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Brighten’s sister-in-law dragged a tub out from under the table, wrenched the bucket off the hook, and dumped in the water, dish-cloths and all, snatched a can of cold water from a corner, dashed that in, and felt the water with her hand–holding Jim up to her hip all the time–and I won’t say how he looked. She stood him in the tub and started dashing water over him, tearing off his clothes between the splashes.

‘Here, that tin of mustard–there on the shelf!’ she shouted to me.

She knocked the lid off the tin on the edge of the tub, and went on splashing and spanking Jim.

It seemed an eternity. And I? Why, I never thought clearer in my life. I felt cold-blooded–I felt as if I’d like an excuse to go outside till it was all over. I thought of Mary and the funeral–and wished that that was past. All this in a flash, as it were. I felt that it would be a great relief, and only wished the funeral was months past. I felt–well, altogether selfish. I only thought for myself.

Brighten’s sister-in-law splashed and spanked him hard–hard enough to break his back I thought, and–after about half an hour it seemed–the end came: Jim’s limbs relaxed, he slipped down into the tub, and the pupils of his eyes came down. They seemed dull and expressionless, like the eyes of a new baby, but he was back for the world again.

I dropped on the stool by the table.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s all over now. I wasn’t going to let him die.’ I was only thinking, ‘Well it’s over now, but it will come on again. I wish it was over for good. I’m tired of it.’

She called to her sister, Mrs Brighten, a washed-out, helpless little fool of a woman, who’d been running in and out and whimpering all the time–

‘Here, Jessie! bring the new white blanket off my bed. And you, Brighten, take some of that wood off the fire, and stuff something in that hole there to stop the draught.’

Brighten–he was a nuggety little hairy man with no expression to be seen for whiskers–had been running in with sticks and back logs from the wood-heap. He took the wood out, stuffed up the crack, and went inside and brought out a black bottle–got a cup from the shelf, and put both down near my elbow.

Mrs Brighten started to get some supper or breakfast, or whatever it was, ready. She had a clean cloth, and set the table tidily. I noticed that all the tins were polished bright (old coffee- and mustard-tins and the like, that they used instead of sugar-basins and tea-caddies and salt-cellars), and the kitchen was kept as clean as possible. She was all right at little things. I knew a haggard, worked-out Bushwoman who put her whole soul–or all she’d got left–into polishing old tins till they dazzled your eyes.

I didn’t feel inclined for corned beef and damper, and post-and-rail tea. So I sat and squinted, when I thought she wasn’t looking, at Brighten’s sister-in-law. She was a big woman, her hands and feet were big, but well-shaped and all in proportion–they fitted her. She was a handsome woman–about forty I should think. She had a square chin, and a straight thin-lipped mouth–straight save for a hint of a turn down at the corners, which I fancied (and I have strange fancies) had been a sign of weakness in the days before she grew hard. There was no sign of weakness now. She had hard grey eyes and blue-black hair. She hadn’t spoken yet. She didn’t ask me how the boy took ill or I got there, or who or what I was–at least not until the next evening at tea-time.

She sat upright with Jim wrapped in the blanket and laid across her knees, with one hand under his neck and the other laid lightly on him, and she just rocked him gently.