For the next two days I took water to Mr Hannan, emptied and cleaned out his chamber-pot and made him as comfortable as possible. There was very little change in him, although when he was awake he would say that he felt better.
Tobias’s Store did sell a remedy called Mrs Watson’s Stomach Powder, which claimed to cure all stomach disorders, when taken with water. Mrs Fagan said it was just cornflour in a fancy box, but I thought it was worth trying. And we had plenty of rice in the pantry. If I boiled some up to make it soft enough for Mr Hannan to eat and added the powder, perhaps he could keep a little of it down. I remembered Mother feeding us freshly grated apple when we were ill, but fresh fruit was extremely rare in Coolgardie.
By Wednesday morning I was convinced that there was an improvement. Mr Hannan’s breathing was steadier and the whites of his eyes were almost clear.
‘You are looking much better today,’ I told him, and hurried back to the kitchen to try out my rice idea.
Over the next ten days Mr Hannan’s health slowly improved. He told me that he had been prospecting further east and had found some ‘colour’, but his supplies had run low. On his way back into Coolgardie to pick up more stores, a hole had developed in his waterbag. In desperation he scooped up some muddy water from a clay pan and drank it.
When Paddy Hannan was strong enough to sit up, he talked to me about his travels. He was a very successful prospector and knew how to survive in dry country. He had been prospecting in remote areas of the Kimberley and all over Australia. He’d lived in some of the same places as us – Bathurst, Ballarat, Bendigo, Charters Towers. I told him that my father and brothers were still in Queensland and he knew of Cooper’s Mine, where they worked. I hadn’t heard from them in a long time, although Mother sometimes received letters from Pa. She knew how much I missed him and always passed on his love to me through Jack or Mr Snell. Her own writing was not as steady as it used to be, but Susan wrote to me most weeks. She said that Mother was well, but starting to show her age. I wrote back when I could, but after working all day I sometimes fell asleep with the pencil in my hand.
I could see Paddy Hannan getting stronger, day by day, which made me feel good about taking him in. I would be sad to see him go when the time came, but the prospect of having my room back was something I did look forward to. Bunking in with Florrie was fun, but there was not much space. I had never had a room of my own before and I did miss it.
Although Florrie was seven years older than me, she was easy to talk to and good company. She was still getting used to things like heat and dust and flies, but she was most unhappy when the camel trains didn’t arrive on time and we ran short of food. In spite of her dainty figure, Florrie was always hungry.
‘No bread again today?’ she said. I shook my head. Florrie lifted down the biscuit tin from the mantle shelf above the stove and prised the lid off. ‘And only three oat biscuits left!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Tobias might be able to find some more rolled oats in his storeroom somewhere,’ I said, not holding out much hope. The whole town had been waiting since the end of April for Abdul’s team of camels to arrive with the supplies. It was now three weeks overdue.
‘If he doesn’t come today, I’ll be forced to eat my boot leather,’ Florrie wailed.
‘We’ve tried to get a message to Mr Snell, but his coach is only set up for passengers. Even if he made a special trip out here, he couldn’t bring enough flour for the whole town.’
‘Tell him I’ll pay him double – triple, anything he asks,’ Florrie declared.
‘At least we have eggs,’ I tried to console her. ‘Although even the chooks’ oats are getting low. They may not keep laying if we use up all their food to make our biscuits.’
‘I’m glad I wasn’t here when the first rush was on,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine how anyone survived.’
‘It wasn’t easy,’ I told her. ‘People shared what they had.’
‘What about the greedy ones?’
‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘I can’t remember them.’
While I was bunking in with Florrie, she took to joining me on my morning walks. In spite of her occasional grumpiness she was interested in everything. Like me, she loved the cool early mornings.
‘I wish I was a painter,’ she said one day as we watched the sun come up over the corrugated sand plain. ‘The colours out here at this time of day are unbelievably beautiful.’
We sat for a while, watching the changing patterns of light and shadow, relaxing in the cool air and comfortable silence. Then we headed back to town to face the busy day ahead.