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attention when she arrived with the others to wait for the mail.
    â€œWon’t be long now,” said Mrs Percy Parnell (there was also Mrs Henry and Mrs Horace) who as the youngest of the trio felt she had a licence to use current slang terms of which this was one.
    Sylvia smiled, pleased at the attention focused on her.
    â€œThree weeks,” she said, feeling the old familiar tingle.
    â€œAnd three and a half days,” said her small sister Esme who blushed and hid her face in her sister’s skirt when everyone laughed.
    Esme aged ten amid the flock of schoolchildren could have collected the mail but Sylvia sixteen and waiting for departure day dressed herself like the adult women of Berrigo and went daily to the Post Office, probably to collect no more than a Farmer and Settler and a doctor’s bill which Mrs McMahon would throw in the fire since she had not paid for the confinement resulting in Sylvia much less Frank, Lennie, Esme, Rose, Yvonne and Jackie.
    It was true that Sylvia could have been employed helping her mother but the income from the farm was stretched to the limits, and it took a good season during which the cows gave liberally of their milk to atone for the bleak winter when grocery bills mounted month after month and unlike the doctor’s bill could not be thrown into the stove and forgotten.
    Mrs McMahon now past forty hoped for no more children and avoiding old Doctor Hadgett was relatively easy as he spent most of his time behind the high garden wall of his house and surgery within arm’s reach of his liquor cupboard.
    These days he was of little use in confinements anyway handing over to the district nurse when a birth was imminent and charging for the lavatory.
    But it was a different matter in relation to the town’s only grocer.
    L.F. Parrington was a prominent local figure running the agricultural show and sports day or running the committee running the events. L.F. as the townspeople called him was churchman, sportsman, businessman and with one of the district’s best farms. He was in everything and everywhere. You would have to be a recluse to dodge him. Mrs McMahon gave him the child endowment cheque each month in the winter and was grateful for the brief lift of his hat when their paths crossed.
    Since no jobs were offering in Berrigo or larger towns within a radius of one hundred miles it was proposed that Sylvia go to Sydney before the winter set in and with luck get work. With a little more luck the pay might allow her to send some money home.
    â€œParcels too,” said Sylvia at home after the post office jaunt and wiping up for her mother with a threadbare tea towel. The subject was invariably the going away.
    She glanced at her mother seeing side-on the drooped eyelids and corresponding droop to the mouth still soft and pretty in spite of all the children and hard work.
    Mrs McMahon had been silent while Sylvia rattled on. Now Sylvia saw something set and unyielding in her mother’s profile.
    â€œThings are so cheap in Sydney,” Sylvia said.
    Mrs McMahon spoke at last.
    â€œYou’re not there yet,” she said.
    Sylvia laid down a plate in fear. Would it be possible her mother would change her mind and not let her go? She must know at once if there was a hint of this!
    She stared hard at a handful of forks.
    â€œCan we write and say the date I’ll be there?” she said.
    Oh, God don’t let her say I can’t go!
    Mrs McMahon took the washing up dish and moved up a step onto the verandah tipping the contents onto flowers that grew below the rails.
    Sylvia watched her back, heard the rush of water.
    When she turns and shows her face I’ll know, Sylvia thought entertaining the idea of rushing on her and begging her not to say no.
    But the McMahons did not demonstrate affection and they kissed begrudgingly the children fearful of hearing the words “Don’t slobber like a calf!”
    Mrs McMahon kept her eyes