Ruby of Kettle Farm Read online

  Ruby laughed. Thinking about Aunt Flora made her feel better. ‘She does, doesn’t she?’ she said.

  ‘What a beaut car,’ said Walter. ‘I wish we could have a car like that instead of the rattly old Ford.’

  The Walkers had just left, and Baxter was chasing the Humber down the driveway, barking furiously.

  ‘We could never afford it,’ Uncle James said. ‘You’d best stick with reality, boy. Our way of life mightn’t be good enough for you, after two years in that pricey boarding school, but it’s all you’ve got.’

  ‘No harm wishing,’ Walter said, under his breath.

  ‘If there’s one thing I can’t stomach, it’s people showing off their wealth,’ Aunt Flora said. ‘In difficult times like these there’s no call for that sort of vulgar display.’

  ‘Brenda told me Uncle Donald always wanted our house,’ Ruby said. ‘She told me he’d have done anything to get it.’

  ‘I’m sure Donald deserves his good fortune,’ Mother said. ‘He works very hard, and Harry always used to say he was a wizard with money. Harry relied on him completely.’

  ‘And now Harry, who relied on him completely, is in the depths of poverty while Donald Walker is riding high on the hog,’ Aunt Flora said, lighting her pipe and puffing out a cloud of blue smoke. ‘Well, well.’

  ‘It’s not like that at all, Aunt Flora,’ Mother told her. ‘Donald has been a good friend to Harry. He’s protected him and made it possible for us to stay in touch when . . . Without Don, I don’t know what we’d have done.’

  ‘I didn’t like his wife much,’ remarked May. ‘She kept looking around as if she thought the place wasn’t clean enough for her.’

  ‘It didn’t stop her hoeing into the scones,’ Uncle James said bitterly. ‘I thought she and her husband were a pair of scroungers. Ruby, call that blasted dog of yours back here right now, before he gets through a fence and has a go at my sheep.’

  ‘Yes, Uncle James.’ Ruby raised her voice. ‘Baxter! Baxter! Come here!’ But as she started off down the driveway after him, she wasn’t thinking of Baxter.

  Where are you, Dad? she asked silently. We need you. Why won’t you write and tell us where you are?

  WHEN Ruby hopped out of bed next morning the freezing air took her breath away, and it was all she could do not to hop straight back again. It was warm and cosy in bed, thanks to her dressing-gown on top of her quilt, and her overcoat on top of that, and Mother’s travel rug spread over everything else. Thank goodness she didn’t have to milk the cows this morning!

  She dressed quickly. First she pulled on two pairs of socks. Then she put on her drawers, a singlet, a liberty bodice, a petticoat, her warmest skirt, two jumpers and a cardigan. May and Bee had crawled out of bed and were dressing, too, shivering in the cold.

  ‘There’s a hard frost outside,’ May said. ‘I went out earlier, and everything’s white. Shep and Sparkie were asleep on top of their kennels, and both of them were so covered in frost they looked like white dogs instead of black ones. At least Baxter stayed inside his kennel.’

  ‘See?’ Ruby said. ‘Baxter might not be a farm dog, but he does have some sense.’

  She raced out to the chook yard, fed the chooks, used the feed bucket to break the ice on their water bowls, looked for eggs, found just two, and raced back into the warmth of the kitchen, where the wood stove had been burning all night. I’ve never been so cold in my life, she thought. No wonder the chooks aren’t laying – they’re too busy trying to keep warm.

  After breakfast she and May and Bee set out for school. The sun was up, and the air was so clear and crisp that it almost seemed to crackle. The paddocks were covered in frost for as far as Ruby could see, and there were patches of ice on the road where puddles had frozen over. Uncle James’s sheep looked dirty brown against the whiteness of the pasture, and the sun shining on the melting frost was so dazzling that Ruby had to squint against the glare.

  I wonder what Brenda would say if she could see me now, she thought. As well as everything else, she was wearing green woolly mittens, a pink-and-white striped scarf, and a bright red pixie hood.

  She and Bee were pretending to be dragons, roaring and puffing out clouds of steam, while May looked at them as if she thought they were mad. ‘Dragons, indeed!’ she said, sounding exactly like Aunt Flora.

  ‘G’day, Red Riding Hood!’ shouted Eric Weber, scooting past them on his bicycle. ‘Careful – the big bad wolf’ll get ya!’

