Chapter VIII: Getting on Terms

REX FORESTER arrived three days after Christmas. The twins drove in to meet him, well charged with pity. A little boy of nine, whose family has just sailed in a body for Colombo, may be expected to be an object for anyone’s compassion, and Jean and Jo fully expected a tear-stained and disconsolate individual.

Instead, there stepped from the train a perfectly self-possessed young gentleman. Nothing was awry about him, and no tear seemed likely to find a lodging on his cheek. His light suit was unspotted by a journey that reduced most small boys to monuments of grime; his sailor hat sat jauntily upon his well-brushed head. He wore spectacles, which gave him a curious air of dignity. Very fair was he, with large blue eyes and a skin of milk and roses. Nature seemed to have destined him to sing in a choir; and as there was no such opening for him at Emu Plains, the twins may be excused for wondering what on earth they were going to do with him. They also wondered what Billy would think of him.

They had shopping to do in the township, so Jo drove into the little main street and held the horses while Jean transacted the commissions. Rex declined to get down, saying he would rather stay in the buggy—a mode of conveyance which interested him a good deal, since he had had no experiences save of motors. He had expected a motor, and had been frankly amazed at the high, light buggy into which he was expected to climb.

“I didn’t know anyone used these things,” he said. “Not—well, not our sort of people, you know.”

“Oh, you’ll find quite a lot here and there,” Jo told him. “Some even prefer them. No nasty smell of petrol, like motors have.”

“Oh, not decent cars,” Rex answered, in a pained way. “I suppose some smell of petrol, though I really don’t know. But not good cars.”

“And is yours a good car?”

“Ours? Oh, we’ve got three. Yes, they’re all good. I can drive a bit. Is it hard to drive horses?”

“Not when you’re used to it,” said Jo. “Or to ride them, either. Can you ride, by the way?”

“No, I never tried riding. We’ve been in town since I was a little kiddie. Helen said she supposed I’d learn at Emu Plains.”

“Oh, of course you’ll have to—we all learned to ride about the time we learned to walk,” Jo told him. “It’s half the fun of the bush.”

“Is there much fun in the bush?” asked the small boy doubtfully.

“Depends on what you call fun,” Jo answered briskly. “Of course, if you’re mad keen on picture-shows and theatres and going down to St. Kilda, you may find it a bit slow. We have riding and driving, and we go for picnics, and there’s ripping bathing in the river, and there always seems something to do about the place. Billy—that’s my young brother—is awfully glad you’re coming. He has never had a mate of his own size.”

“How old is he?” asked Rex, forbearing to make any comment on the list of country attractions.

“Eight, but he’s as big as you, I think. He’s hoping very much that he is, anyway. He rides pretty well, and he can swim fairly. Dad thinks it would be a good plan to teach you both to box.”

“I’d like that,” Rex said eagerly. “My father was going to have me taught, but I got sick after I’d only had one lesson. I don’t have to wear my specs. to box, and that’s a pull. Specs. are an awful nuisance.”

“Jolly hard on you to have to wear them,” said Jo sympathetically. “But perhaps you won’t have to always.”

“I hope to goodness I shan’t,” said the small boy. “A fellow does look such an ass in them. And other chaps rag you about them.” He set his teeth and looked ferocious. “That’s one of the reasons why I want to learn to box!”

“So that you can take it out of them—good idea!” agreed Jo. “Here’s Jean, all bundles. Got everything, Jean?”

“I sincerely hope so,” said her twin, who looked hot. “The shop’s crowded, and the smell of half-dead Christmas decorations is awful.” She glanced down her list. “Yes, that’s all, except the mail. Drive up, and I’ll meet you at the post-office.”

“Can’t we go somewhere and have an ice, or a drink?” suggested Rex, as they drove up the little street. “I’m awfully hot. Is there any place?”

