Read The Home Girls for Free Online Page B

light.
    She took a track that led to the well a slab covered hole of water of a milky substance that supplemented the tanks of rainwater during a dry spell and was used mostly for washing clothes and scrubbing the dairy.
    Behind the well on a small rise there was a clump of wattles with roots raised above the ground forming a kind of armchair. The spring that fed the well kept the grass there soft and green.
    It was a place for Sylvia and the others to rest when they took the slide and cans to draw water.
    If I am here in the winter I’ll be carrying that blasted water again, she said to herself rocking her body and letting the roots hurt her.
    The hills were folded in front of her to meet the sky and there was nothing much to gaze upon but tracks running through the grass even now threatening to turn a pale early winter brown.
    Sylvia stood and grasped a branch of the wattle and shook it.
    â€œI hate them! I hate them!” she cried.
    Then she shut her eyes and laid her head on the branch until her anger was partly spent.
    When she opened her eyes there was a horse and rider crossing the hill on one of the tracks.
    â€œArnold Wright!” she whispered, sinking down onto the grass. “I can see his buck teeth from here!”
    Arnold was riding in the direction of the Wright farm one of the poorest in Berrigo. If she sat still and pulled a branch over her head he might not see her when he crossed the gully a little higher up riding by the straggling fence that divided the McMahons from their neighbour.
    Seeing him with one eye a new thought struck Sylvia.
    Berrigo would know she wasn’t going to Sydney after all! She would have to face the Post Office crowd! She would drown herself first! She looked towards the well where the water winked between the slabs.
    She saw herself pulled out by the armpits and all of them wailing while they watched.
    She would look terrible with her hair plastered on her head and her clothes stuck to her body, perhaps her shoes missing. No she would not die that way.
    She would walk to Sydney! Forgetting the proximity of Arnold Wright she pulled the branch aside to see where the road showed patches of beige coloured gravel through the trees. She could walk and walk and walk with the signposts telling her the way. She would leave at night when they were all asleep and would be too far away when they found her missing. She would arrive at Aunt Bess’s and then it would be too late to be dragged home. The idea was so appealing she leapt to her feet and Arnold quite close now saw the flash of her old pink spotted dress. He jerked his surprised horse to a halt and after sitting a moment climbed down and tied the reins to a post. Sylvia was trapped. She could not run home and she could not escape Arnold striding towards her. She sank down onto the grass again.
    â€œI thought it was you,” Arnold said.
    Who else would it be? Sylvia thought with scorn and snapped a twig off the wattle branch.
    In the silence following she traced a pattern with it on the tree root.
    â€œGettin’ in some practice for writin’ home?” Arnold said squatting beside her.
    Oh, what a clot! she thought, lifting her head.
    But Arnold thought he had said something smart and stretched his lips farther over his teeth.
    You think he’s grinning all the time but he’s not, Sylvia thought.
    Arnold sobering drew his lips as far as they would reach to cover his teeth and glanced towards the road.
    â€œI’d like to be goin’,” he said.
    â€œWhat would you do there?” said Sylvia half scornful although she had resolved not to speak to him just remain mute.
    â€œWork. Get money,” said Arnold.
    Sylvia realized she had been pressing the twig deeply into the root when she heard it snap.
    â€œSee all that life,” said Arnold. “Jeez, you’re lucky.”
    Sylvia lifted her chin, shook back her hair and let the breath out of her body.
    She was going! She was