Donovan's Station by Robin McGrath

Author:Robin McGrath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
Publisher: Creative Book Publishing
Published: 2002-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

June 30

Weather variable, changes every five minutes. Picnic bookings up for the weekend; have had to get Mrs. Walsh to help. The girl was drying her wool stockings over the stove, directly against my orders, and dropped one. The kitchen was half filled with smoke before she realized what she had done. Mumma knocked the jug of water off her dresser to get her attention. I am in an agony over this-—Mumma is terrified of fire, and I know she would send the slovenly child packing back to her family this minute, but I am short-handed as it is, and the girl is hardly older than Lizzie. It is my fault, for I didn’t realize the poor thing had only one pair of stockings and had been washing them out and wearing them wet. She has only half a pair now. I cannot send her home with even less than she had when she arrived, so I am obliged to clothe her, whether she stays or goes.

I’ve been examining my conscience and Kate is right, the girl should be given a second chance. It isn’t Annie’s fault she was dragged up rather than brought up to be useful and clean. But I’d been thinking about the Great Fire, and it was so vivid that when the smoke began to seep up through the floorboards I was sure it was the end of everything. At least I know now that I can move my arm if I have to. She doesn’t look like good material to work with—too sallow and drab—but then I don’t suppose I looked much like a farmer when I was her age. If it hadn’t been for the fire, I might never have thought to become a farmer for up until that time I’d never seen a farm.

I went back to St. Johns many times in the weeks that followed the fire, to help the Presentation nuns who, refusing the offers of their sisters in the Mercy Convent, had determined to stay and continue teaching school at Carpasia. Like me, they knew little about farming, nor did the street urchins who were their especial charge, and they often required help getting chickens or pigs away from the outbuildings they were teaching in when the weather was bad. Often I would find them in the fields, beseiged by cows they were afraid to chase off, trying to quiz their little girls in their letters and sums while at the same time quaking in their habits from the benign gaze of old Bessie or Sir Grunt who merely wanted to chew the bit of grass they were sitting on.

Carpasia had only the minimum of staff, all the others having been ordered off to help in the town, so I was able to make myself useful, which is why Mother sent me back as often as she could excuse me from my duties. The Bishop had tried to sell the estate the previous year, planning to put the money into

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