Dick Lester of Kurrajong

by Mary Grant Bruce

Dick was civil to her, in his off-hand boy fashion. He was too busy and too happy to worry about a cross-grained little girl. If she had cared to be friendly he would have met her half-way, but as she showed him very definitely that she did not want him, he was quite willing to let her alone. It was sometimes a little awkward to be paired off with her—to have an elder say cheerfully, "Run away, Merle, and play with Dick." A ship, however, is a place of many corners, and after rounding the nearest it was an easy matter to go off in different directions. Merle would say, "I'm not comin' with you!" Dick would reply, "Right oh!" and that would end the matter.

"You know," Mrs. Lester said to Dick—they were talking in her cabin one evening—"I'm really sorry for that little girl. She gives herself such a bad time. And if she would only let herself be nice, she would be quite nice."

"You always think people are nice, mother-est," said Dick. He was lying on the spare bunk, his hands crossed under his head, glad to keep still after a hard set of tennis. "But why shouldn't she behave decently? No one does anything to annoy the poor thing!"

"N-no." Mrs. Lester hesitated; she did not choose to hint to Dick that Merle might be jealous. "I think she feels herself out in the cold—Bobby is so attractive, and everyone likes him, and of course she is different."

"She's a silly ass, then," said Dick, unexpectedly. "Nothing's wrong with her looks, is there, if only she didn't seem so jolly cross?"

"Why, no—nothing, of course," Mrs. Lester answered. A vision of Merle's face, square and defiant, came to her. "Only, of course, Bobby is such a friendly little man. I wish she would chum up with you, Dick. You wouldn't mind, would you?"

"Well, a fellow doesn't always want a girl at his heels," Dick said. "She's only a kid, too"—with the condescension that thirteen feels for eleven. "But, of course, she could come along if she liked—if you want her to, mother." He grinned all over his sunburnt face. "But what's the good of talking?—a team of bullocks wouldn't bring her!"

And that seemed so far beyond argument that Mrs. Lester held her peace.

Nevertheless, despite Merle's attitude, the friendship between the Warners and the Lesters flourished. Bobby frankly adored Dick, and as Dick didn't mind admitting that he "liked small kids," Bobby trotted at his heels and, if he could not actually be with him, remained glued to the spot if he could watch him playing games. Mrs. Warner, relieved from a good deal of attendance on her small son, found Mrs. Lester a congenial spirit; the Lester deck-chairs were pitched near the Warner encampment, in a sheltered angle of the deck, and they grew to know each other with the swiftness of board-ship friendships—a week at sea having the curious faculty of making perfect strangers better acquaintances than if they had lived in the same township for a year. Mr. Warner hovered about like a large guardian angel, glad to see his wife enjoying the most restful portion of her trip. Even Merle fell a little under the spell of Mrs. Lester's charm. She was so used to people who found fault with her that it was almost amazing to know someone who never seemed to notice bad temper or black looks. Mrs. Lester's attitude was that no one—not even Merle—could possibly mean to be rude or unpleasant. It somehow made Merle feel that rudeness and unpleasantness were cheap and nasty.

Their fellow passengers were, on the whole, a pleasant set. Miss Simpson and the "dear bishop's" wife were apt to be a little overpowering; the bishop himself made elephantine efforts at being jolly, because of a peculiar belief that only by so doing could he succeed in understanding Australians, and thereby puzzled very much the Australians themselves, who liked him far better on the rare occasions when he forgot to be playful and was just plain bishop. There was enough musical talent on board to provide excellent concerts each evening, after which energetic people danced on the deck until an unfeeling quarter-master came along relentlessly to extinguish the lights. The captain and his officers made friends with everyone and kept things moving with the quiet tact that seems part of the training of a passenger boat's officers—and answered questions innumerable concerning the ways of the Moondarra and the wonders of the deep, such questions being an unfailing part of the routine of each voyage. So the quiet days passed swiftly enough, too swiftly for Dick, who, but that Fremantle meant his father, would willingly have had it twice as far away.