Then the name began to crop up in the country news of the daily papers. Another wonder-child for Australia had been discovered, it seemed—a certain Challis Cameron, a mite of eight years who was creating much excitement in the township of Wilgandra.
Presently from the larger towns near the paragraphs also were sent. A concert had been given in aid of the Church Fund, and a pleasing programme had been submitted. Among the contributors was a tiny child, Challis Cameron, whose wonderful playing fairly astonished the big audience.
Before Mr. and Mrs. Cameron had quite waked up to the situation, an enthusiastic committee had been formed, a subscription list started and filled, and a sum of sixty pounds thrust into their astonished hands, for the child to be taken to Sydney for lessons.
Nowhere on the earth's surface is there a a land where the people are so eager to recognise musical talent, so generous to help it, as in Australia.
Mr. and Mrs. Cameron looked at each other when they were left alone, a little dismay mingled with their natural pride. And from each other they looked to the paddock beside their house where all the children were playing. This especial child was unconcernedly filling up her doll's tea-cups with a particularly delightful kind of red mud, and then turning out the little shapes and calling Bartie to come and look at her 'jellies.'
Talent they had always known she had, but hardly thought it was anything much above that of any child very fond of music. As a baby she had cried at discords; at three years old she used to stand at the end of the piano and make quite pretty little tunes with one hand in the treble, while Bartie thumped sticky discords in the bass. At four she used to stand beside Hermie, whom her mother was teaching regularly, and in five minutes understood what it took her sister an hour to learn imperfectly. At four, too, her head hidden in the sofa-cushion, she could call out the names of not only single notes but chords also, as Hermie struck them. So her mother undertook her tuition too, and in two years these paragraphs were appearing in the papers.
But to go away with her and stay in Sydney while masters there heard her and taught her! What was to become of the other four, and the husband who needed his wife so much?
'I am afraid we must send her to a boarding-school there,' she faltered. 'How can I leave the home?'
But later the child came and stood at her knee; a tall, thin, little child she was, with fair fine hair that fell curlless down her back, and in her eyes that touch of grey that makes hazel eyes wonderful.
The face was delicately cut, the skin clear and pale; only when the pink ran into it was she pretty.