Then I skipped to December: 

December 1896

1st.  Fine and hot.  Stripped the weet 60 bages. 2nd.  Fine.  Killed a snake very hot day. 3rd.  Fine.  Very hot alle had a boagy in the river. 4th.  Fine.  Got returns of woll 7 1/2 fleece 5 1/4 bellies. 5th.  Fine.  Awful hot got a serkeler from Tatersal by the poast. 6th.  Fine.  Saw Joe Harris at Duffys.

There was no entertainment to be had from the diaries, so I attempted a conversation with Mrs M’Swat.

“A penny for your thoughts.”

“I wuz jist watchin’ the rain and thinkin’ it would put a couple a bob a head more on sheep if it keeps on.”

What was I to do to pass the day?  I was ever very restless, even in the midst of full occupation.  Uncle Jay-Jay used to accuse me of being in six places at once, and of being incapable of sitting still for five minutes consecutively; so it was simply endurance to live that long, long day—­nothing to read, no piano on which to play hymns, too wet to walk, none with whom to converse, no possibility of sleeping, as in an endeavour to kill a little of the time I had gone to bed early and got up late.  There was nothing but to sit still, tormented by maddening regret.  I pictured what would he transpiring at Caddagat now; what we had done this time last week, and so on, till the thing became an agony to me.

Among my duties before school I was to set the table, make all the beds, dust and sweep, and “do” the girls’ hair.  After school I had to mend clothes, sew, set the table again, take a turn at nursing the baby, and on washing-day iron.  This sounds a lot, but in reality was nothing, and did not half occupy my time.  Setting the table was a mere sinecure, as there was nothing much to put on it; and the only ironing was a few articles outside my own, as Mr M’Swat and Peter did not wear white shirts, and patronised paper collars.  Mrs M’Swat did the washing and a little scrubbing, also boiled the beef and baked the bread, which formed our unvaried menu week in and week out.  Most peasant mothers with a family of nine have no time for idleness, but Mrs M’Swat managed things so that she spent most of the day rolling on her frowsy bed playing with her dirty infant, which was as fat and good-tempered as herself.

On Monday morning I marshalled my five scholars (Lizer, aged fourteen; Jimmy, twelve; Tommy, Sarah, and Rose Jane, younger) in a little back skillion, which was set apart as a schoolroom and store for flour and rock-salt.  Like all the house, it was built of slabs, which, erected while green, and on account Of the heat, had shrunk until many of the cracks were sufficiently wide to insert one’s arm.  On Monday—­after the rain—­the wind, which disturbed us through them, was piercingly cold, but as the week advanced summer and drought regained their pitiless sway, and we were often sunburnt by the rough gusts which filled the room with such clouds of dust and grit that we were forced to cover our heads until it passed.