Chapter III Gordon’s Farm
It was Dr. Metcalfe who found the new home for them.
He came in on Garth’s first afternoon in the garden. They were gathered under the pepper tree, and Garth gave a glad little shout at sight of him.
“Oh, there’s my doctor! Come along, Doctor, and have tea!”
“This seems a party,” said the new-comer, regarding the table beside the boy’s couch. “Cakes, as I live! and with pink and white icing! Who said you could have exciting things like that, young man?”
“Mother did—and I b’lieve you told her,” said Garth cheerfully. “I’m ever so nearly well. You know you don’t have to come and stick that old fernometer in my mouth any more.”
“It’s evident that it will be needed again to-morrow,” said the doctor, regarding the cakes with a lowering brow.
“Never mind—it’ll be worth it,” Garth rejoined. “Anyhow, I know you’re only pulling my leg!”
“The attitude of disrespect shown by one’s patients is very distressing,” said the doctor, subsiding into a low chair and accepting tea. “Go on, young man: don’t blame me when you find the castor-oil bottle looming by your bed of pain! Then you’ll wish that you had stuck to good old bread-and-butter, and you’ll send for me.”
“Well, you’d come,” said Garth comfortably.
“I would not. I would send back a stern message—‘Double dose of oil.’”
“Then I’d better have a double go of cake,” said Garth. “Bettern’t I, Dad?”
“Most certainly, I should say,” his father answered. “It’s a sound rule not to mind paying for your fun.” He held the plate for Garth’s inspection. “There’s one in the corner, with an enormous blob of icing: it looks pretty good.”
“It is,” said Garth, digging his sharp little teeth into it, with a rapt expression.
“A nice pair, you are!” quoth the doctor, regarding them with a twinkle in his eye. “Not that I can blame the son, seeing what his father is. I pity you, Aileen: you’ll have a hard time with them when you get to the Back of Beyond.”
“Oh, did you know we were going there?” Garth queried eagerly. “Isn’t it lovely, Doctor! I’m going to have a pony, Dad b’lieves. Will you come and see it?”
“It will be my one ambition,” the doctor told him gravely. “Have you made any arrangements yet, Tom?”
“I’m trying to find a place,” Macleod answered. “The office has been awfully decent: they say I’m to come to them if ever we return to Melbourne, and they’ll do their best to take me back. Likewise, they’ve given me a bonus, which is handy.”
“And said the nicest things about him,” interpolated his wife. “He won’t tell you that, so I must—you can blush unseen, Tom. And the staff, to his great horror, mean to give him a silver salver.”
“Very handy in the Bush, I’m sure,” said the doctor.
“It’s jolly good of them,” Tom said; “but I wish they wouldn’t. Poor beggars, they have enough to do with their money. The awful part is that I believe they’re going to make speeches!”
“And you’ll have to make one,” said Aileen. “Do you think they would let us come and hear?”
“Heaven forbid!” ejaculated her husband. “I haven’t made a speech since the burst of eloquence I uttered, at our wedding breakfast.”
“I remember well,” said the doctor. “It lasted fully ten seconds, and then you collapsed. We all blushed for you. I think I’d like to hear you make another.”
“Well, you won’t,’” said the victim, with finality. “I wish you’d change the subject: it hurts.”
“Certainly,” said the doctor. “I’ve found you a farm.”
“You have! Where?”
“Down in the Gippsland Lakes country,” said his friend.
“Is it any good?”
“I wouldn’t have found it if it were not,” said the doctor severely. “As a matter of fact, I believe it is rather a lucky find. It belongs to Jim Gordon, an Englishman who has been out there about fifteen years. He knocked about all over the country for a good while, and then bought this place. Now he has had money left to him, and he’s going back to England. But he likes Australia, and he does not mean to stay away for ever, so he won’t sell: he’s fond of this little place, and he’ll take a low rent if he can get a tenant who will look after it. He showed it to one man, who looked at his plunge-bath and remarked, that it would be a good thing to set tomato plants in! It seems to have given Gordon rather a shock.”
“It would,” said Aileen feelingly. “Did you tell him we were nice people, Doctor?”
“I went as far as I could,” said the doctor guardedly.
“I wonder he hasn’t already come to call, in that case,” said she, laughing.