  ‘Not if I get you first!’ Ruby yelled back, while Bee giggled and May walked firmly on, shaking her head.

  The Wests had been away from school for all of last week, and Ruby was wondering if they’d gone for good when to her relief she saw them standing outside the school gate. Virginia, always the timid one, was hiding behind her big sister Cynthia.

  They look as if they’d like to turn around and go straight home again, Ruby thought. And I wouldn’t blame them.

  While everyone else in the schoolyard stopped what they were doing and stared, she ran up to the gate. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it the most freezing day? I’m so glad you’re back! I was starting to worry about you. Come on, it’s nearly time for assembly.’

  She linked arms with Cynthia and took Josie’s hand. Virginia took her little sister’s other hand, and all four girls walked together into the yard. Darcy shuffled along beside them, scuffing his boots in the dirt.

  ‘Look at them,’ Doris Spinks said in a loud voice. ‘Birds of a feather. There’s something real fishy going on there, my mum reckons.’

  Ruby felt a moment of panic. Was Doris going to say something about Dad? Then she heard May’s voice, equally loud. ‘What are you talking about, Doris? If you keep spreading nonsense like that, I’m going to tell Mr Miller.’

  ‘Yeah, Doris,’ said Eric Weber. ‘We don’t want to know about your birds and fish. Save it for someone who wants to hear it.’

  Ruby’s panic died away, and she felt instead a warm little glow of happiness. ‘You see?’ she whispered to Cynthia. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  The first lesson for Grade Seven was arith­metic – long division. Ruby raced through her sums so she could line up to have her work marked by Mr Miller. The fireplace was close to the teacher’s desk, and she edged closer and closer to it until the warmth of the fire soaked into her bones. Cynthia, who was standing next to her, put her open exercise book down on the hearth and held both reddened hands out to the flames. ‘Gee, that feels good,’ she said. ‘It makes my chilblains itch, but.’

  ‘I wish you had some shoes,’ Ruby said, looking at Cynthia’s bare and very dirty feet. ‘I’d give you a pair of mine, except my feet are smaller than yours.’

  ‘My mum reckons I’ve got feet as big as butter-boxes,’ said Cynthia. She sniffed, and wiped her nose on her coat sleeve. ‘It’s all right. I don’t mind not having no shoes. I’m used to it.’ She turned up one foot to show Ruby her leathery blackened sole. ‘See? Tough as nails.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have to be used to it. It’s so cold today I’m wearing two pairs of socks.’

  Cynthia laughed, as usual covering her mouth with her hand to hide her decayed teeth. ‘We don’t have no socks neither. Except for Dad, he has some. Army surplus.’

  There was a ripping sound, and Doris, who was behind Cynthia, held up a torn page covered in sums. ‘I’m so sorry, Cynthia,’ she said. ‘A spark fell on your exercise book and when I picked it up to save it this page came out.’ She crumpled it up, and before Cynthia or Ruby could stop her, she threw it into the fire. ‘Never mind. The sums were probably wrong anyway.’

  ‘Next!’ called Mr Miller. ‘Ruby? Cynthia? Hurry up.’

  ‘Please, sir,’ said Cynthia, moving forward. ‘I did the sums, honest, but the page got . . . lost in the fire.’

  ‘Lost? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Oh, sir, it was my fault,’ Doris said. ‘Cynthia’s exercise book caught alight from a spark, so I had to tear a page out. I�
�m sorry, sir.’

  ‘That’s all right, Doris. Thank you for being helpful.’

  ‘Sir, it wasn’t like that at all,’ Ruby said, glaring at Doris. ‘There wasn’t any spark. Doris pulled out the page, but –’

  ‘Doris has told me what happened,’ said Mr Miller, looking very irritated. ‘I will not listen to tell-tales, Ruby. Now, if you’ve sums to be marked, please show them to me. Cynthia, you’ll have to do your work again, at recess.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you,’ Ruby said, when she and Cynthia were back at their desk. ‘Ooh, that Doris! She makes me so furious! One day I’ll . . . I’ll . . .’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Cynthia. ‘There’ll always be people like her, and people like us. It’s how things are.’

  People like us, Ruby thought. She means people that other people don’t want anything to do with. She means me, too. All of a sudden the unfairness of it all made her really angry.

