the wool-shed. I thought
I'd like to come out and get my head cool and be quiet a little while.'

`Yes,' I said, `it must be hot in the wool-shed.'
She stood looking out over the willows. Presently she said,

`It must be very dull for you, Mr Wilson -- you must feel lonely.
Mr Barnes said ----' Then she gave a little gasp and stopped --

as if she was just going to put her foot in it.
`How beautiful the moonlight looks on the willows!' she said.

`Yes,' I said, `doesn't it? Supposing we have a stroll by the river.'
`Oh, thank you, Mr Wilson. I'd like it very much.'

I didn't notice it then, but, now I come to think of it,
it was a beautiful scene: there was a horseshoe of high blue hills

round behind the house, with the river running round under the slopes,
and in front was a rounded hill covered with pines, and pine ridges,

and a soft blue peak away over the ridges ever so far in the distance.
I had a handkerchief over the worst of my face, and kept the best side

turned to her. We walked down by the river, and didn't say anything
for a good while. I was thinking hard. We came to a white smooth log

in a quiet place out of sight of the house.
`Suppose we sit down for a while, Mary,' I said.

`If you like, Mr Wilson,' she said.
There was about a foot of log between us.

`What a beautiful night!' she said.
`Yes,' I said, `isn't it?'

Presently she said, `I suppose you know I'm going away next month, Mr Wilson?'
I felt suddenly empty. `No,' I said, `I didn't know that.'

`Yes,' she said, `I thought you knew. I'm going to try and get
into the hospital to be trained for a nurse, and if that doesn't come off

I'll get a place as assistant public-school teacher.'
We didn't say anything for a good while.

`I suppose you won't be sorry to go, Miss Brand?' I said.
`I -- I don't know,' she said. `Everybody's been so kind to me here.'

She sat looking straight before her, and I fancied her eyes glistened.
I put my arm round her shoulders, but she didn't seem to notice it.

In fact, I scarcely noticed it myself at the time.
`So you think you'll be sorry to go away?' I said.

`Yes, Mr Wilson. I suppose I'll fret for a while. It's been my home,
you know.'

I pressed my hand on her shoulder, just a little, so as she couldn't pretend
not to know it was there. But she didn't seem to notice.

`Ah, well,' I said, `I suppose I'll be on the wallaby again next week.'
`Will you, Mr Wilson?' she said. Her voice seemed very soft.

I slipped my arm round her waist, under her arm. My heart was going
like clockwork now.

Presently she said --
`Don't you think it's time to go back now, Mr Wilson?'

`Oh, there's plenty of time!' I said. I shifted up, and put my arm
farther round, and held her closer. She sat straight up,

looking right in front of her, but she began to breathe hard.
`Mary,' I said.

`Yes,' she said.
`Call me Joe,' I said.

`I -- I don't like to,' she said. `I don't think it would be right.'
So I just turned her face round and kissed her. She clung to me and cried.

`What is it, Mary?' I asked.
She only held me tighter and cried.

`What is it, Mary?' I said. `Ain't you well? Ain't you happy?'
`Yes, Joe,' she said, `I'm very happy.' Then she said, `Oh, your poor face!

Can't I do anything for it?'
`No,' I said. `That's all right. My face doesn't hurt me a bit now.'

But she didn't seem right.
`What is it, Mary?' I said. `Are you tired? You didn't sleep

last night ----' Then I got an inspiration.
`Mary,' I said, `what were you doing out with the gun this morning?'

And after some coaxing it all came out, a bit hysterical.
`I couldn't sleep -- I was frightened. Oh! I had such a terrible dream

about you, Joe! I thought Romany came back and got into your room
and stabbed you with his knife. I got up and dressed, and about daybreak

I heard a horse at the gate; then I got the gun down from the wall --
and -- and Mr Barnes came round the corner and frightened me.

He's something like Romany, you know.'
Then I got as much of her as I could into my arms.

