The chickens,
which had always gone into the bush and hidden their eggs, were given
laying-bins, and Joan went out herself to shoot wild duck and wild
pigeons for the table.
"Not that I like to do this sort of work," she explained, in reference to
the cookery; "but because I can't get away from Dad's training."
Among other things, she burned the pestilential hospital, quarrelled with
Sheldon over the dead, and, in anger, set her own men to work building a
new, and what she called a decent, hospital. She robbed the windows of
their lawn and muslin curtains, replacing them with gaudy calico from the
trade-store, and made herself several gowns. When she wrote out a list
of goods and clothing for herself, to be sent down to Sydney by the first
steamer, Sheldon wondered how long she had made up her mind to stay.
She was certainly unlike any woman he had ever known or dreamed of. So
far as he was concerned she was not a woman at all. She neither
languished nor blandished. No feminine lures were wasted on him. He
might have been her brother, or she his brother, for all sex had to do
with the strange situation. Any mere polite gallantry on his part was
ignored or snubbed, and he had very early given up offering his hand to
her in getting into a boat or climbing over a log, and he had to
acknowledge to himself that she was eminently fitted to take care of
herself.
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