On a Bright Hillside in Paradise by Annette Higgs

Author:Annette Higgs [Higgs, Annette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781761049743
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

It was evening, and Susannah sat with Echo at the kitchen table mending clothes. Ma dozed in her usual chair; the fire in the stove burned warm. The light from the hurricane lamp was low for stitching but if the work didn’t get done the little ones wouldn’t have shirts and britches to wear.

Echo shifted restlessly and scrunched up little Rosie’s pinafore. ‘I don’t know how that girl gets her pinny in such a state.’

‘Oh, give over with your grumpiness, Eck,’ said Susannah. ‘Leave that now if you want to be doing your writing.’ She never had any trouble indulging Echo, who always seemed happy to leave the housework for her books. Susannah bent her head and smiled her secret pride. It was not a right thing to favour one child over the others, but she marvelled at Echo’s learning.

Echo happily tossed aside her share of the mending. She set out pen and ink and opened a book on the table. At school they all used slates, but the teacher Mr Pullen had given her a proper book to write in. Susannah’s eyes remained lowered over her needle and thimble, but she raised them now and then to observe her daughter. Echo fixed a new nib in her pen, unscrewed the ink pot, and frowned over her page, a little vertical line forming between her eyebrows.

‘Tell what you are writing, Eck,’ asked Susannah. She knew all about the project and had heartswell every time she thought of it, and wanted to hear her daughter tell of it again.

‘You know I am writing about you, Mother,’ Echo replied. ‘You’re the heroine. I told you before.’

‘I know that, Eck.’ The idea of being the heroine made her warm. ‘But what things are you telling about?’

‘Oh, the way you cradle Baby when you nurse, the way you sing, the way you cry in the night.’

‘Goodness me!’ Susannah paused in her stitching. That described family life well enough, she supposed. As the sounds in the house settled, the younger children already asleep, the scratching of Echo’s pen joined the crackle of the low fire and Ma’s light snoring.

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