And, oh, but wasn't I happy walking home with Mary that night!
She was too little for me to put my arm round her waist,

so I put it round her shoulder, and that felt just as good.
I remember I asked her who'd cleaned up my room and washed my things,

but she wouldn't tell.
She wouldn't go back to the dance yet; she said she'd go into her room

and rest a while. There was no one near the old verandah;
and when she stood on the end of the floor she was just on a level

with my shoulder.
`Mary,' I whispered, `put your arms round my neck and kiss me.'

She put her arms round my neck, but she didn't kiss me; she only hid her face.
`Kiss me, Mary!' I said.

`I -- I don't like to,' she whispered.
`Why not, Mary?'

Then I felt her crying or laughing, or half crying and half laughing.
I'm not sure to this day which it was.

`Why won't you kiss me, Mary? Don't you love me?'
`Because,' she said, `because -- because I -- I don't -- I don't think

it's right for -- for a girl to -- to kiss a man unless she's going
to be his wife.'

Then it dawned on me! I'd forgot all about proposing.
`Mary,' I said, `would you marry a chap like me?'

And that was all right.
. . . . .

Next morning Mary cleared out my room and sorted out my things,
and didn't take the slightest notice of the other girls' astonishment.

But she made me promise to speak to old Black, and I did the same evening.
I found him sitting on the log by the fence, having a yarn on the quiet

with an old Bushman; and when the old Bushman got up and went away,
I sat down.

`Well, Joe,' said Black, `I see somebody's been spoiling your face
for the dance.' And after a bit he said, `Well, Joe, what is it?

Do you want another job? If you do, you'll have to ask Mrs Black, or Bob'
(Bob was his eldest son); `they're managing the station for me now, you know.'

He could be bitter sometimes in his quiet way.
`No,' I said; `it's not that, Boss.'

`Well, what is it, Joe?'
`I -- well the fact is, I want little Mary.'

He puffed at his pipe for a long time, then I thought he spoke.
`What did you say, Boss?' I said.

`Nothing, Joe,' he said. `I was going to say a lot, but it wouldn't be
any use. My father used to say a lot to me before I was married.'

I waited a good while for him to speak.
`Well, Boss,' I said, `what about Mary?'

`Oh! I suppose that's all right, Joe,' he said. `I -- I beg your pardon.
I got thinking of the days when I was courting Mrs Black.'

Brighten's Sister-In-Law.
Jim was born on Gulgong, New South Wales. We used to say `on' Gulgong --

and old diggers still talked of being `on th' Gulgong' --
though the goldfield there had been worked out for years,

and the place was only a dusty little pastoral town in the scrubs.
Gulgong was about the last of the great alluvial `rushes'

of the `roaring days' -- and dreary and dismal enough it looked
when I was there. The expression `on' came from being on

the `diggings' or goldfield -- the workings or the goldfield
was all underneath, of course, so we lived (or starved) ON them --

not in nor at 'em.
Mary and I had been married about two years when Jim came ----

His name wasn't `Jim', by the way, it was `John Henry',
after an uncle godfather; but we called him Jim from the first --

(and before it) -- because Jim was a popular Bush name,
and most of my old mates were Jims. The Bush is full of good-hearted scamps

called Jim.
We lived in an old weather-board shanty that had been a sly-grog-shop,

and the Lord knows what else! in the palmy days of Gulgong;
and I did a bit of digging (`fossicking', rather), a bit of shearing,

a bit of fencing, a bit of Bush-carpentering, tank-sinking, -- anything,
just to keep the billy boiling.

We had a lot of trouble with Jim with his teeth. He was bad
with every one of them, and we had most of them lanced --

couldn't pull him through without. I remember we got one lanced
and the gum healed over before the tooth came through,

and we had to get it cut again. He was a plucky little chap,
and after the first time he never whimpered when the doctor

was lancing his gum: he used to say `tar' afterwards,
and want to bring the lance home with him.