Jo hesitated. In the old days when money had not seemed to matter, she and Jean had never failed to sample the ice-creams and other delights of hot weather supplied by the little fruit-shop. But the twins had talked this matter over, and had agreed that such luxuries must now be cut out of their programme. It was somewhat disconcerting to find that their pupil looked on them as one of the ordinary aids to existence. She temporized.

“Well—it won’t be long before we get home,” she said. “Can’t you wait?”

“Oh do let’s come—it won’t take two minutes,” Rex begged. “Look, there’s quite a jolly place over there and it’s got an ‘Ice-Cream’ sign hanging out.”

Jo yielded, with a sigh. They had agreed not to take any more pocket-money from their father, and Christmas had made a very considerable hole in their slender funds. Still, there seemed no way out. She beckoned to Jean as her twin came out of the post-office.

“Jean—take Rex across to Fielding’s, and have an ice with him.”

Jean’s heated countenance expressed reproach, mingled with surprise. She had not time to reply, however, before Rex broke in.

“Oh, but you’ve got to come too,” he said.

“No! thanks—don’t want any,” Jo returned.

“Oh! that’s rubbish—you’ve got to come. Can’t you get anyone to hold the horses?”

“Well, I won’t, if you don’t, Jo,” said Jean firmly. To depart from a rule so recently formed was bad enough, but it was ten times worse to be expected to do it without one’s faithless twin. Mingled with her feelings was a guilty consciousness that she wanted that ice very badly indeed. “Jimmy Fielding will hold the horses. Come on.”

“Oh, all right,” Jo said, capitulating. “After all,” she added to herself, “it’s only threepence a head.”

But it turned out to be rather more than that. After the ices, Rex ordered raspberry vinegar before the twins could interfere; and then it occurred to him that peaches would enliven the journey home, and he secured a bag full of rosy-cheeked freestones. He picked them up and stood aside, cheerfully unconcerned, while Jo paid the bill. Rex had plenty of money in his pockets, but it did not occur to him that others might not be as well off. Older people always paid for him when they shopped together—why not the twins?

The superhuman politeness of their pupil continued during the drive home, scarcely modified even by the consumption of peaches that freely dripped with juice. He asked a great many questions, but did not appear at all interested in any answers. One gathered the impression that he considered it bad manners to sit in silence, and that questions were the easiest way out. The twins, however, were somewhat paralyzed by the rapid-fire nature of his conversation, and found their own supply of small-talk quite unequal to his. It was something of a relief to them when they reached the homestead, and saw their young charge taken over by Billy.

“Wonder what Billy’s thinking?” Jo laughed, as she perched on the end of the table where their mother was sewing.

“What do _you_ think?” was Mrs. Weston’s rejoinder.

“He’s quite amazing,” Jo answered. “Isn’t he, Jean? Frightfully grown-up, and I should think he’s had rather too much of his own way all his life.”

“His manners are lovely,” Jean said. “You should have seen him eating peaches, Mother—they were the really-drippy sort that ordinary people like Jo and me can only eat with comfort in a bath, or in the middle of a fifty-acre paddock; but he managed it without turning a hair, and I don’t think there’s one spot on his coat!”

“Remarkably prehensile action with his tongue,” grinned Jo. “I’m going to practise it—in private. The weird part was that it hardly interfered with his remarks at all!”

“It would take years of practice before _I_ could eat a peach and talk at the same time—except to you,” said Jean. “It’s one of those occasions when the strain of society is a bit too much. But Rex isn’t like any small boy I ever met.”

“I’m rather leaning back against the fact that he’s Helen’s brother,” Jo remarked. “Anyone belonging to Helen _must_ be all right. And of course he’s had lots of drawbacks.”

“He does not seem quite a natural small boy,” said Mrs. Weston. “But Billy will make him natural, if it’s humanly possible. So don’t worry, girls.”

Meanwhile, Billy and Rex, having looked each other over after the fashion of young puppies who meet for the first time, had strolled together into the orchard. They kept some distance apart, and exchanged sidelong glances, looking very much as if they wished to growl. Conversation flagged. Billy paused presently under a laden apricot tree.

