‘You see,’ said Mrs Head, taking the portraits eagerly, and giving them to me one by one, ‘we had these taken in Sydney some years before the children were lost; they were much younger then. Wally’s is not a good portrait; he was teething then, and very thin. That’s him standing on the chair. Isn’t the pose good? See, he’s got one hand and one little foot forward, and an eager look in his eyes. The portrait is very dark, and you’ve got to look close to see the foot. He wants a toy rabbit that the photographer is tossing up to make him laugh. In the next portrait he’s sitting on the chair—he’s just settled himself to enjoy the fun. But see how happy little Maggie looks! You can see my arm where I was holding her in the chair. She was six months old then, and little Wally had just turned two.’
She put the portraits up on the mantel-shelf.
‘Let me see; Wally (that’s little Walter, you know)—Wally was five and little Maggie three and a half when we lost them. Weren’t they, Walter?’
‘Yes, Maggie,’ said the Boss.
‘You were away, Walter, when it happened.’
‘Yes, Maggie,’ said the Boss—cheerfully, it seemed to me—‘I was away.’
‘And we couldn’t find you, Walter. You see,’ she said to me, ‘Walter—Mr Head—was away in Sydney on business, and we couldn’t find his address. It was a beautiful morning, though rather warm, and just after the break-up of the drought. The grass was knee-high all over the run. It was a lonely place; there wasn’t much bush cleared round the homestead, just a hundred yards or so, and the great awful scrubs ran back from the edges of the clearing all round for miles and miles—fifty or a hundred miles in some directions without a break; didn’t they, Walter?’
‘Yes, Maggie.’
‘I was alone at the house except for Mary, a half-caste girl we had, who used to help me with the housework and the children. Andy was out on the run with the men, mustering sheep; weren’t you, Andy?’
‘Yes, Mrs Head.’