



Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover art]




[Illustration: "Then he shot down, head foremost, and again found
himself in the grass." (Page 96.)]




                               *'POSSUM*


                                   BY

                            MARY GRANT BRUCE

              Author of "Glen Eyre," "Mates at Billabong,"
                 "Norah of Billabong," "Jim and Wally,"
                               etc., etc.



                       WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
                     LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO




                                   To
                               My Mother




                               *CONTENTS*


I  The "House Beautiful"
II  Breaking Bad News
III  Gordon's Farm
IV  Into the Unknown
V  The Home-Coming
VI  A Day in the Country
VII  The Riding of Jane
VIII  Rain--And a Friend
IX  "Maggie or Something"
X  'Possum Takes Hold
XI  Farmers in Earnest
XII  Sailing
XIII  Amateur Surgery
XIV  A Boating Holiday
XV  Santa Claus and Clothes
XVI  A Little Boy
XVII  'Possum Becomes a Pupil
XVIII  The Regatta
XIX  The Order of Release




                               *'POSSUM*



                              *CHAPTER I*

                        *THE "HOUSE BEAUTIFUL"*


The trim suburban garden blazed with flowers. Over the porch at the gate
mandevillea hung in a curtain of fragrant white, and an archway over the
path that wound through the close-shaven lawn was a miracle of Fortune's
yellow roses--gold and rose and copper blended gloriously. There were
beds aflame with "bonfire" salvia, and others gay with many-hued
annuals.  Gaudy tulips reared splendid heads near a great clump of arum
lilies that fringed a tiny pool where little Garth Macleod's solitary
goldfish swam in lonely state.  Everywhere there were roses; in
standards in the smooth, well-kept beds, or trained along the wide
verandas, forming a screen of exquisite blossom.  Their sweetness lay
like a charm over the garden.

It was a hot spring afternoon.  Tom Macleod, digging busily in a corner,
pushed his Panama back from his flushed face, and stood erect for a
moment to ease his aching back.  As he did so a motor whirred to the
gate, stopped, and a stout little man hurried up the path, waving a
capable hand towards the shirt-sleeved worker across the lawn.

"Hullo, Doctor!" Macleod called.

"See you presently, Tom," was all the doctor vouchsafed him.  He
disappeared behind the roses on the veranda, and Macleod returned to his
work with a furrow between his eyes that had not been there before.
From time to time he cast half-impatient glances towards the house,
whence no sound issued.  Finally, with a hasty movement, he plunged his
spade into the soil, and went with long strides across the
grass--meeting, at the step, the doctor, who plunged out of the house
like a plump Jack-in-the-box.

"Oh!" said Macleod vaguely.  "How's the kid?"

"The kid? why, going on first-rate," said the doctor, laughing.  "Can't
a man stay five minutes talking to his patient's mother without your
making up your mind that the kid must be dying?"

Tom Macleod grinned a little shamefacedly.

"The last three weeks have rather unsettled my nervous system, I
believe," he said.  "I didn't know I had one until Garth took to trying
to die. You needn't be so superior, old man.  I believe the little
beggar shook up yours, too!"

"Well--it hasn't been too jolly a time," admitted the doctor.  "One
doesn't like to see a nice kid suffering: and Garth and I are old chums.
Anyhow, he's better.  Come and sit down; it's an extraordinary thing,
but I have time for a cigarette."

He went with quick, short steps towards a bench under a drooping pepper
tree, Macleod following with his long, easy stride.  No two men could
have been a greater contrast: the short, plump doctor, with his
humorous, ugly face, which every child loved at the first glance, and
the tall, lean Australian, clean-limbed and handsome--almost boyish, but
for a certain worn expression, and for the lines of anxiety which his
boy's illness had graven round his eyes and mouth.  They lit their
cigarettes and stared at each other.

"On the rare occasions when you announce that you've time to smoke, I
have noticed that you generally have something to communicate--probably
unpleasant," said Macleod.  "What is it, old man?"

"I wish you weren't so observant," said the doctor; "it's disconcerting.
Well, I _have_ something.  It isn't exactly new: I hinted at it to you
six months ago.  Now I've got to speak plainly."

"You mean----?"

"I mean that if I had a boy like Garth I wouldn't run the risk of trying
to bring him up in a city," the doctor answered.  "I haven't been
satisfied with the little chap for a long time.  His constitution's all
right--there's nothing radically the matter. But he doesn't thrive.
You've seen that for yourself, Tom."

"Yes--I've seen it," said the father heavily. "Of course, we've kept
hoping he would grow stronger.  As you say, there seemed nothing really
wrong, and he's pretty wiry----"

"If he hadn't been wiry I could not have pulled him through the last
three weeks," Dr. Metcalf said.  "You may thank your stars he's wiry."

"If he hadn't picked up this unlucky illness----"

"Well--I don't know," said the doctor.  "I'm inclined to think you may
yet consider it a blessing in disguise.  You might have gone on pouring
tonics and patent messes into him, and hoping he'd improve.  You can't
do it now.  It's up to you and Aileen to give him every chance, if you
want a strong son instead of a weakling."