“Have one?” he asked, jerking his head upwards.

“Yes, thanks,” Rex answered. They browsed awhile in silence.

“Not many good ones left near the ground,” remarked Billy. “Come on up the tree.”

Rex hesitated.

“Don’t think I care about climbing trees.”

“Not like climbing trees!” uttered Billy. “Whyever not?”

“Oh—I’m not keen on it.”

“But—_fruit_ trees!” Billy’s eyes were round. “How on earth are you going to get fruit if you never climb?”

“Well—I can buy it.”

“You can’t buy it more’n once a week, if you’re livin’ with us,” affirmed Billy. “An’ fruit in shops isn’t half as good as fruit picked off trees. Besides, every one climbs.”

“Well, I don’t, so that’s flat.”

Billy surveyed him with amazement. Courtesy to guests had been preached to him, but this was a serious matter. There surged over his mind the utter impossibility of living with a boy who refused to climb.

“I believe you’re afraid!” he burst out.

Rex went scarlet.

“’Fraid, yourself. Don’t you dare say I’m afraid.”

“Well, if you aren’t afraid, come on after me.”

Billy swung his lithe young body into the lower branches of the tree, and went up, hand over hand, until he reached a favourite nook near the top. He hooked his leg over a branch and looked down, tauntingly.

“There!—why, it’s as easy as easy. Even old Sarah can climb an apricot tree—any muff can! And you’re afraid!”

“I’m not afraid,” retorted Rex furiously.

He gave an awkward little run at the tree and succeeded, with a scramble, in gaining the lower branches. It was very plain that he was unused to climbing. He clung rather desperately to the trunk and turned an angry face upward to Billy, who unfeelingly roared with laughter.

“That’s right—hang on like fury, or you’ll tumble out again! Come on up here and have an apricot—all the ripe ones are high up.”

Rex set his teeth and tried to copy his tormentor’s easy upward swing. It looked the simplest thing, but, somehow, it was harder than it looked. He missed his grasp at a branch, slipped, and fell with a resounding bump. The ground was hard beneath the tree, and, though he fell only a few feet, Rex felt considerably shaken and damaged. He jumped up—rather to the relief of Billy, who promptly laughed anew.

“Well, you _are_ a muff! Fancy falling out of a tree like that. Did you ever try to climb before?”

“No, I never!” rejoined Rex, red with rage. “It’s all very well for you to laugh, when you’ve been climbing trees all your life. Anyhow, I wouldn’t have silly ginger curls like yours for something. Does your mother put them in curl-papers every night?”

The bitterness of this insult sent the blood to Billy’s face.

“No, she doesn’t—an’ I’ll fight you if you say that again!”

Every vestige of his society manner had departed from Rex. He danced about on the grass, chanting derisively.

“Yah, Curly! Who’s got ginger curls? Silly old Curly—won’t the boys laugh at him when he goes to school!”

“Not as much as they’ll laugh at you if you try to climb!” retorted Billy, at the top of his voice. But Rex apparently did not hear. He danced and yelled with unabated vigour.

“Curly, Curly Weston! Curly, Curly Weston! Who goes to bed in curl-papers every night?”

“I’ll teach you!” said Billy fiercely. He came down the tree like an avalanche, dropping from bough to bough until he landed on the grass. His fists were clenched at his sides. It would have been difficult to say which face was the redder.

“Will you fight?”

“I don’t fight girls with silly curls,” said Rex—and realizing that he had made an unexpected burst of poetry, was correspondingly uplifted, and chanted wildly, “I—don’t—fight—girls— With—sil-ly—curls” again and again, ducking to avoid a sudden blow from Billy. Then another, better aimed, caught him on the shoulder, and from that instant neither manners nor melody remained to Master Rex Forester. He became primitive boy. Hammer and tongs they fought each other under the tree—slipping on squashed apricots, stumbling and recovering, exchanging thudding blows with their hard young fists.

From the shelter of an apple-tree by the gate Mr. Weston, who had come to make his guest’s acquaintance, watched them, a twinkle in his eye.

