There had, however, been no time during this long, hot morning for such gentle arts as knitting. Brownie was short-handed, the races having taken away some of her helpers; in addition, it was baking day, and that in itself was sufficient for any ordinary woman. The bread had gone into the great brick oven comparatively early. By the time it came out there were other things ready to go in—mammoth cakes and pies, and kindred delicacies. No oven cooks with the perfection of a brick one. Brownie never allowed its heat to be wasted on the days that it was lit for the bread baking. Then “her hand being in,” she proceeded to compound lesser matters—little cakes, cream puffs, rolls, whatever might be calculated to appeal to the healthy appetites that would return to her that evening. “They do take some cookin’ for, they do—bless them,” she mused.
She was outside the kitchen, rooting in the dark recesses of the brick oven with an instrument resembling a fish slice made into a Dutch hoe, when an unfamiliar step sounded on the gravel behind her. At the moment her occupation was quite too engrossing to be relinquished for any step. She did not turn until her explorations had been crowned with success, and she had backed away from the oven door, bearing on her weapon a delicately-browned pie. She deposited it carefully on a little table placed handily, shut the oven door, and faced round.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “I thought you’d gone, Harvey.”
“Wasn’t any ’urry,” said Harvey, a short, weedy individual with a crafty face. “Boss said I could ’ave some tucker.”
“He thought you was goin’ to get it hours ago,” said Brownie. “What have you been doin’, hangin’ about like this?”
“Haven’t been doin’ anything,” the man answered sulkily. “Been campin’ on me bed; there’s no points in tearin’ off in this sort of weather. It don’t hurt you, I suppose?”
Brownie stared at the insolent face much as she might have regarded some weird curiosity among the lower animals.
“No,” she said, after prolonged contemplation, during which Harvey had shuffled uneasily. “It don’t hurt me at all; only I happen to be in charge of the place, and it’s my business to see Mr. Linton’s orders carried out. So I think the best thing you can do, an’ the most comferable for all concerned, is to take yourself off as soon as possible.”
“Oh, I’m goin’—don’t you fret,” Harvey said. “Wouldn’t stay on the beastly place, not if I was paid. A nice name I’ll give Linton in the township—an’ the Melbourne registry offices, too! He’ll know all about it when he wants to engage new men.”
“You poor little thing!” said Brownie, pityingly. “Funny now, to see you that full of malice an’ bad temper—and to know how little notice any one’ll take of you! All the districk knows the sort of employer Mr. Linton is—he don’t never need to send to Melbourne for his hands. Why,” said Brownie, becoming oratorical in her emotion, “there’s alwuz men just fallin’ over themselves to get work on Billabong—an’ better men than you’ll ever be! You go an’ talk just as much as you like—it’ll never hurt my boss. But I wouldn’t advise you to get into Master Jim’s way—him bein’ handy with his hands!”