Mates at Billabong Part 6

"Oh, you'll get some sort of a dinner," she said. "Don't be too critical, that's all."

"What, you really can cook? Or do you play at it?"

"Well, there are mighty few girls in the Bush who can't cook a bit,"

Norah said. "Of course we're lucky, having Brownie--but you really never can tell as a rule when you may have to turn to in the kitchen. Dad says it's one of the beauties of Australia!"

"Can't say I like the idea of a lady in the kitchen," quoth Cecil loftily.

"Can't say I'd like to be one who was scared of it," Norah said. "And I guess you'd get very bored if you had to go without your dinner!" She seized a cloth and opened the oven door gingerly, and made highly technical experiments with her cake, rising presently, somewhat flushed. "Ten minutes more," she said, with an air of satisfaction.

"And, as Brownie would say, 'he's rose lovely.' Have some tea, Cecil?"

Cecil a.s.sented, and watched the small figure in the voluminous white ap.r.o.n as she flitted about the kitchen.

"I like having tea here," Norah confided to him. "Then I use Brownie's teapot, and don't you always think tea tastes miles better out of a brown pot? You won't get the proper afternoon cups either--I hope you don't mind?" She stopped short, with a sudden sense of talking a language altogether foreign to this bored young man in correct attire; and a rush of something like irritation to think how different Jim or Wally would have been--she could almost see Wally sitting on the edge of the table, with a huge cup of tea in one hand, a scone in the other, and his thin, eager face alight with cheerfulness. Cecil was certainly heavy in the hand. She sighed, but bent manfully to her task again.

"You take sugar, don't you? And cream? Yes, you ought to have cream, 'cause you've been ill." She dashed into the pantry, returning with a small jug. "The cake's not mine, so I can recommend it; but if you're not frightened you can have one of my mince pies."

"Thanks, I'd rather have cake," said Cecil., and again Norah flushed at his tone, but she laughed.

"It's certainly safer," she agreed, "I'm sure Brownie thought it was a hideous risk to leave the pies to me." She supplied her cousin with cake, and retreated to the oven.

"Why don't you let one of the girls do this?" he asked.

"Sarah or Mary? Oh, they're as busy as ever they can be," explained Norah. "We always do a lot of extra cleaning and rubbing up before Christmas, and they haven't a moment. Of course they'd do it in a minute, if I asked them, but I wouldn't--as it is, Sarah's going to dish up for me. They're the nicest girls; I'm going to take them tea as soon as I get my cake out!"

"You!" said Cecil. "You don't mean to say you're going to cart tea to the servants?"

"I'd be a perfect pig if I didn't," Norah said, shortly. "I'm afraid you don't understand the bush a bit, Cecil."

"Thank goodness I don't then," said Cecil, stiffly. "Who's that tray for?"

"Brownie, of course." Norah was getting a little ruffled--criticism like this had not come to her.

"Well, I think it's extraordinary--and so would my mother," Cecil said, with an air of finality.

"I suppose a town is different," said Norah, striving after patience.

"We like to look after everyone here--and I think it's grand when everyone's nice to everyone!" She paused; it was hard to be patient and grammatical, too.

"School will teach you a number of things," said her cousin loftily. He rose and put down his cup. "A lady shouldn't lower herself."

"Dad says a lady can't lower herself by work," retorted Norah. "Anyhow, if taking tea to dear old Brownie's going to lower me, it'll have to, that's all!"

"You don't understand," said Cecil. "A lady has her own place, and to get on terms of familiarity with the lower cla.s.ses is bad for both her and them." He looked and felt instructive. "It isn't exactly the action that counts--it's the spirit it fosters--er--the feeling--that is, the--er, in short, it's a mistake to--"

"Oh, please be careful, Cecil, you're sitting in some dough!"

Norah sprang forward anxiously, and instructiveness fell from Cecil as one sheds a garment. He had sat down on the edge of the table in the flow of his eloquence; now he jumped up angrily, and, muttering unpleasant things, endeavored to remove dough from his person. Norah hovered round, deeply concerned. Pastry dough, however, is a clinging and a greasy product, and finally the wrathful lecturer beat a retreat towards the sanctuary of his own room, and the cook sat down and shook with laughter.

"My cake!" she gasped, in the midst of her mirth. She flew to the oven and rescued Jim's delicacy.

"Thank goodness, it's all right!" said she. Her mirth broke out afresh.

A shadow darkened the doorway.

"What--cooking and in hysterics?" said Mr. Linton. "May I have some tea?

And what's the matter?"

"Cecil's begun the reforming process," said his daughter, becoming solemn with difficulty. "You've no idea how improved I am, Daddy! He seems to be certain that I'm not a lady, and he's very doubtful if I'm a cook, so could you tell me what I'm likely to be?"

"A better all-round man than Cecil, I should hope," said David Linton, with a sound like a snort of wrath. "Give me some tea, mate, and don't bother your head about the future. Your old Dad's not scared!"

CHAPTER VI

COMING HOME

The top of my desire Is just to meet a mate o' mine.

HENRY LAWSON.

It had suddenly become hot--"truly Christmas" weather, Norah called it, as she stood waiting on the Cunjee platform for a train which, in accordance with all railway traditions at Christmas, was already over an hour late. Norah felt it hard that to-day, of all days in the year, it should be so--when Jim was actually coming home for good! At the thought of Jim's arrival she hopped cheerfully on one leg, completely oblivious of onlookers, and looked up the shining line of rails for the thousand-and-first time. Would the old train never come?

"Aren't you contriving to keep warm, with the mercury trying to break the thermometer? Or do you dance merely because you feel like it?"

asked a friendly voice; and Norah turned with a little flush of pleasure to greet the Cunjee doctor. She and Dr. Anderson respected each other very highly.

"Because I feel like it, I expect," she said, laughing and shaking hands.

"Which my wide professional experience leads me to diagnose as the fact that you're probably waiting for Jim!" said the doctor, gravely.

"There's a certain hectic flush, an intermittent pulse, which convinces me of your painful state, when coupled with the restlessness of the eye."

"Which eye?" asked Norah anxiously.

"Both," said the doctor. "Don't be flippant with your medical man. So he's really coming, Norah?"

"Yes," said Norah, "and I don't care if I am excited--so'd you be, doctor. Billy's outside with the horses, and he's just as excited as I am."

"Billy!" said the doctor. "But he'd never say more than 'Plenty!' no matter how excited he was."

"No, of course not, but then he finds it such a useful word," Norah said a little vaguely. She was peering up the rails. Suddenly she spun round, her face glowing. "There's the smoke--she's coming!"

Whatever additional remarks Dr. Anderson may have made fell on deaf ears, for Norah had no further ideas from that moment. The train came into view over the brow of the hill, and slid down the long slope into the station, pulling up with a mighty grinding of brakes. Almost as it stopped a door was flung open violently, and a very tall boy with the Grammar School colours on his hat jumped out, cast a hurried glance around, and then seized the small person in blue linen in an unashamed bear's hug.

"Oh, Jim!" said Norah. "Oh, Jimmy--boy!"

"Well, old kiddie," said Jim. "You all right? My word, I am glad to see you!"