of paper, but in solid
seven-pound packages, and quite a number of them.

Had I been a shopkeeper's son, I suppose these trifles from Werrina
would have been esteemed by me at something like their real value. So
I rejoice that I was not a shopkeeper's son, for I still cherish a
lively recollection of the glad feeling of security and comfortable
well-being which filled my breast as I paced round and about our cart
and all it had brought us. Long before sun-up next morning, Ted was
off again to Werrina; but, seeing our incapacity on the domestic side,
the good fellow gave an hour or two before starting to washing up and
cooking work; and I pretended to work with him, out there in the
star-light, conversing the while in whispers to avoid disturbing my
father.

Two more journeys Ted made, and returned fully laden both times,
the old cart fairly groaning under the weight of goods it held. And then
the services of a bullock-driver and his team and dray had
subsequently to be requisitioned to bring out our English boxes and
baggage, including the cases of my father's books. Those books, how
they tempt one to musing digressions.... But of that in its place.

By the time the carrier's work was done we had established something
of a routine of life, though this was subject to a good deal of
variation and disorder, as I remember, so long as the tent was in use.
Ted had arranged with butcher and storekeeper both to meet one of us
once a week at a point distant some six miles from Livorno Bay, where
our track crossed a road. Our bread, of course, we baked for
ourselves; and excellent bread it was, while Ted made it. I believe
that even when the task of making it fell into my hands, it was more
palatable than baker's bread; certainly my father thought so, and that
was enough for me.

Our hardest work, by far, was the cleaning of the _Livorno_. There was
a spring cleaning with a vengeance! We used a mixture of soft soap and
soda and sand, which made our hands all mottled: huge brown freckles
over an unwholesome-looking, indurated, fish-belly grey. The stuff
made one's finger-ends smart horridly, I remember. For days on end it
seemed we lived in this mess; our feet and legs and arms all bare, and
perspiration trickling down our noses, while soapy water and sand
crept up our arms and all over our bodies. My father insisted on doing
his share, though frequently driven by mere exhaustion to pause and
lie down at full length upon the