  ‘That doesn’t mean it’s right, though, does it?’ she said.

  ‘I s’pose not,’ Cynthia said. But Ruby could tell she wasn’t convinced.

  ‘ANOTHER of our chooks has disappeared,’ Uncle James said at breakfast on Friday. ‘I’d say that’s at least half a dozen gone now.’ He frowned at Ruby. ‘Have you been keeping an eye on that dog of yours?’

  ‘Yes, Uncle James.’ Oh no, Ruby thought. Not this again! Why does Uncle James always think it’s poor Baxter who’s killing our chooks?

  ‘It must be a fox, Dad,’ Walter said, pouring milk on his porridge. ‘If it was Baxter, there’d be some sort of evidence. You know – blood on his face, dirt on his paws. And how would he get in? We fixed the last hole in the fence.’

  ‘You’ve got no idea, have you, boy?’ said Uncle James. His face began to twitch. ‘What were fox terriers bred for? Hunting. It’s their instinct to kill. Why should that dog be any different?’

  ‘Because he has a nice nature,’ Ruby said. ‘And because I do keep an eye on him. And because he’s chained up at night.’

  ‘Well, last night he wasn’t,’ Uncle James said grimly. ‘This morning I saw that he’d slipped his collar. And it’s not the first time.’

  ‘I always put it on really tightly,’ Ruby protested. ‘If I put it on any tighter, he’ll choke to death.’

  ‘As I said,’ Uncle James went on. ‘The dog was free, possibly all night. When we find out how he’s getting in, we have our culprit. And then –’ He made a gun with his fingers. ‘Pow!’

  Ruby looked at him in horror. ‘No!’

  ‘Prove to me otherwise, then. I’m sick and tired of that blasted animal. It’s nothing but trouble. Has been since day one.’

  ‘That’s not quite fair, James,’ said Aunt Vera. ‘He’s a very good little dog really, and he’s settled down nicely with Shep and Sparkie.’

  ‘Excuse me, Uncle James, but you just want it to be Baxter because you don’t like him,’ Ruby said. ‘It was you who said he had to be chained up outside at night, remember? If I was allowed to keep him inside, I’d know where he was the whole time, wouldn’t I?’

  Uncle James stared at her, his face twitching even more. ‘In this house,’ he said, ‘children do not answer back. I will not tolerate rudeness. Please leave the table.’

  ‘Dad, I’m sure Ruby didn’t mean to be rude,’ May said.

  ‘Baxter’s not a thief, Dad,’ Bee said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘He just plays with the chooks.’

  ‘Enough,’ said Uncle James. ‘Be quiet, both of you.’

  Ruby stood up, pushed her chair back, and went out into the hallway, fuming. Uncle James was so unfair!

  ‘Ruby’s quite right,’ she heard Aunt Vera say. ‘You’ve been against Baxter from the moment you saw him, and you just want an excuse to be rid of him.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ replied Uncle James. ‘A dog that doesn’t work is a useless dog, and I’ve given this one several chances. He’s run out of luck.’

  ‘Winifred might have something to say about that,’ Aunt Vera said. ‘Like Ruby, she’s very attached to Baxter. He’s a link with Harry. With happier times.’

  ‘Winifred?’ said Uncle James. ‘It may have escaped your attention, Vera, but your sister has very little to say about anything these days. And why isn’t she here? Why isn’t she having breakfast with us? She mopes around like some kind of ghost. She never speaks, she never eats –’

  ‘Hush, James,’ Aunt Vera said. ‘Not in front of the children, please.’

  ‘Why not in front of the children? We all know what’s going on with Winifred. The wretched business with Harry is affecting all of us, one way or another. Things are falling apart.’

  ‘If things are falling apart, we must do our best to put them back together again.’ Aunt Flora was speaking now. ‘We cannot magically remove the cause of Winifred’s sadness. But either Baxter is killing our fowls, or he is not.’

  Ruby tiptoed away down the hallway. Everything is so awful I can’t bear it, she thought. There must be something I can do – but what?

  ‘This is the craziest plan I ever heard of,’ May said. ‘Who’s to say the fox that’s taking the chooks will turn up tonight?’

  ‘It might,’ Ruby said. ‘And if it does, I want to see where it gets in. We have to prove to Uncle James that Baxter isn’t the thief.’

