One morning the wreckers had gone to the wreck; a man named Kennedy
was left in charge of the camp; Sambo, the black cook, was attending
to his duties at the fire; and Mrs. Kennedy, the only lady of the
party, was at the water hole washing clothes. Her husband had left
the camp with his gun in the hope of shooting some wattle birds,
which were then fat with feeding on the sweet blossoms of the
honeysuckle. He was sitting on a log near the water-hole talking to
his wife, who had just laid out to dry on the bushes three coloured
shirts and a lilac dress. She stood with her hands on her hips,
pensively contemplating the garments. She had her troubles, and was
turning them over in her mind, while her husband was thinking of
something else quite different. It is, I believe, a thing that often
happens.
"I am thinking, Flora," he said, "that this would be a grand island
to live on--far better than Skye, because it has no rocks on it. I
would like to haf it for a station. I could put sheep and cattle on
it, and they could not go away nor be lifted, because there is deep
water all round it; and we would haf plenty of beef, and mutton, and
wool, and game, and fish, and oysters. We could make a garden and
haf plenty of kail, and potatoes, and apples."
"It's all ferry well, Donald," she replied, "for you to be talking
about sheep, and cattle, and apples; but I'd like to know wherefer we
would be getting the money to buy the sheep and cattle? And who
would like to live here for efer a thousand miles from decent
neebors? And that's my best goon, and it's getting fery shabby; and
wherefer I'm to get another goon in a country like this I'm thinking
I don't know.
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