nor the gossip among us that there is among folk now; maybe it was so much fresh air, as well as so few folk; or else maybe there was the gossip, only that I overlook an’ disremember it; an’ a good thing if I do!
“As the Bush got felled, we sowed grass; till by an’ by, all the place begun to get a lighter green, an’ stock was bein’ brought. Well I remember that first cow—Blackbird was her name—an’ Punch, the first bullock—father bought him; an’ mother an’ me we used to have a sledge an’ put him in to bring down firewood—though do you suppose we could get him to go? Not we! He’d go all right when he felt like it, an’ when he didn’t we just had to wait till he did. It wouldn’t do to have Punch an’ the sledge with mother an’ me for drivers, these days that you want to catch the steamer so quickly. An’ the first horse . . . an’ sheep . . . An’ the first lamb! my word, it was a great day for us children when that first little lamb was born. Just you try an’ imagine what all them animals meant to youngsters that had been pinned in all their lives, there between them two great spurs of Bush, an’ the open sea. Wild pig an’ porpoise was about the only big live things, besides men an’ women, as we’d ever see; and who could be friends with either o’ them? Dogs, indeed, the men had had from the start; but don’t I remember my first pussy? Tortoise, she was, with a yellow face. . . .
“Soon, too, we begun to build us better houses; an’ pedlars started to come from inland by the new roads cut everywhere through the Bush. By an’ by Silas Doubleday (that’s Johnny’s uncle), he set up a store. My! how mother did use to