  It was past midnight, and she and May were in the chook yard, sitting together in the roosting shelter. They’d piled up straw to make a sort of bed and wrapped themselves in a smelly old blanket. The chooks had stopped their anxious squawking and had settled down to sleep on their perches.

  May leaned back into the straw and yawned. ‘Are you quite sure you want to do this?’

  ‘I’m sure. But you don’t have to stay out here with me. I’ll be all right.’

  ‘As if I’d leave a townie like you out here on your own! Anything could happen.’

  The straw was surprisingly comfortable. Ruby yawned, too, and snuggled down . . .

  The sound of the rooster crowing was so loud that she jumped. Oh my hat, she thought, dazed. It’s so close, it sounds as if it’s standing on our bedroom windowsill. Then she remembered where she was. All around her hens were making their early morning noises, scratching in the earth, fluffing their feathers in the chilly morning sunlight.

  May was snoring faintly, her mouth open, her curly hair full of straw. Ruby elbowed her in the ribs.

  ‘Wake up, May. It’s morning already.’

  ‘What? Who? Oh no – did the fox come?’

  ‘If it did,’ Ruby said, ‘we missed it.’

  ‘Drat,’ said May. ‘That means we’ll have to do this all over again tonight, doesn’t it?’

  But that night Ruby tiptoed out of the house alone.

  It had been a busy day. In the morning Ruby had gone into town with Uncle James and Walter to pick up her photographic prints. At last! She’d left the film to be developed weeks ago. She had just enough money to pay for the prints, with threepence left over. Once again there was nothing in the mail from Dad, but to her surprise there was a letter for Walter. He didn’t say anything about it, just stuffed it into his pocket.

  For the rest of the day she and May had worked hard, helping Aunt Vera to clean out the pantry, and after supper May had gone to bed early. She’d fallen asleep straightaway, and Ruby hadn’t had the heart to wake her.

  After checking that Baxter was still safely in his kennel, she went to the chook yard. She sat down in the shelter, pulled the blanket around her shoulders, and waited.

  It was lonely without May, and much spookier. The pine trees at the end of the yard looked black and witchy. An owl hooted. Another answered.

  Maybe Dad is sleeping outside tonight, too, Ruby thought. He could be on the road. Perhaps he’s out in the country somewhere, and he’s trying to sleep and he can’t because he’s cold and hungry. Perhaps he’s thinking of me and Mother. Oh, Dad.

  A lump came into her throat. Trying to ignore it, she stared into the darkness.
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  What seemed like hours later, she felt rather than heard the fox. It moved silently outside the chook-yard fence, a shadow in the moonlight.

  Ruby held her breath.

  There it was, no more than two yards away from her. The chook thief.

  The fox raised its nose and sniffed the air. Now she could see its neat triangular face and its big pointed ears. It looked just like the fox head on Mother’s fur stole. Its eyes shone bright gold in the darkness.

  I’ll sit very still, Ruby thought, and as soon as it gets into the yard, I’ll chase it away. She gulped. Would the fox attack her? It wasn’t very big, but it was a wild animal, after all.

  To her disappointment and relief, the fox didn’t come any closer. It moved away noiselessly, its brush dragging on the ground.

  Perhaps it smelled me, Ruby thought, and that frightened it away. But I still have to find out how it gets through the fence. I’d better stay, in case it comes back. This time I won’t go to sleep.

  But she did.

  She was awoken by a creaking sound, and instantly her heart began to thump. Somebody was opening the gate to the yard. Quiet footsteps approached. Some of the hens began to cluck nervously.

  It was almost dawn now, and the light was greyish, but Ruby could see quite well. She stood up and moved to the front of the shelter.

  The man – now she could see it was a man – came closer. It wasn’t Uncle James and it wasn’t Walter. He was carrying a sack, and he was creeping up towards the rooster, which was drinking from a water bowl. By now Ruby’s heart was beating so fast that she was trembling. Oh my hat, she thought. Who is it? What can I do? What if he gets angry, and hurts me?

  And then –

  ‘Mr West!’ said May’s voice.

  The man jumped and looked up, and now Ruby could see his face beneath his pulled-down hat. ‘Blimey, you scared me,’ he said.

  May pushed her way through the flock of squawking hens. ‘You were stealing our rooster, weren’t you?’ she said sternly.