Mrs Melvyn must have found favour in the eyes of the specimens of the lords of creation resident at Possum Gully, as all the matrons of the community hastened to call on her, and vied with each other in a display of friendliness and good-nature.  They brought presents of poultry, jam, butter, and suchlike.  They came at two o’clock and stayed till dark.  They inventoried the furniture, gave mother cookery recipes, described minutely the unsurpassable talents of each of their children, and descanted volubly upon the best way of setting turkey hens.  On taking their departure they cordially invited us all to return their visits, and begged mother to allow her children to spend a day with theirs.

We had been resident in our new quarters nearly a month when my parents received an intimation from the teacher of the public school, two miles distant, to the effect that the law demanded that they should send their children to school.  It upset my mother greatly.  What was she to do?

“Do!  Bundle the nippers off to school as quickly as possible, of course,” said my father.

My mother objected.  She proposed a governess now and a good boarding-school later on.  She had heard such dreadful stories of public schools!  It was terrible to be compelled to send her darlings to one; they would be ruined in a week!

“Not they,” said father.  “Run them off for a week or two, or a month at the outside.  They can’t come to any harm in that time.  After that we will get a governess.  You are in no state of health to worry about one just now, and it is utterly impossible that I can see about the matter at present.  I have several specs. on foot that I must attend to.  Send the youngsters to school down here for the present.”

We went to school, and in our dainty befrilled pinafores and light shoes were regarded as great swells by the other scholars.  They for the most part were the children of very poor farmers, whose farm earnings were augmented by road-work, wood-carting, or any such labour which came within their grasp.  All the boys went barefooted, also a moiety of the girls.  The school was situated on a wild scrubby hill, and the teacher boarded with a resident a mile from it.  He was a man addicted to drink, and the parents of his scholars lived in daily expectation of seeing his dismissal from the service.

It is nearly ten years since the twins (who came next to me) and I were enrolled as pupils of the Tiger Swamp public school.  My education was completed there; so was that of the twins, who are eleven months younger than I. Also my other brothers and sisters are quickly getting finishedwards; but that is the only school any of us have seen or known.  There was even a time when father spoke of filling in the free forms for our attendance there.  But mother—­a woman’s pride bears more wear than a man’s—­would never allow us to come to that.