"That's final?" Macleod asked.

"That's my considered opinion.  I know your difficulties, old man.  But
I know you don't value anything in the world beyond Garth.  Take him to
the country; let him live out of doors, and run as wild as a rabbit;
give him unlimited fresh milk--not the stuff you buy out of a
can--country food, and pure air: let him wear old clothes all the time
and sleep out of doors--and in a year I'd stake my professional
reputation you won't know him. Keep him in a Melbourne suburb, and I
won't be answerable for the consequences."

"That's pretty straight, anyhow," said Macleod.

"I mean it to be straight.  I haven't known you since you were at school
to mince matters with you now.  And I'm fond of the kid: I want to see
him grow into a decent man, with all the best that is in him given a
fair chance."

"We've tried to do that," Macleod said.  He looked round the glowing
garden.  "It's such a jolly home, and he does love it."

"It's one of the jolliest little homes I've ever seen, and it's going to
hurt both of you badly to leave it," the doctor rejoined.  "The trouble
is, it is too jolly.  You have made yourself a little Paradise inside
the tallest paling fence you could build, and you've shut out all that
lies outside that fence--miles on miles of teeming streets, packed and
jammed with people.  You're in the midst of grass and roses and things,
with a sprinkler going on your tulips, or whatever those rainbow affairs
are--and you don't think about the street outside, dry and baking, with
a hot wind swirling the germ-laden dust about--blowing it probably upon
the meat and fruit and milk you'll buy to-morrow.  The air comes to you
over thousands of houses, clean and dirty, and thousands of people
breathe it.  You've got to get where there's no second-hand air."

"Great Scott!" ejaculated Macleod.  "Will you tell me how any children
manage to live at all?"

"It's a special dispensation of Providence that most youngsters don't
die from germs," said the doctor, laughing.  "I'm aware that the
infantile population of Melbourne is pretty healthy, but it's always a
mystery to me how children in any big city survive their surroundings.
After all, Melbourne's cleaner than most places.  However, there is only
one among its hordes of kids that is interesting you and me at the
moment, and that's Garth.  You've got to get him out of it, Tom."

"When?"

"As soon as you can make your arrangements. I know you can't do that in
a moment, but, of course, he could not be moved just yet.  When he is
strong enough Aileen could take him somewhere until you were ready.  But
get him to the country.  His poor little head is full of stories and
make-believes: let him forget what a book looks like, and introduce him
to a pony.  By the way, it's going to be enormously good for you and
Aileen, too."

"Is it?" Macleod asked, smiling grimly.  "I'll worry along somehow,
though I know mighty little of anything outside a city.  But it's rough
on her, poor girl.  She just loathes the country--hasn't any use for
scrub and bad roads, and discomfort generally.  I'll never be able to
get her a servant--there aren't any, I believe, once you get more than a
mile from a picture theatre.  And she has never had to work."

"Don't you worry your head about Aileen," said the little doctor,
rising.  "She has her head screwed on the right way--and women have a
way of doing what they've got to do.  She can imagine herself her own
grandmother, fresh out from England, and tackling the Bush as all our
plucky little grandmothers did.  Pity there are not more like them now:
we live too softly nowadays, and our backbones don't stiffen.  But
you'll find Aileen will come out all right.  In a year you'll all be
blessing me.  When you come to think of it, I'm the only one to be
pitied.  I'm going to miss you badly."  There was a twisted smile on his
lips as he wrung his friend's hand.  "Good-bye: my patients will be
calling down maledictions on my head if I don't hurry."

Macleod saw him into his dusty motor and watched it glide down the hot
street.  Then he turned and went back through the scent of the garden,
instinctively making his footsteps noiseless as he crossed the veranda
and entered the house.

It was a trim house of one story, with a square hall where tall palms
gave an effect of green coolness.  An embroidered curtain screened a
turn into a passage where, through an open door, could be heard the
sound of a low voice reading.  A childish call cut across the soft
tones.

"Is that you, Daddy?"

"That's me," said Macleod cheerfully, if ungrammatically.  "Are you sure
you ought not to be asleep?"  He entered the room and smiled down at his
little son.

"A fellow can't sleep all day," Garth said. "'Sides, I needn't sleep so
much now.  Doctor says I'm nearly well, Daddy."

"That's good news," said his father heartily. "We'll have you out in the
garden soon, and getting fat.  The tulips are blossoming, Garth, and
your poor old goldfish is awfully lonesome.  He says even Bran doesn't
go near him now."

"Bran is too busy nursing his master," said Garth's mother, looking at
the rough head of the Irish terrier curled up on a chair beside the
boy's bed.  "We'll all get out together in a few days, and find out all
the beautiful things that have happened in the garden since we were
there.  Won't it be lovely, Tom?"

She leaned back until her head touched her husband--a tall, pale girl,
with lovely features and a mass of fair hair that glinted like Garth's
when the sunlight fell on it, and eyes as blue as violets. Her long
hands, blue-veined and delicate, lay idly in her lap, one finger keeping
open the book from which she had been reading.  She was like an
exquisite piece of china--fragile, to all outward appearance, and
dainty; graceful in every line. Tom Macleod looking down at her, felt as
he had felt ten year' ago, before they married, that he must let no wind
blow upon her roughly.

