e were
pretty far back in Queensland--we hardly ever saw real furniture, the
stuff you buy in shops. It was all made out of packing-cases and odd
bits of wood. Jolly decent, too; you paint 'em up to match the rooms, or
stain 'em dark colours, and the girls put sort of petticoats round some
of the things."

"We began that way," said David Linton, with a half-sigh. "There was
surprisingly little proper furniture in our first house, and we were
very comfortable."

"Couldn't we begin, sir?" asked Wally eagerly. "This wet weather looks
like setting in. Bob can't do much on the farm. If we could get out
a few odd lengths of timber and some old packing cases from the
township--"

"Heavens, you don't need to do that!" exclaimed their host. "The place
is full of both; packing-cases have been arriving at Billabong since Jim
was a baby, and very few of them have gone away again. There's plenty of
timber knocking about, too. We'll go over to the farm if you like, Bob,
and plan out measurements."

"I think it's a splendid idea, thanks, sir," said Bob slowly. "Only I
don't quite see why I should bother you--"

"Oh, don't talk rubbish!" said David Linton, getting up. "I believe I'm
glad of the job--the place seems queer without Jim and Norah."

"My word!" said Wally. "Let's all turn carpenters, and give Tommy the
surprise of her life!"

They flung themselves at the work with energy. A visit to the new house,
and a careful study of each room, revealed unsuspected possibilities to
Bob, whose English brain, "brought up," as Wally said, "on a stodgy
diet of bedroom suites," had failed to grasp what might be done by handy
people with a soul above mere fashion in the matter of furniture. They
came back with a notebook bulging with measurements and heads seething
with ideas. First, they dealt with the bedrooms, and made for each a set
of long shelves and a dressing-table-cupboard--the latter a noble piece
of furniture, which was merely a packing-case, smoothed, planed and
fitted with shelves; the whole to be completed with a seemly petticoat
when Tommy should be able to detach her mind from influenza patients.
They made her, too, a little work-table, which was simply a wide, low
shelf, at which she could write or sew--planned to catch a good light
from her window, so that as she sat near it, she could see the line of
willows that marked the creek and the rolling plains that ended in the
ranges behind Billabong. Tommy's room was pain