Free Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park

cried when Mamma was dying, Dovey said “Dunna let her go to her reward fretting about you, child” – that’s what she said. “For Granny and I are here to look after you and Gib. I’ll be your mother, hen,” she said. “Smile now and let your mamma be at ease.” So I did.’
    She was quiet for a while, sniffling. Then she said grudgingly, ‘You’re no’ so bad, you.’
    ‘Neither are you,’ said Abigail, grinning. ‘Is it a bargain then?’
    Beatie stuck out her hard, work-harsh little fist and they shook hands.
    During the next two days Abigail learnt a great deal about these people amongst whom she had been thrown in such a strange way. She learnt that the Orkneys were a hard and ancient group of islands set amongst dangerous seas north of Scotland. All of the family had been born there except Mr Bow the Englishman, Gibbie, and the baby boy who had died with his mother.
    Dorcas Tallisker was the cousin of the Bows. Her mother had died when she was born, and she was reared by her fisherman father Robert Tallisker, and his mother, Granny. Two years before, Dovey’s father was drowned in a squall in Hoy Sound, off Stromness, and Granny had decided to emigrate to New South Wales to live with her daughter, Amelia, who had married an English soldier, Samuel Bow. When Dovey and Granny arrived, they found Amelia, the children Beatie and Gilbert, and a six-months-old infant, deathly ill with the fever.
    ‘What kind of fever?’ thought Abigail uneasily, remembering that though she had been immunised against most modern infectious diseases, a dockside area of the 1870s very likely had plenty of lethal bugs of its own.
    ‘The typhoid,’ said Beatie. ‘’Tis very common in these parts.’
    Abigail decided she’d drink nothing but tea. At least she would know the water had been boiled.
    ‘And now tell me about the Gift,’ she said. Beatie gave her a scared look.
    ‘No, I wunna. Granny would ne’er forgive me. It’s the family Gift, you see.’
    ‘But I’m connected with it in some way. I’m the Stranger. Even your father said so. I ought to know what it is; it’s my right. Tell me or I’ll ask Granny.’
    ‘Dunna,’ pleaded the child. ‘I’m gey scared of it, Abby. I dunna want it. I just want to be a scholar. I dunna want to see things and know things a mortal body shouldna know.’
    ‘Why,’ Abigail thought, ‘it’s the second sight, ESP, or something. And Beatie’s afraid that she might have it too, poor brat.’
    But she said nothing.
    By the third day she was allowed to get dressed and be carried downstairs by Mr Bow. In fact she was dressed by Dovey: for when confronted with the garments the older girl lent her she had not the faintest idea how to put them on. There was a boned bodice of stiff calico fastened with rows of strong hooks and eyes at the back. Abigail eyed it with distaste.
    ‘Where’s my own underwear?’ she demanded.
    ‘But you had hardly a thing for underclothes,’ answered Dovey. ‘Just a few queer rags and drawers the size of a baby’s. Now, slip your arms through here, and I’ll hook you up, and you’ll be more comfortable.’
    Scowling, Abigail did so. She also obediently drew on the cotton knickers and the long flannel ones that went over them, a waist petticoat that tied with a tape, and a woollen blouse that had long full sleeves and did up to the neck with an endless row of pearl buttons.
    ‘She’s such a skinny wee thing she won’t need the stays, Granny,’ said Dovey. Abigail thanked heaven.
    ‘I’m boiling,’ she said. ‘I don’t wear heavy clothes like this, ever!’
    ‘’Tis the kind of clothes worn at this season,’ said Granny with her quiet inflexibility, ‘and Dovey’s best, at that.’
    ‘I do thank you,’ said Abigail awkwardly, ‘but it’s not what I’m used to, you see.’
    When she was completely dressed, in a long dark serge skirt over the blouse, a ribbon belt with a pewter buckle, knee-high stockings of hand-knitted wool