And from time to time, these forests subverted the common dark, damp trope of European folklore and erupted into the very fires of damnation. Much of the Gippsland forest had been burnt in the Black Thursday inferno of 1851, revealing Aboriginal stone axes long-lost beneath their tangled vegetation. Such fires would strike again in 1898, turning the Gippsland sky a ‘strange shade of purple, tinged with blood’ and leaving behind ‘a blackened waste’ with ‘nothing but want and misery’.
The natural beauty of Stockyard Creek, Foster, near Edith’s first teaching post
Such tragedies shaped the culture of the Gippsland farmers towards the native vegetation. But powerful though those factors must have been, I can’t imagine Edith being intimidated by such concerns. More likely she would have had more in common with Miss Elms of Jumbunna, who was enraptured by ‘the most beautiful mosses’. I fancy Edith travelling along the quiet tracks beneath the great towering arcs of mountain ash and manna gum, messmate and stringybark: her attention rapt by the ‘sweet-scented wattles, hazels, musk, cotton bush, lightwood and myrtles; prickly Moses, the “lace curtains of supplejack” (clematis), sassafras, raspberry, Christmas bush; the tree ferns, maidenhair, rock ferns, the wildflowers, lichens and mosses’.
And the fungi. Surely she must have noticed the fungi in these cool damp forests: great bracts of orange growing in neat horizontal shelves from fallen timber, the lime green caps of Dermocybe austroveneta perched on bright yellow shafts, delicate fans, striped like microscopic tatting, or the yellow-fingered ‘corals’ of Ramariopsis crocea. To the observant, the forest floors were a colourful wonderland, more than enough to divert attention from their daunting height or legendary ferocity.
‘Orange twigs and ruby stems threaded the maze of leaves,’ Jean Galbraith observed after heavy rains, ‘and in a mystery of colour, yellow deepened into green and crimson paled through pink to orange and bright gold or darkened into ruddy brown. Tremulous globes of silver and spots of shrill white fire threw lances jewel bright across the air as sunbeams shattered their glory on the drops of rain.’
In August, Edith was transferred out of Gippsland to the other side of Melbourne, to the tiny goldfields town of Timor (State School No. 1207), a far cry from the forested foothills of Gippsland. Here the land lay long and flat beneath the farmer’s plough, swept bare by armies of hopeful gold-diggers. The light woodlands had long been stripped back to remnant pockets on creek lines, a few left as sparse shade for thirsty livestock. The grasses grew long and lush in autumn and spring, drying pale and gold in the summer heat. Northerlies blasted down from desert country, desiccating all that lay before their gritty breath. In the township, the streets stretched wide and empty as the tide receded from frantic gold-rushed days, the pace so slow one might need a packed lunch to cross the road. Zigzagged roofs of corrugated iron stood in for hills, ranging themselves behind uneven silver-grey palings.
In 1879, the school had 492 children enrolled. By the early 1890s, the entire town numbered little more than 400. Edith worked here through the spring. Just the season for a profusion of orchids, delicate long-legged spider orchids in white, red and pink (Caladenia cretacea, cruciformis and versicolor), shy green-hoods and upright leek orchids. Inspector Hamilton, who had also seen her work at Traralgon, reported that she was a good, capable teacher.
In October Edith was promoted to head teacher at nearby Cochranes Creek. The school consisted of a portable wooden schoolhouse, suitable for around 30 children. A small two-roomed teacher’s residence was originally attached, but perhaps, as Ada Cambridge had found, it was not appropriate for a single young woman to live alone on school grounds. Edith found lodgings elsewhere, some distance from the school.
Cochranes Creek presented its own challenges. Not only was Edith leading a school on her own for the first time, but it was also a school with significant difficulties: poor discipline, unhappy parents and struggling children.
In early 1896, before Edith’s arrival, Mary Anne Mason, just five years old, told her Mama that ‘the teacher beat me . . . for not knowing my spellings. She beat me with a stick.’ The marks were still visible on her skin. In June, an Education Department enquiry found that the teacher Elizabeth Spence was ‘in the habit of punishing the children – both boys and girls – in the hand with small rods’. At the time, the corporal punishment of girls, particularly such young ones, was not permitted in schools.
‘A little girl should not be treated in this way,’ reported the inspector.
Elizabeth Spence was cleared of striking children ‘in the head’, but fined one pound and counselled against the frequent and unnecessary use of punishment. She resigned in September, and Edith replaced her in October.
‘I find the children of this school in a very backward condition on my taking charge, most of them being too young for their respective classes, and the work very much neglected,’ Edith reported. Despite her working hard in the first seven weeks of her appointment, the percentage of children attending school still fell and the department agreed not to dock her pay as this was probably not her fault.
Surely it was during these early postings in the little country schools of Victoria that Edith first encountered what might pass for wilderness in the rapidly changing landscape of the still newly settled state. Did she follow Frank Tate’s advice and take her young charges outdoors for nature study? Did she take the opportunity to learn from them the precious beauties they had known since birth? I don’t know. I can find no reminiscences of her teaching or training in any of her later writings – articles or letters. The only signs are the patiently educative tone of her writing and her deep-set belief in the importance of instilling a love of nature in a younger
