Summer at Mount Hope by Rosalie Ham Page A

pressed against Henrietta and they stood back to back with their arms linked.
    â€˜They’re turning the electric streetlights on in Geelong,’ said Henrietta, her voice cracking.
    â€˜Doing the lamplighter out of a job!’ screeched a thin, pregnant woman.
    The crowd pressed in and Phoeba smelled rotted teeth and the rank saltiness of unwashed females.
    The dull-eyed lad stepped closer, eyeballing Phoeba. He swung his clenched fists and Phoeba felt her guts sink. Then a woman shoved him aside and raised a warning finger. ‘We know about the reaper coming to do us out of a job.’ She pointed at her pregnant stomach, ‘The bundles on us gleaners’ backs is getting smaller.’
    â€˜It’s the dry weather,’ said Phoeba, gently.
    â€˜It’s the machines!’ the woman screamed, her teeth hanging like loose buttons. She drew her fist back as if to punch but Henrietta wrenched free of Phoeba and twirled, dancing on her toes, her fists winding and her chin tucked in. The men guffawed and hissed.
    â€˜Henri, no!’ cried Phoeba.
    Suddenly a familiar voice came out of the darkness, ‘Girls don’t know how to buy machines!’ It was Freckle, looking down at them from a boulder. He’d been checking his traps and some fat, furry rabbits dangled lifelessly from each hand.
    â€˜And you’ll all get work picking our grapes,’ called Phoeba, pulling Henrietta back by her skirt.
    â€˜Grapes is no good to us,’ said the woman, and the crowd pressed in again.
    â€˜There’s already dozens of swaggies camped at the Overton creek waiting to shear and to harvest,’ said Freckle, jumping from the boulder to stand between the girls and their assailants. ‘The grapes are your only hope. Isn’t that right, Miss Crupp?’
    â€˜And it’s better work,’ said Phoeba, ‘no snakes and no machines.’
    â€˜Electricity will come out here one day,’ said Henrietta. ‘Everyone will have it in their houses and every swaggie will be employed to build the poles to carry the wires and they even say every house will have a telephone.’
    â€˜She’s right,’ said Phoeba. ‘You’ll get work building the lines.’
    The ring-leader held up his hand and the group steadied.
    â€˜Where’s these lights?’ he demanded.
    Phoeba pointed south. ‘That way.’
    â€˜We don’t like machines,’ said the ring-leader holding his finger under Phoeba’s chin. She stared straight back into his eyes. There were small balls of green in the corners and his lashes were sparse. He was the unhealthiest man she’d ever seen and she could only wonder what parasites his intestines harboured.
    â€˜We don’t like machines either, that’s why we haven’t bought any,’ she said, reasonably.
    â€˜You’re camped on their land,’ said Freckle.
    The ring-leader swung on him. ‘Putting a fence up doesn’t make it theirs.’
    â€˜You’ll have to scamper if you hurt them,’ said Freckle.
    â€˜You don’t hurt us and we won’t hurt you,’ said Phoeba.
    â€˜Gawn git,’ said the ring-leader, and the girls hurried away, hand in hand, stumbling down the slope into the fading dusk. At the spring they sat down, breathed steadily until their hearts stopped thumping.
    â€˜I was afraid, Phoeba.’
    â€˜So was I.’
    â€˜You’re not a squib though, are you?’
    â€˜We were both very brave,’ said Phoeba.
    â€˜I don’t know why people can’t clean their teeth,’ said Henrietta, and shuddered.
    â€˜They won’t hurt us. They’re desperate, that’s all.’
    They studied the darkening brown and blue patchwork landscape but there was no shine from electric light. Henrietta snapped a twig in half, shoved it in and out between the gap in her front teeth. After a moment she said, ‘Speaking of