Aunt Helen, is there such a thing as firm friendship when even yours—­best of women—­quibbled and went under at the hysterical wail from the overburdened heart of a child?

My predecessor, previous to her debut at Barney’s Gap, had spent some time in a lunatic asylum, and being a curious character, allowed the children to do as they pleased, consequently they knew not what it meant to be ruled, and were very hold.  They attempted no insubordination while their father was about the house, but when he was absent they gave me a dog’s life, their mother sometimes smiling on their pranks, often lazily heedless of them, but never administering any form of correction.

If I walked away from the house to get rid of them, they would follow and hoot at me; and when I reproved them they informed me they were not going “to knuckle under to old Melvyn’s darter, the damnedest fool in the world, who’s lost all his prawperty, and has to borry money off of pa.”

Did I shut myself in my room, they shoved sticks in the cracks and made grimaces at me.  I knew the fallacy of appealing to their father, as they and their mother would tell falsehoods, and my word would not be taken in contradiction of theirs.  I had experience of this, as the postmistress had complained of Jimmy, to be insulted by his father, who could see no imperfection in his children.

M’Swat was much away from home at that time.  The drought necessitated the removal of some of his sheep, for which he had rented a place eighty miles coastwards.  There he left them under the charge of a man, but he repaired thither frequently to inspect them.  Sometimes he was away from home a fortnight at a stretch.  Peter would be away at work all day, and the children took advantage of my defenceless position.  Jimmy was the ringleader.  I could easily have managed the others had he been removed.  I would have thrashed him well at the start but for the letters I constantly received from home warning me against offence to the parents, and knew that to set my foot on the children’s larrikinism would require measures that would gain their mother’s ill-will at once.  But when M’Swat left home for three weeks Jim got so bold that I resolved to take decisive steps towards subjugating him.  I procured a switch—­a very small one, as his mother had a great objection to corporal punishment—­and when, as usual, he commenced to cheek me during lessons, I hit him on the coat-sleeve.  The blow would not have brought tears from the eyes of a toddler, but this great calf emitted a wild yope, and opening his mouth let his saliva pour on to his slate.  The others set up such blood-curdling yells in concert that I was a little disconcerted, but I determined not to give in.  I delivered another tap, whereupon he squealed and roared so that he brought his mother to his rescue like a ton of bricks on stilts, a great fuss in her eyes which generally beamed with a cowful calm.

Seizing my arm she shook me like a rat, broke my harmless little stick in pieces, threw it in my face, and patting Jimmy on the shoulder, said: