ary!

"For a long while she had the idea of going to Brisbane to work. She said
there were chances to make big wages there, because forewomen and draping
hands were wanted more and girls who had anything in them had a better
show than in a little place. I used to remind her that it was said there
were lots too many girls in Brisbane and that unless you had friends
there you couldn't earn your bread. But she used to say that one must
live everywhere and that things couldn't be worse than they were in
Toowoomba. You see she was anxious to be able to earn enough to help with
the mortgage. Father had been taken sick shearing: and had to knock off
and so didn't earn what he expected and that year they'd got deeper into
debt and things looked worse than ever. One day he came into Toowoomba
with his cart, looking ten years older. Next day, Mary told me she didn't
care what happened, she was going to Brisbane to see if she couldn't earn
some money or else they'd lose the selection and that she'd spoken for
her place for me and I was to have it. She'd been saving up for a good
while what she could by shillings and sixpences and pennies, doing sewing
work for anybody who'd pay her anything in her own time. She said that
when she'd got a five-pound-a-week place she'd come back for a visit and
bring me a new dress, and mother and father and the others all sorts of
things and pay the interest all herself and that I should have the next
best place in the shop and come to live with her. We talked about going
into business together and whether it wouldn't be better for father to
throw up the selection after a while and live with us in Brisbane. Ah!
What simple fools we were! If we had but known!

"So Mary went to Brisbane, with just a few shillings beside her ticket
and hardly knowing a soul in the big town. I went to the station with her
in the middle of the night. She was going by the night train because then
she'd get to Brisbane in the morning and have the day in front of her and
she had nowhere to go if she got in at night. I recollect thinking how
sweetly pretty she looked as she sat in the carriage all alone.

"You remember her, Ned? Well, she got prettier and prettier as she grew
older, not tall and big and strong-looking like me but smaller than I was
even then and with a fresh round face that always smiled at you. She had
small feet and hands and hair that curled naturally and her skin was
dark, not fair like mine. People in