In this article the paper spoke of backblocks bushmen under the generic soubriquet of Billjim. And a very good name too, for in any up-country town one has but to sing out "Bill" or "Jim" to have an answer from three-fourths of the male population.
The name tickled Kitty immensely, and she chuckled, "Billjim! Billjim! Oh, I'd like to be called that."
"Would you though?" asked her father, smiling.
"Yes," answered Kitty; "it's a fine name, Billjim."
"Well, we will call you Billjim in future," said Dick; and from that day the name stuck to her. And it suited her.
She was the wildest of wild bush girls. At twelve years old she could ride and shoot as well as most of us, and would pan out a prospect with any man on the Newanga.
She had never been to school, there being none nearer than Clagton, which was some fifteen miles away, but she had been taught the simple arts of reading and writing by her mother, and Jack L'Estrange had ministered to her wants in the matter of arithmetic.
With all her wildness she was a good, kindly girl, materially helping her mother in the household matters, and all that flower garden was her special charge and delight.
Wednesday and Thursday of every week were holidays, and those two days were spent by Billjim in roaming the country far and wide. Sometimes on horseback, when a horse could be borrowed, but mostly on her own well-formed feet.
She would wander off with a shovel and a dish into the scrub, and, following up some gully all day, would return at night tired out and happy, and generally with two or three grains of gold to show for her day's work. Sometimes she would come back laden with some new orchid, and this she would carefully fix in the garden in a position as similar as possible to that in which she had found it, and usually it would blossom there as if it were thankful at being so well cared for.