“Apart from your quite unjustifiable reasoning, he isn’t exactly a calling man,” the doctor remarked. “I gather that he has lived very much to himself on this place, doing most of his own work, and that he is not at all popular among the settlers near, who, probably regard him as full of unpleasant English pride—which he is. He’s one of those stiff-necked people who think their own ways are always best, and so will never learn any new ones. Therefore, he has never made much money. From what he says, there is plenty of work to be done on this place. It’s about the acreage you want, and there’s a decent little house on it; and he does seem to have taken some pains with his orchard and garden. But for the most part he appears to have gone fishing, and let the place take care of itself.”
“Would there be room on it for a pony?” Garth asked wistfully.
“Yes—and what’s more, there’s a pony there already!”
“Glory!” said Garth faintly.
“Have we got to take his live stock, too?” asked Macleod.
“It isn’t necessary, but I should think it would suit you. There is not much—a pony or two, and a few cows and sheep. You will need all he has had, and, I should think, more: and he’ll sell them at a fair valuation. He has two boats, which are let with the house, if the tenant undertakes to keep them in order—he really seems keener about the boats than about anything else. He has a horror of agents and lawyers, and wants to arrange the whole thing privately. If you will consider the place he would like you to go down with him to see it.”
“I suppose he would not object to my taking a man down with me? Dawson, who values for our office, knows all about these things: and you know how much I do. The office has offered to lend me Dawson to look at any place.”
“Oh, Gordon won’t mind—he’s really a very fair-minded old chap, and you won’t find him hard to deal with. He’s not the sort of person to take advantage of the young and innocent: in fact, he’ll probably respect you more for taking a tame expert with you.”
“It’s a long way from town,” Macleod said, regarding Aileen with troubled eyes.
“What of that? It’s glorious country, and the very place for a small boy,” said the doctor, smiling at Garth, who had forgotten cake, and was listening, his eyes shining. “You don’t want to be running to town always—that’s expensive and unsettling. Cuninghame is quite close, where you can get all your stores: and if you want a bigger town, Sale and Bairnsdale are within easy reach. I’ve never found out which of them is the capital of Gippsland, but perhaps you’ll make the discovery. Did I mention that one of the boats is a motor-launch. You lucky people will be able to explore all the corners of the lakes that mere tourists never see.”
“Dad!” came from Garth, in a burst of ecstasy—which somehow checked his father in a remark that busy farmers would not have much time to play about on the lakes. Looking at the delighted face, with the unnaturally large eyes, it seemed better to put that remark away among unborn speeches. He said instead—
“It sounds very jolly. I’ll have to teach you to run the motor, old son. By the way, Metcalfe, do you happen to have gathered whether we are likely to make a living out of this highly desirable place?”
“Why, yes, I think you are,” the doctor answered. “Gordon has not done so badly, and he’s not a hard worker. Given decent seasons and fair luck you ought to get on, though it’s not a place to make any fortunes out of. But go down and look at it for yourself.”
Which Macleod did, returning a few days later with a cheered expression.
“It’s not so bad, Dawson says,” he told Aileen, gratefully sipping a cup of coffee, after his long journey. “No fortune in it, as Metcalfe said; but a living, unless we have bad luck. And it’s certainly cheap. The house might be much worse—though I’m afraid you will find it bad enough, after this one, my girl.”
“Bless you, I’m not expecting a palace,” said Aileen cheerily. “I hope it’s small: a palace would be somewhat burdensome when one came to scrub it.”
“Oh, it’s small enough,” he said. “We’ll fit in, with an extra room or two. There are some things that you don’t rind in many bush homes, Dawson says—a decent bathroom, wire window-screens and doors, and a thoroughly good water-supply. They seem awfully ordinary, but I can assure you they’re not! And the country is lovely: the view from the front windows will make you forget your old scrubbing-brush!”
“It will be a bad look-out for you if I do!” murmured his wife.
“That’s beneath you,” he said, laughing. “I don’t think a respectable farmeress ought to make bad jokes. There’s a good garden, and a fair orchard, and Garth will fall in love with the pony.”
“Is the pony safe?” she asked.
