2011 - Theses - Flinders University

‘This would provide work for several men, but we cannot expect them to labour fornothing, or just bare tucker. We want to do the fair thing.’ 154In the meantime, he helps families build new homes for themselves from the materials tohand: mud, stone, native pines. 155 The roofs are still of kerosene tins and brush, sincegalvanised iron is too expensive, and all used up on Mr Wyld’s building plans, butNepabunna is becoming a cluster of cottages closer to the mission houses, instead ofdilapidated wurlies on the side of the hill. Except for Mrs Forbes, of course. She has her ownreasons for staying on in her tin-clad humpy by the creek.Jim greets the mailman and makes a show of handing over the letter he has written. Inreturn he is given a slim package marked with the overseas postmark, and he bites hisfingernails even while his heart gives a small flutter as he reads the sender’s name. She seemsto be missing his little ‘deputation car’ nearly as much as he is, and each letter wonders whenhe might be returning to his Federal Deputationist work.Nepabunna April 1934Jim has found another argument for retaining the brush fence that so infuriates Mr Wyld. Hehas worked busily to make a little garden behind its protective walls, carting soil from thehills to build up beds on the rocky ground. They are all carting water now, having despairedof summer rains and preparing to face the dry frosts of winter. But what the freak hailstormdid not destroy, the grasshoppers did, and even the roots of the poor seedlings have beeneaten out by ants. 156 Another project tried and failed, he thinks, and does not even pause toworry at it. Leave that to Mr Wyld, he thinks. He’ll learn.99