'Possum shook her head.
"Never go there, 'nless I can't help meself. It's five miles from us, y' see, an' I'm too busy, gen'lly-as-a-rule: an' I don't like goin'. They laugh at me, 'cause me clothes are queer, an' me hair's short. Well, I just hadn't time to keep it tidy, so I got Dad to cut it. But Bert's and Polly's is awful pretty hair. Polly's is that curly you couldn't think. So they can laugh. I got to go in the summer, when there's veg'tables an' things to sell, but I just get me business done an' cut straight home again. I say, I must be gettin' home now: it's gettin' awful late."
A sudden thought struck Aileen as she followed the girl out to the yard.
"Are you coming every day to plough, 'Possum? Then, wouldn't you like to sleep here and save yourself the trouble of going home each night?"
'Possum's shyness returned in full blast.
"'Fraid I couldn't," she said, her voice abrupt. "I got me own work at home, an' some one must keep an eye on the kids. Thanks awfully." Then her face grew suddenly wistful. "Not but I'd like ever so to sleep in one of them lovely beds!" she added. "Well, I'll just fix up that third ol' setty hen for you, while I'm thinkin' of it, an' then I'll make tracks for home."
She fell upon the hen swiftly, and transferred it to the eggs. Joe, recalled with difficulty from the hay-loft, appeared with his person largely concealed under straw, and had to submit to a vigorous brushing-down by his sister. Then they jogged off together in the twilight.
CHAPTER XI
FARMERS IN EARNEST
Two months passed, and spring deepened into summer. The gold of the wattle, which had covered the hills when the strangers came to Gippsland, faded; its tiny yellow balls floated down on the surface of the river, carpeting it with a rippling sheet of gold, until the current took them away to sea. The hot winds breathed upon the creamy tangles of clematis, and turned them to hanging masses of dull brown. The tiny orchids in the gullies sighed for the wet spring, drooped, and died. But the convolvulus and the purple sarsaparilla went on blossoming bravely, climbing through the densest masses of the scrub; and the tiny eucalyptus capsules burst, flinging their wee caps afar, and releasing bunches of perfumed stamens, so that all the air was filled with sweetness. Out on the hills the grass turned yellow and the ground was hard. But the gullies were always cool, their rich earth moist under the great green tree-ferns, about whose roots the little streams gurgled, winding away to the lake.