Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/233



The two travellers had yarned late in their camp, and the moon was getting low down through the mulga. Mitchell's mate had just finished a rather 'racy' yarn, but it seemed to fall flat on Mitchell; he was in a sentimental mood. He smoked a while, and thought, and then said:

'Ah! there was one little girl that I was properly struck on. She came to our place on a visit to my sister. I think she was the best little girl that ever lived, and about the prettiest. She was just eighteen, and didn't come up to my shoulder; the biggest blue eyes you ever saw, and she had hair that reached down to her knees, and so thick you couldn't span it with your two hands―brown and glossy―and her skin was like lilies and roses. Of course, I never thought she'd look at a rough, ugly, ignorant brute like me, and I used to keep out of her way and act a little stiff towards her; I didn't want the others to think I was gone on her, because I knew they'd laugh at me, and maybe she'd laugh at me more than all. She would come and talk to me, and sit near me at table; but I thought that that was on account of her good nature, and she pitied me because I was such a 205