Of course it isn’t the salted pork again! You would think that I would know how to tell him this time. He is good to me, stop wishing for what you can never have, Betsey. You know he can never make you a Mrs!
“Betsey, where are you? Issy has just woken and she is fit to eat the porridge raw if we…”
“Aargh.” The guttural sounds of retching gave her away once again.
Turning the corner with Isabella in his arms he raised an eyebrow with a quirky grin.
“So does this mean what I think it means?”
“If you mean are we having another babe, yes I am afraid so Thomas.”
“And what makes you think it will be a him?”
“Let’s get inside and get you two some porridge, I think I have stopped this infernal retching now.”
During the next couple of months Thomas attacked the building of the new house with renewed energy. When he wasn’t at the barracks he was at his property. He wanted them in it before the new babe arrived. She deserves a home of her own and besides I can’t see us fitting in this little place for much longer now that there is a new babe coming!
“I’m not afraid of another wee babe, if it is anything like this sweet one. When do you think we might expect it?”
“Well by my reckoning I would say it might be here in time for Christmas.”
“Well by my reckoning I would say it might be here in time for Christmas.”
“A Christmas present hey. So we have double to celebrate then. I am pleased to be able to tell you that yesterday I was granted another leasehold of 70 acres. We should have enough room for him.”
“And what makes you think it will be a him?”
“I have no idea, but I reckon that there is a 50/50 chance.”
“Let’s get inside and get you two some porridge, I think I have stopped this infernal retching now.”
During the next couple of months Thomas attacked the building of the new house with renewed energy. When he wasn’t at the barracks he was at his property. He wanted them in it before the new babe arrived. She deserves a home of her own and besides I can’t see us fitting in this little place for much longer now that there is a new babe coming!
With the approach of summer, the days were getting much hotter, with little promise of rain.
Elizabeth was lethargic with little to do. Thomas keeps telling me that there isn’t any point in sewing vegetables as we will soon be in the new place. I wish he would let me go and plant there. If we don’t have things in the ground soon, we won’t have anything to harvest.
“Where are we going, Thomas, I don’t like leaving Issy for long. And besides that, I am tired, it is so hot. Can’t we just go back to the hut?”
“No, Beysey, I want to show you something. It is only a little way now, you can rest when we get there.”
That is if I don’t drop this babe here in the dust and heat! What could be so important that he insisted that we go for a walk, this far away?
She soon noticed that the shrub was thinning out and they were approaching a clearing with a couple of buildings on the rise above where they were walking.
Catching her breath she turned to Thomas with a questioning look.
“Yes Elizabeth, welcome to our new home, I think I will call it Kingston.[1] What say you?”
As she stood there with tears glistening in her eyes, her only thought was maybe me luck has changed.
________
1 Ancestry.com. New South Wales, Australia, Registers of Land Grants and Leases, 1792-1867 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
1 Ancestry.com. New South Wales, Australia, Registers of Land Grants and Leases, 1792-1867 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
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