“It would have been too bad if I had not happened to see you,” replied Mrs. Hurst. “There—isn’t she a good baby!”—as the baby, deciding that she liked the change of arms, ceased crying and looked about in an interested way. A half-smile flickered on the weary mother’s face.
“She’s been jolly good, considerin’ she ain’t a year old,” she said. “But it’s been a long day for all of ’em, an’ I was afraid to stop long anywhere. It’s a bit rough, when you don’t know the country an’ you ain’t got any idea where you’re goin’. Is this near Baroin?”
“Oh, no: Baroin is twelve miles away. But you need not worry any more: you can stay here until you are all rested. What brings you and the bairns alone on the track?”
“Me husband made us come. He an’ his brother have a sawmill back there; jus’ got it well goin’. But we got fair scared of the fires: they been creepin’ nearer and nearer, an’ if the wind changed they’d be down on our camp before you could say knife. I’d ’a’ stuck it out with them if I’d been by meself. But there’s the kids.”
“Is there no one near you?”
“No. There’ll be a road up after a bit: there’s only a track through the bush now, an’ the timber’s awful thick all round us. Great timber for millin’, of course, but you’d be roasted alive if a fire come through it. There ain’t nowhere to get to, you see. There’s a bit of a creek, but it’s that small it ’ud be no use to you.”
“But your menfolk? Is it safe for them to stay?”
“Safe?” was the dull answer. “No, it’s darned unsafe. Y’ wouldn’t catch me leavin’ but for that. I didn’t want to go, anyhow. But Mick made me. ‘Bill an’ I can put up a fight for the mill,’ he says, ‘but I’m darned if we can fight for the kids, too. So you got to clear out with the kids,’ he says. ‘You take the furnitcher an’ the kids, an’ you clear out o’ the timber.’ An’ I knew that was sense, so I done it. But I tell you straight, Missus, I’d like to dump the kids somewhere an’ go back!”
“You can’t do that,” Mrs. Hurst said, gently. “Your husband would only be more anxious.”
“An’ what about me?”