BERTHA AND THE SNAKE. 4s

where the little mermen and mermaids, wearing wreaths of sea-weed and pearls, had come out of an
oyster-shell cave to invite Freda and Bertha to play.with them. Finally it had been turned into a
desert island around which the ocean stretched as far as they could see, and Freda feigned to be so
much alarmed at the waves that were coming to wash them away, that little Bertha clung to her
skirts and cried “Oh! save me! save me!” in tones of real terror. Now as in reality there was
nothing but the dry earth and the yellow grass (and very dry and very yellow they were too), the risk
of drowning was not so great after all, and being tired by this time—after all the adventures they had
been through—the two little girls sate down to watch the sun take his flaming leave of them. They
were thinking now of the curious shapes that the gold-tipped clouds assumed. “TI do b’lieve its going
to rain, Ido,” little Bertha had said. She always gave weight to her remarks, by repeating her
opening words very solemnly, and though she was only:six years old knew quite well that rain was
badly needed on their farm. Did not father say every day that the crops would be all dried up if
they didn’t have some showers soon, and hadn’t she got her own little foot caught the other day
in the big cracks that were opening everywhere in the parched soil of the meadows? Freda had
said the earth was so thirsty, it was opening its lips all over the place to drink. Bertha was sorry
for the poor thirsty earth, and as for Freda, she was still more anxious for
the rain. Had not father promised if it rained that she and Bertha
should be sent to school in \ Melbourne, where they would learn to
play the piano, and where Freda might take pattern by wiser, taller girls
than herself, with—very probably —longer skirts, and hair done up fashion-
ably on their heads, instead of hanging loose and ‘“no-
how” like hers and Bertha’s. se Well, the clouds add
carry a kind of promise in them, and what wonderful
pictures they made besides! First of all Freda made
out a big polar bear running after a little boy. Then
the little boy’s head fell off and he turned into a dog
with three legs, by which time the polar bear had
changed into an old man with a pipe: and an um-
brella, and only one arm. “T can see him quite
plainly, I can,” said Bertha. But all of a sudden her
voice changed. She crept closer to her sister,
and clung tightly toher « arm with her two fat little
hands. ‘Oh, Freda! there’s a real alive old
man looking at us over there—there is—and
I'm so dreffully fright- ened, I am.” i

Freda looked quickly , In the direction indi-
cated by. Bertha and, ' sure enough, there,
standing next ‘to a myrtle-bush was an old
man, who seemed to be watching them intently
from under the rim of a very shabby felt hat. Freda
was a brave little girl, but : she knew that Bertha and herself were
all alone on the farm, and aa the unexpected sight of this strange appa-
rition suddenly starting up in this lonely spot made her heart stand still fora moment. Her father and
his mate were gone with the working bullocks over two miles away, to drag back the stumps of some big
trees that had been rooted up last year, and that would have to serve for firewood next winter. They
would not be back till long after sun-down, when they would probably fry themselves a steak, and make
tea in the-rough front-room that did duty for dining-room and sitting-room and kitchen and smoking-
room allat the same time, and that Freda never failed to clean and tidy up so carefully every morning
_ like atrue little working housekeeper as she was. Oh! how the children wished their father were near

them now. They had no one to whom to turn for protection, nothing but a big, lithe, kangaroo dog, that
was only brave in the matter of chasing the fowls and the ducks, and Freda’s white cockatoo, chained
to a perch outside the hut, that could not be taught to say “pretty cocky,” but that would swing up
and down and screech inharmoniously by the hour together.

Yet why be so frightened of a poor old man? Certainly he was dressed in rather a singular
fashion. He wore, as I hhave said, a shabby felt wide-awake hat, a woollen shirt, and an old—very
old—coat, round which were strapped, behind his back, his red blankets and the quart pot, or tin
billy, in which he boiled his water for his tea, when he sate down of a night to his lonely meals, all by

  
  
 
  
  
  
 
 
  
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
  

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