People do not always remain the same, but are continually changing. This can be said of everyone, and growing years make a great difference. While I was away from Sunnyside the family, from being children, now seemed to be men and women, most of them. This meant so much more company. As I thought I could not fulfil the duties required of me, I had many painful moments, although they had patience with me. I got to dread the two caterers, who came alternately or both together. The attention they wanted was more to me than all my other work. They took such pains that I should not see anything of their skill, and I had hard toil to learn even gradually. When I had been there more than a year I felt I had learnt scarcely anything.
My brother had got married, and I knew that I had to give up all and expect nothing. For me loneliness never had any terror. No one could be less dependent on outward society than I was, yet I could enjoy it, only I never craved after it, nor was it necessary for my existence—I was one who have had always to stand alone. Perhaps the sharpest anguish is that which nobody knows of. I have been so unaccustomed, to sympathy that I can sit still and endure anything; I did everything at my own risk. I have had to work for all I have ever received, and some have done their best to hinder me, so that I hardly knew what to do, although I am sure I was most unselfish. The marriages of my father and brother altered things, and somebody else came in, so that the old relationships were changed. For a time I felt a soreness.
Turning things over in my mind, I see that I could not have learned anything at Sunnyside, as matters stood. More than once I thought I would like to live in Adelaide again, and was tempted to take a post in some of the business places. Only homely cooking would then be required, and I could do that well. Then, again, sometimes I had to walk all the way to Glen Osmond by myself if I lost the bus. It was a lonely road, with scarcely a house where Parkside now is. All this was long ago.
While I lived at No. 10, Rundle-street, I got to know other girls, who were also working housekeepers. One whom I used to see sometimes lived at Messrs. Wigg & Co.'s, in Rundle-street. She told me that she was going to be married, and asked whether she should speak for me. It would be nice for me and cheery, she said, but she did not think it would be for very long, as the place was to be rebuilt. My path appeared to be made plain, and I came and saw Mr. Wigg. He was satisfied, and I came to live at No. 12, Rundle-street. I had a comfortable room over the shop. None of the assistants lived there. I used to see to their meals during the day. Also under the heading of Messrs. Wigg and Co. there was a chemist's shop, with doctors' consulting-rooms, in King William-street, where the Beehive now stands. The chemists had their meals at No. 12. The evenings were lonely, but there were plenty of books, and I could either go out or sit and look into Rundle-street. I knew the engagement would be only temporary, but I had always faced my fate with courage, and faced it still. But there seemed nothing to face at Mr. Wigg's. Everyone was bright and pleasant. So I was content to bask in the present enjoyment, and I had given up troubling about what was to me a hopeless future. I had some shipmates at Government House, and went and saw them sometimes, and I found that if I left Mr. Wigg's I could go there. So I was happy, and what more could anyone desire?
While performing my new duties I wondered how things would turn out. For some time I had a busy life, with no time for regrets. The meals were in three relays. The first was at 12.30 p.m., and so on. There was only one young lady among the assistants. The shop was full of men and youths, who served the customers. How different Rundle-street looked then. There were only little tumble-down shops, but prosperity reigned, and there were no poor-looking people or naked-footed children.
A change has come now—a great change—that reaches to the core of things. We think we can endure anything, but every day the little things of life drive us nearly wild. Pleasures and trials seem both smaller when we have to face them each day.
PRINCE ALFRED IN ADELAIDE.
There were no model schools in South Australia then. I do not know who organised them, but the salesmen in Mr. Wigg's employ held classes for reading and writing gratuitously in a building which seemed partly a store, and was lit up with candles. The young gentlemen asked me if I would come and help. They said I could at least listen to the small girls reading. Having the evenings to myself I went gladly, and for a time I had a little class all to myself, and I learned something from the questions and answers that passed. The children all looked well-fed and well-clothed, and I could not help comparing their condition with that of the little ones receiving free teaching in Glasgow. Yet how the people in Glasgow would fear to come away such a distance, for at that time it was like dying to come to Australia. The people in the colony then had to keep on working and thinking with their own powers. There was not so much labor-saving machinery, and to succeed everyone had to work to the best of his capacity, and the boys and girls, too, had to help in making the most of their splendid inheritance.
One gets interested in the people with whom one is brought in contact, even although temporarily. All was very real to me. I had been in the happiest state of mind for months. Mrs. Wigg would come sometimes and see if I wanted any comforts. She came with that good-natured sympathy, and I looked forward to the days when the children would come with, her when she was interesting herself with my department in such a kind way.