“Very unsafe, I think—it’s always in danger of going to sleep. I wouldn’t like to say how old it is, and I’d hate to ride five miles on it. But Garth will think it a lovely steed. It may make you realize how much past its prime it is when I tell you Gordon wouldn’t sell it. He hadn’t the face to put a price on it—threw it in with the farm, on condition that it was treated kindly. Well, you couldn’t treat anything like that unkindly—not if you had been brought up to reverence age!”
“It sounds a soothing beast,” said Aileen—“not likely to harrow my mind by bucking Garth off.”
“I’ll guarantee it won’t. There’s another pony, too. I’ve bought that. Also three cows, twenty-four sheep, some assorted calves, and a lot of fowls. Dawson says they’re cheap: I don’t know. And I’ve inherited an orphan boy!”
“Tom! What do you mean?”
“Just what I say. Gordon has a boy on a three-years’ lease from an orphanage in Melbourne, and only six months of it have run, so I’ve taken him over. He’s about fourteen, and quite full of wickedness. But one may train him into something.”
“Did he—did he look at all clean?”
“He did not. I rather think the training will begin with soap; and it will be a terrible shock to him, because you’d say from his appearance that he’d never met it. His name is Horace, I suppose, but old Gordon always called him Horrors, and I think we’ll stick to it; it’s extraordinarily suitable.”
“I don’t think he sounds nice,” said Aileen, wrinkling her pretty nose.
“To tell you the truth,” said her husband confidentially, “he isn’t. But he’ll do a lot of odd jobs. I made inquiries about a servant, but it’s as we thought—not a soul to be had. Did you sound Julia about coming?”
“I did,” said Aileen. “‘Is it me?’ said Julia, ‘that ’ud be leavin’ Melbourne to go to wan of them places I’ve heard tell of—nowhere to go on your night out, and never a man to see, not if it was even a butcher-boy! I lived in a bog in Ireland all me days till I come to Australia; and ’tis no longer the counthry that I’d work in, but a good town with moving pictures and the grocer callin’ every day for orders!’ Then she wept at leaving me, and said she loved me as if I was her mother. Annie weeps too, at intervals, but of course she won’t leave the young man in the baker’s shop. But we couldn’t afford them, anyway, Tom, so what’s the good of worrying? Stop worrying at once, and tell me more about the farm.”
“There’s a gorgeous cloth-of-gold rose tumbling all over the veranda,” he said obediently, “and lots of nice common flowers in the garden—stocks, and wallflowers, and snapdragons, and honesty, and pinks, and things like that. It’s very untidy, but quite pretty. The house is in a sheltered place where anything will grow: he has orange and lemon trees, covered with fruit, and he says the lemons bear all the year round. There are guavas, too: I didn’t know they grew in Victoria.”
“Glory!” said Aileen, quoting her son. “I’ll make guava jelly!”
“Do you know how?”
“No, but I’ll learn. What else?”
“Oh—apricots, and peaches, and cherries, and apples, and pears, to say nothing of gooseberries and currants. There’s a good strawberry bed, too.”
“It sounds lovely,” said Aileen. “Think of pies! I’ve been learning to make pastry, Tom, and Julia says I have a lovely hand for it. She’s going to teach me all sorts of things. Do you think we can afford to buy one of those nice American oil-stoves? The ovens have glass doors, and you sit in front in ecstasy, and watch your cakes rise.”
“What if they don’t rise?”
“Then you go and do something else, and hope for the best. Don’t depress me, Tom. They truly are lovely stoves, and you and Horrors wouldn’t have nearly as much wood to cut. And they’re nice and cool to work at.”
“Well, that’s quite enough reason,” Macleod said. “If any dodge is going to make work easier for you, we’ll get it, if I have to pawn my watch. Let’s go and buy these fascinating things to-morrow. I’ve got a list of everything in the house, and you’ll have to go over it, and see what else you’ll need.” He rose and stretched himself with a great yawn. “Eh, but I’m sleepy! The boy is asleep, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, poor man: he tried to stay awake for you, but I told him you would be too tired to talk. He’s desperately anxious to hear about the pony—you must go in to see him as soon as you get up, and tell him about it. He is so happy to be going to the country. It’s going to be awfully worth while, Tom.”
“Is it?” Then the doubt in his eyes died at the sight of her face. “Yes, I believe it is,” he said. “But then you’d make anything worth while!”