



Produced by Col Choat.  HTML version by Al Haines.









DOT AND THE KANGAROO


by

Ethel C. Pedley




  To the
  children of Australia
  in the hope of enlisting their sympathies
  for the many
  beautiful, amiable, and frolicsome creatures
  of their fair land,
  whose extinction, through ruthless destruction,
  is being surely accomplished




CHAPTER I.


Little Dot had lost her way in the bush.  She knew it, and was very
frightened.  She was too frightened in fact to cry, but stood in the
middle of a little dry, bare space, looking around her at the scraggy
growths of prickly shrubs that had torn her little dress to rags,
scratched her bare legs and feet till they bled, and pricked her hands
and arms as she had pushed madly through the bushes, for hours, seeking
her home.  Sometimes she looked up to the sky.  But little of it could
be seen because of the great tall trees that seemed to her to be trying
to reach heaven with their far-off crooked branches.  She could see
little patches of blue sky between the tangled tufts of her way in the
and was very drooping leaves, and, as the dazzling sunlight had faded,
she began to think it was getting late, and that very soon it would be
night.

The thought of being lost and alone in the wild bush at night, took her
breath away with fear, and made her tired little legs tremble under
her. She gave up all hope of finding her home, and sat down at the foot
of the biggest blackbutt tree, with her face buried in her hands and
knees, and thought of all that had happened, and what might happen yet.

It seemed such a long, long time since her mother had told her that she
might gather some bush flowers while she cooked the dinner, and Dot
recollected how she was bid not to go out of sight of the cottage.  How
she wished now she had remembered this sooner!  But whilst she was
picking the pretty flowers, a hare suddenly started at her feet and
sprang away into the bush, and she had run after it.  When she found
that she could not catch the hare, she discovered that she could no
longer see the cottage. After wandering for a while she got frightened
and ran, and ran, little knowing that she was going further away from
her home at every step.

Where she was sitting under the blackbutt tree, she was miles away from
her father's selection, and it would be very difficult for anyone to
find her. She felt that she was a long way off, and she began to think
of what was happening at home.  She remembered how, not very long ago,
a neighbour's little boy had been lost, and how his mother had come to
their cottage for help to find him, and that her father had ridden off
on the big bay horse to bring men from all the selections around to
help in the search.  She remembered their coming back in the darkness;
numbers of strange men she had never seen before.  Old men, young men,
and boys, all on their rough-coated horses, and how they came indoors,
and what a noise they made all talking together in their big deep
voices.  They looked terrible men, so tall and brown and fierce, with
their rough bristly beards; and they all spoke in such funny tones to
her, as if they were trying to make their voices small.

During many days, these men came and went, and every time they were
more sad, and less noisy.  The little boy's mother used to come and
stay, crying, whilst the men were searching the bush for her little
son.  Then, one evening, Dot's father came home alone, and both her
mother and the little boy's mother went away in a great hurry.  Then,
very late, her mother came back crying, and her father sat smoking by
the fire looking very sad, and she never saw that little boy again,
although he had been found.

She wondered now if all these rough, big men were riding into the bush
to find her, and if, after many days, they would find her, and no one
ever see her again.  She seemed to see her mother crying, and her
father very sad, and all the men very solemn.  These thoughts made her
so miserable that she began to cry herself.

Dot does not know how long she was sobbing in loneliness and fear, with
her head on her knees, and with her little hands covering her eyes so
as not to see the cruel wild bush in which she was lost.  It seemed a
long time before she summoned up courage to uncover her weeping eyes,
and look once more at the bare, dry earth, and the wilderness of scrub
and trees that seemed to close her in as if she were in a prison.  When
she did look up, she was surprised to see that she was no longer alone.
She forgot all her trouble and fear in her astonishment at seeing a big
grey Kangaroo squatting quite close to her, in front of her.

What was most surprising was the fact that the Kangaroo evidently
understood that Dot was in trouble, and was sorry for her; for down the
animal's nice soft grey muzzle two tiny little tears were slowly
trickling. When Dot looked up at it with wonder in her round blue eyes,
the Kangaroo did not jump away, but remained gazing sympathetically at
Dot with a slightly puzzled air.  Suddenly the big animal seemed to
have an idea, and it lightly hopped off into the scrub, where Dot could
just see it bobbing up and down as if it were hunting for something.
Presently back came the strange Kangaroo with a spray of berries in her
funny black hands.  They were pretty berries.  Some were green, some
were red, some blue, and others white.  Dot was quite glad to take them
when the Kangaroo offered them to her; and as this friendly animal
seemed to wish her to eat them, she did so gladly, because she was
beginning to feel hungry.

After she had eaten a few berries a very strange thing happened.  While
Dot had been alone in the bush it had all seemed so dreadfully still.
There had been no sound but the gentle stir of a light, fitful breeze
in the far-away tree-tops.  All around had been so quiet, that her
loneliness had seemed twenty times more lonely.  Now, however, under
the influence of these small, sweet berries, Dot was surprised to hear
voices everywhere. At first it seemed like hearing  sounds in a dream,
they were so faint and distant, but soon the talking grew nearer and
nearer, louder and clearer, until the whole bush seemed filled with
talking.

They were all little voices, some indeed quite tiny whispers and
squeaks, but they were very numerous, and seemed to be everywhere.
They came from the earth, from the bushes, from the trees, and from the
very air.  The little girl looked round to see where they came from,
but everything looked just the same.  Hundreds of ants, of all kinds
and sizes, were hurrying to their nests; a few lizards were scuttling
about amongst the dry twigs and sparse grasses; there were some
grasshoppers, and in the trees birds fluttered to and fro.  Then Dot
knew that she was hearing, and understanding, everything that was being
said by all the insects and creatures in the bush.

All this time the Kangaroo had been speaking, only Dot had been too
surprised to listen.  But now the gentle, soft voice of the kind animal
caught her attention, and she found the Kangaroo was in the middle of a
speech.

"I understood what was the matter with you at once," she was saying,
"for I feel just the same myself.  I have been miserable, like you,
ever since I lost my baby Kangaroo.  You also must have lost something.
Tell me what it is?"

"I've lost my way," said Dot; rather wondering if the Kangaroo would
nderstand her.

"Ah!" said the Kangaroo, quite delighted at her own cleverness, "I knew
you had lost something!  Isn't it a dreadful feeling?  You feel as if
you had no inside, don't you?  And you're not inclined to eat
anything--not even the youngest grass.  I have been like that ever
since I lost my baby Kangaroo.  Now tell me," said the creature
confidentially, "what your way is like.  I may be able to find it for
you."

Dot found that she must explain what she meant by