“I suppose I ought to interfere,” he murmured, smiling under his moustache. “But—I don’t know. There certainly doesn’t seem much of the city polish left about that youngster: and a little blood-letting is a pretty good way to friendship. I think I’ll let them be. Anyhow, Billy’s getting the worst of it, so my feelings as a host won’t be too badly hurt.” He drew back into the shelter of the tree, watching.

Billy was certainly getting the worst of it. He was slightly smaller than Rex, and had very little idea of fighting; while the solitary boxing-lesson of which Rex had spoken had not failed to leave some impression on that hero. There was a trace of science in his hitting: a faint trace, it is true, but it was more than enough for Billy. Billy’s muscles were hard, and his blows were of the sledge-hammer type—the drawback being that they so seldom got home. He was almost on the point of admitting that he had had enough when a swing from Rex’s left arm landed on the point of his nose. Blood followed, in quantities sufficiently terrifying to an eight-year-old. It was not altogether surprising if a few tears came too.

Billy was desperately ashamed of crying. He leaned against a tree, endeavouring to staunch the bleeding—thankful that, for once in a way, he had a handkerchief, and trusting that his suppressed sobs would be unnoticed by his conqueror. He knew he was beaten: it would be only a moment, he supposed, before the insulting chant about his curls would begin again.

It did not come, however. Gradually the bleeding slackened, and he became sufficiently master of himself to face the world again. He turned from his friendly tree, his face doggedly ashamed, ready to meet whatever insults his victor might devise.

There were none, it seemed, that he was to be called upon to meet. Rex lay full-length in the grass, his face buried in his arms. His shoulders were shaking: there was obvious evidence that Billy was not the only one to cry. And suddenly it came to little Billy Weston that this conqueror, with his smooth hair and his grown-up manner, was only a lonely little boy whose mother was very far away.

He paused a moment, awkwardly. Then he went over and knelt beside him, putting a nervous hand on his shoulder.

“I say. Rex, I’m awful sorry. I was a pig.”

“Well, so was I,” came in muffled tones.

“No, but you’re a visitor. Anyhow, you licked me. M-made me blub, too.”

The last was an heroic effort, and it brought Rex round to a sitting position.

“Did I?” he uttered. His own face was tear-stained, and a fine bruise was rapidly developing near his eye. “Well, I blubbed, too. I—I guess it’s a bit queer, being away from every one you know.”

“Well, we’re no better than each other,” said Billy quaintly. “Let’s be pals.”

They shook hands solemnly. Mr. Weston slipped away, chuckling as he went.

“I wouldn’t take any notice of anything peculiar in the boys’ appearance,” he told his wife and the twins. “They’ve been making friends, and it’s a process involving bruises. But it’s all right.” He told the story.

Billy guided Rex by devious paths to the bathroom presently, there to remove as much evidence of warfare as could be treated with soap and water. They appeared at tea with extremely red and shiny faces, coloured here and there with bruises, and, in Billy’s case, with a nose resembling a beetroot in shape and colour. No one took any apparent notice of these defects. The twins plied their pupil with food—for which he had little appetite—and Mrs. Weston asked him kindly if he had enjoyed his afternoon.

“I’ve had a very nice time, thank you, Mrs. Weston,” responded Rex politely. “We’ve been in the orchard.”

“Ah, it’s nice there,” said John Weston gravely. His eyes met his son’s for a moment, and Billy flushed at something he saw in them.

“Do I look rum?” he demanded of Rex when, released from society, they wandered out into the garden.

“Pretty, rum,” Rex said, regarding him critically. “Do I?”

“Yes, rather. I wonder would anyone guess we’d been fighting?”

“I shouldn’t wonder if they did. Would they be wild?”

“Well, they told me to behave nicely to you—especially at first.”

“They told me that, too, at home.”

They grinned at each other, comprehendingly.

“Oh, well,” said Billy. “Girls an’ grown-ups can’t possibly understand everything about boys!”

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