“I hadn't realized it,” she said, “and I needn't bother for over eighteen months, anyhow. And I don't believe that any of you have ever voted, even if you are twenty-one—except Mr. Linton, of course; and you don't know a bit more about it than I do.”
“Hear, hear!” said Wally. “I certainly don't, and neither does Jim. But when we do vote, it's going to be for the chap who'll let us go and dig our own coal out if there's a strike. That's sense; and it seems to me the only sensible thing I've ever heard of in politics!” A speech which manifested so unusual an amount of reflection in Wally that every one was spellbound, and professed inability to eat any more.
Bob and Tommy stood on the verandah to watch their visitors go; Mr. Linton and Norah in the motor, while Jim and Wally rode. The merry shouts of farewell echoed through the gathering dusk.
“Bless them,” said Tommy—“the dears. I don't believe we'd have a home now but for them, Bob.”
“We certainly wouldn't,” Bob answered. “And sometimes I feel as if they'd spoon-fed us. Look at all they've done for us—these months at Billabong and all they've taught us, and all the things that they've showered on us. We couldn't pay them back in twenty years.”
“And they talk as if the favour were on their side,” his sister said. “There's the buggy they've lent us—Mr. Linton spent quite a long time in pointing out to me how desirable it was for them that we should use it, now that they have the car and don't need it. And the horses that apparently would have gone to rack and ruin from idleness if we hadn't come.”
“And the cows that don't seem to have had any reason for existence except to supply us with milk,” Bob said laughing; “and the farm machinery that never was really appreciated until immigrants came along—at least, you'd think so to hear Jim talk, only its condition belies him. Oh, they're bricks, all right. Only I don't seem as if I were standing squarely on my own feet.”
“I don't think we could expect to, just yet,” said Tommy pondering. “And if they have helped us, Bobby, you can see they have loved doing it. It would be ungracious for us not to take such help—given as it has been.”
“Yes, of course,” Bob answered and squared his shoulders. “Well, I'm going to work like fury. The only thing I can do now is not to disappoint them. I feel an awful new-chum, Tommy, but I've got to make good.”
“Why, of course you're going to,” she said, slipping a hand through his arm. “Jim wouldn't let you make mistakes; and the land is good, and even if we strike a bad season, there's always the creek—we'll never be without water, Jim says. And we're going to have the jolliest home—it's that now, and we're going to make it better.”