The first turn we got with Jim was the worst. I had had the wife and Jim
out camping with me in a tent at a dam I was making at Cattle Creek;

I had two men working for me, and a boy to drive one of the tip-drays,
and I took Mary out to cook for us. And it was lucky for us

that the contract was finished and we got back to Gulgong,
and within reach of a doctor, the day we did. We were just camping

in the house, with our goods and chattels anyhow, for the night;
and we were hardly back home an hour when Jim took convulsions

for the first time.
Did you ever see a child in convulsions? You wouldn't want to see it again:

it plays the devil with a man's nerves. I'd got the beds fixed up
on the floor, and the billies on the fire -- I was going to make some tea,

and put a piece of corned beef on to boil over night -- when Jim
(he'd been queer all day, and his mother was trying to hush him to sleep) --

Jim, he screamed out twice. He'd been crying a good deal,
and I was dog-tired and worried (over some money a man owed me)

or I'd have noticed at once that there was something unusual
in the way the child cried out: as it was I didn't turn round

till Mary screamed `Joe! Joe!' You know how a woman cries out
when her child is in danger or dying -- short, and sharp, and terrible.

`Joe! Look! look! Oh, my God! our child! Get the bath, quick! quick!
it's convulsions!'

Jim was bent back like a bow, stiff as a bullock-yoke, in his mother's arms,
and his eyeballs were turned up and fixed -- a thing I saw twice afterwards,

and don't want ever to see again.
I was falling over things getting the tub and the hot water,

when the woman who lived next door rushed in. She called to her husband
to run for the doctor, and before the doctor came she and Mary

had got Jim into a hot bath and pulled him through.
The neighbour woman made me up a shake-down in another room,

and stayed with Mary that night; but it was a long while
before I got Jim and Mary's screams out of my head and fell asleep.

You may depend I kept the fire in, and a bucket of water hot over it,
for a good many nights after that; but (it always happens like this)

there came a night, when the fright had worn off, when I was too tired
to bother about the fire, and that night Jim took us by surprise.

Our wood-heap was done, and I broke up a new chair to get a fire,
and had to run a quarter of a mile for water; but this turn wasn't so bad

as the first, and we pulled him through.
You never saw a child in convulsions? Well, you don't want to.

It must be only a matter of seconds, but it seems long minutes;
and half an hour afterwards the child might be laughing and playing with you,

or stretched out dead. It shook me up a lot. I was always
pretty high-strung and sensitive. After Jim took the first fit,

every time he cried, or turned over, or stretched out in the night, I'd jump:
I was always feeling his forehead in the dark to see if he was feverish,

or feeling his limbs to see if he was `limp' yet. Mary and I
often laughed about it -- afterwards. I tried sleeping in another room,

but for nights after Jim's first attack I'd be just dozing off
into a sound sleep, when I'd hear him scream, as plain as could be,

and I'd hear Mary cry, `Joe! -- Joe!' -- short, sharp, and terrible --

• presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
• moonlight [´mu:nlait] n.&a.月光(的) (初中英语单词)
• running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
• handkerchief [´hæŋkətʃif] n.手帕，手绢 (初中英语单词)
• assistant [ə´sistənt] n.助手；助理；助教 (初中英语单词)
• underneath [,ʌndə´ni:θ] ad.&prep.在底下 (初中英语单词)
• working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
• fright [frait] n.惊吓；恐怖；怪人 (初中英语单词)
• bother [´bɔðə] v.打扰 n.麻烦(事) (初中英语单词)
• forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
• sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
• scream [skri:m] v.&n.尖叫(声) (初中英语单词)
• stroll [strəul] n.&v.漫步；散步；游荡 (高中英语单词)
• eldest [´eldist] a.最年长的 (高中英语单词)
• dreary [´driəri] a.阴郁的；枯燥无味的 (高中英语单词)
• dismal [´dizməl] a.灰暗的；阴郁的 (高中英语单词)
• fencing [´fensiŋ] n.击剑；栅栏；搪塞 (高中英语单词)
• bucket [´bʌkit] n.水桶 (高中英语单词)
• sensitive [´sensitiv] a.敏感的；感光的 (高中英语单词)
• pastoral [´pɑ:stərəl] a.牧(羊)人的 n.田园诗 (英语四级单词)
• trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
• horseshoe [´hɔ:s,ʃu] n.马蹄铁；马蹄铁形 (英语六级单词)