I still made no reply, so my mother inquired, “Well, Sybylla, what do you think of the matter?”
“Do you think it absolutely necessary to break up the home?” I said.
“Well, you suggest something better if you are so clever,” said mother, crossly. “That is always the way; if I suggest a thing it is immediately put down, yet there is never anyone to think of things but me. What would you do? I suppose you think you could make a living on the place for us yourself.”
“Why can’t we live at home? Blackshaw and Jansen have no bigger places than we, and families just as large, and yet they make a living. It would be terrible for the little ones to grow up separated; they would be no more to each other than strangers.”
“Yes; it is all very well for you to talk like that, but how is your father to start again with only five cows in the world? It’s no use, you never talk sense. You’ll find my way is always the best in the end.”
“Would it not be easier,” I replied, “for our relations to each give a little towards setting us up again, than to be burdened with the whole responsibility of rearing a child? I’m sure they’d much prefer it.”
“Yes, perhaps it would be better, but I think you will have to get your own living. What would they say about having to support such a big girl as you are?”
“I will go and earn my own living, and when you get me weeded out of the family you will have a perfect paradise. Having no evil to copy, the children will grow up saints,” I said bitterly.
“Now, Sybylla, it is foolish to talk like that, for you know that you take no interest in your work. If you’d turn to and help me rear poultry and make dresses—and why don’t you take to cooking?”
“Take to cooking!” I retorted with scorn. “The fire that a fellow has to endure on that old oven would kill a horse, and the grit and dirt of clearing it up grinds on my very nerves. Besides, if I ever do want to do any extra fancy cooking, we either can’t afford the butter or the currants, or else the eggs are too scarce! Cook, be grannied!”
“Sybylla! Sybylla, you are getting very vulgar!”
“Yes, I once was foolish enough to try and be polite, but I’ve given it up. My style of talk is quite good enough for my company. What on earth does it matter whether I’m vulgar or not. I can feed calves and milk and grind out my days here just as well vulgar as unvulgar,” I answered savagely.
“There, you see you are always discontented about your home. It’s no use; the only thing is for you to earn your own living.”
“I will earn my own living.”
“What will you do? Will you be examined for a pupil-teacher? That is a very nice occupation for girls.”
“What chance would I have in a competitive exam against Goulburn girls? They all have good teachers and give up their time to study. I only have old Harris, and he is the most idiotic old animal alive; besides, I loathe the very thought of teaching. I’d as soon go on the wallaby.”
“You are not old enough to be a general servant or a cook; you have not experience enough to be a housemaid; you don’t take to sewing, and there is no chance of being accepted as a hospital nurse: you must confess there is nothing you can do. You are really a very useless girl for your age.”
“There are heaps of things I could do.”
“Tell me a few of them.”
I was silent. The professions at which I felt I had the latent power to excel, were I but given a chance, were in a sphere far above us, and to mention my feelings and ambitions to my matter-of-fact practical mother would bring upon me worse ridicule than I was already forced to endure day by day.
“Mention a few of the things you could do.”
I might as well have named flying as the professions I was thinking of. Music was the least unmentionable of them, so I brought it forward.
“Music! But it would take years of training and great expense before you could earn anything at that! It is quite out of the question. The only thing for you to do is to settle down and take interest in your work, and help make a living at home, or else go out as a nurse-girl, and work your way up. If you have any ability in you it would soon show. If you think you could do such strokes, and the home work is not good enough for you, go out and show the world what a wonderful creature you are.”
“Mother, you are unjust and cruel!” I exclaimed. “You do not understand one at all. I never thought I could do strokes. I cannot help being constituted so that grimy manual labour is hateful to me, for it is hateful to me, and I hate it more and more every day, and you can preach and preach till you go black in the face, and still I’ll hate it more than ever. If I have to do it all my life, and if I’m cursed with a long life, I’ll hate it just as much at the end as I do now. I’m sure it’s not any wish of mine that I’m born with inclinations for better things. If I could be born again, and had the designing of myself, I’d be born the lowest and coarsest-minded person imaginable, so that I could find plenty
