Free The Runaway Settlers by Elsie Locke Page B

out samples of his vegetables, tender green and crimson and white.
    ‘They’re spring cabbages—beautiful!’ said the woman. ‘I’ll give threepence each.’
    Jack’s eyes widened. Their mother had said they might ask for twopence. But Bill saw, in the quickness of her offer, the chance of a better bargain: cabbages were scarce after all.
    ‘Our mother said we’re to go to the ships, but if they’re not sold we’ll bring them back,’ he said.
    ‘Mind you do then! There’ll be a hot drink of tea if you want it.’
    They went on to the wharf. Here they displayed their produce and soon everything was sold: the cabbages for fourpence, the radishes for a penny and the spring onions for twopence a bunch. The sailors were eager for such fine fresh vegetables so early in the season; and as for the barque just coming in, she’d be out of luck.
    The boats from the barque were coming ashore and the boys stayed to watch. A young woman in a plaid shawl and a pretty pink bonnet sat in the bow with her back towards them. Now she stood up and allowed the oarsman to hand her to the landing.
    ‘Mary Ann!’ cried Bill. ‘Look, it’s Mary Ann!’
    The brothers almost knocked one another into the harbour, and Mary Ann, turning quickly at the sound of her name, lost her balance and fell against the sailor’s shoulder. She flushed, stammered an apology, and raising her long skirts ran up the steps. She would have liked to throw her arms around Bill’s neck; but he seemed too grown up already, so she stretched out her two hands, one for each brother. The boys felt suddenly shy. They had never before seen her dressed as a fashionable young lady.
    ‘We didn’t think of you coming. And here you are, all togged out fit to kill!’ said Bill.
    ‘What was it like living in Sydney all that time?’ asked Jack.
    Mary Ann smiled. She was happy, yet her face was softer and sadder. ‘I couldn’t stay in Sydney any longer—I had a big disappointment,’ she said.
    ‘It wasn’t Father—was it? Did he come?’
    ‘No, it wasn’t Father. A long time ago, when you’d left, I heard about him; that was all. He followed us to Sydney just after the Armenian sailed, and went round the shipping offices asking for Mrs Small. Mr McCracken heard about it. He didn’t ask for any passage himself and he must have gone back to Berrima, we think.’
    ‘That’s good news, at any rate!’
    ‘What did you do then?’ asked Jack.
    ‘Mrs McCracken found me a good situation. They were a doctor’s family, so accomplished—every evening they were singing over the piano! I wasn’t allowed in the drawing-room, of course, but I could hear from my little room and I learned all the latest songs. They had me dress their hair—that’s how I learned to do mine. Do you like it this way? And on Sundays we went to church, a big church with a choir.’
    She stopped, and flushed again. Other people were watching and listening: did she sound too boastful? ‘Tell me about yourselves,’ she said quickly. ‘Mother wrote that we had a home, but that you were still working at Cashmere.’
    Quite forgetting Mary Ann’s box, they walked slowly up the hill, exchanging their news. What the disappointment was that had hurried Mary Ann away from Sydney, she did not say. In any case they were going in and out of the shops, making the seven purchases, and Mary Ann could not help commenting on how poky the shops were after the big ones in Sydney. They went to the Steadfast Dining Rooms too, and promised the woman that she should have the next sackful of cabbages at fourpence each.
    ‘My travelling box!’ exclaimed Mary Ann, remembering.‘Oh, we must go back to the wharf and fetch it!’
    ‘Is it heavy?’ asked Jack doubtfully. Up hill and down dale, all the way back to Governors Bay and through Rapaki, they would have to carry that box!
    ‘Oh yes—I’ve bought a heap of new things,’ she said brightly, ‘but I’ll help with it myself, of course.’
    But they