Now he had to tell her that they must go away, away from the ordered
comfort of city life, which was all that she had ever known, to whatever
the country had in store for them.  Even for himself, always a townsman,
the prospect carried something of dread, as do all unfamiliar prospects.
But he knew that, whatever hardships the Bush holds for a man, it is
hardest on a woman.

Garth was chattering away, oblivious of his father's grave face.

"Doctor says I can talk as much as I like," he proclaimed happily.  "And
he says I'll be perflickly well in a little bit, and then Mother can
take me down to the sea.  And she says she will, didn't you, Mother?
And then you can come down for week-ends, Daddy.  Or do you think the
Office would give you a holiday, like it did the time we went to Black
Rock?"

"It might," said his father.

"Do make it," Garth begged.  "It would be so lovely, Daddy--and you
could teach me to swim." His little thin face, for which the brown eyes
were so much too large, was alight with eagerness. "Bran'll come too--he
loves going away, doesn't he?  D'you know, Daddy, I think Bran was just
cut out for a country dog!  He's so awful interested when he gets away
from the streets."

"I'm not sure that that's not very good taste on Bran's part," said
Macleod: and at something in his tone his wife looked up sharply.  "What
do you think about it yourself, Garth?"

"Oh, I just love the country," Garth answered. "You get so tired with
streets--they all look alike, nothing but motors and dust.  The Gardens
are jolly, of course, and so's Fawkner Park; but they're not the same as
the real country.  D'you remember the time we went to Gippsland for the
holidays? Wasn't it lovely?  I always felt when we went out walking that
we might meet anything whatever--fairies, or Bunyips, or--or all sorts
of things!"

"But you never did, I suppose?"

"N-no," Garth admitted.  "But I used to pretend I did, and that was fun.
And I truly did see some rabbits and a wallaby, only the people at the
farm weren't a bit pleased when I told them about the rabbits.  Mr.
Brown said he'd rather see a gorilla on any of _his_ land.  Isn't it a
pity rabbits are such damageous things, Daddy?  Anyhow, I used to
pretend that all the really bad fairies had got locked up inside
rabbits, to do as much mischief as ever they could, until they got good
again.  But Mr. Brown said that if ever he heard of a rabbit getting
good he'd eat his hat."

"Seeing that Brown told me he'd just spent two hundred pounds netting
his land against rabbits, you couldn't expect him to love them," Macleod
said.

"Two hundred pounds is an awful lot of money, isn't it?" Garth asked
innocently.  "But you've got heaps more than that, haven't you, Daddy?"

"Not as big a heap as I would like," his father answered.  He walked
across the room and stood looking out of the window, his eye wandering
over the well-kept garden.  A lucky legacy had enabled him to buy his
home just before his marriage: now he wished with all his heart that he
had not spent so much, in the years that followed, in making it nearer
and nearer to their hearts' desire. They had built a room here, a
veranda there: had installed electric light and cooking power, electric
fans and electric irons--had filled the house with every modern device
for ease and comfort.  His salary was good: there was no need for
economy. He had lavished it on the garden they loved, until its high
walls enclosed, in truth, a little paradise. Their personal tastes had
been expensive: stalls at the theatres, little dinners at the Savoy,
races, dances, bridge parties, had all been commonplaces in their happy,
careless life.  Best of all had he loved to dress Aileen beautifully.
"When a fellow has the loveliest wife in Australia, it's up to him to
see that she's decently rigged out," he would say, bringing home a fur
coat, a costly sunshade, a piece of exquisite lace.  He hardly knew how
much his own clothes, quietly good, had cost him: Garth had been the
best turned out boy in the neighbourhood.  Their servants, well-paid and
lightly-worked, had kept the household machinery moving silently on
oiled wheels.  There had seemed not one crumpled petal in the
rose-leaves that strewed their path.

The trained nurse entered softly, bearing on a little brass tray Garth's
tea-service--dainty china, painted with queer, long-necked cats.

"This is the first day I've felt really int'rested in tea," Garth
proclaimed cheerfully, wriggling up on his pillows.  His mother moved
quickly to help him, slipping a wrap round the thin little shoulders.
Then a gong chimed softly from the hall, and she turned to her husband.
Her fingers lay on his shoulder for a moment.

"Tea, Tom."

"Oh, all right," he said, and turned from the window.  "So long, old
son--eat a big tea."

"I'll eat a 'normous one, if Nurse will only give it to me," Garth said,
eyeing his tray hungrily. "Mind you do, too, Daddy.  And come back
soon."

"I will," Macleod said.  He smiled at the eager face as he followed his
wife from the room.




                              *CHAPTER II*

                          *BREAKING BAD NEWS*


It was one of Aileen Macleod's whims that she liked to brew her own tea.
A copper kettle bubbled busily over a spirit lamp on the tray as they
entered the drawing-room, and her husband flung himself into an
arm-chair and watched the slim, beautiful hands busy with the silver
tea-caddy and the quaint, squat teapot.  Neither spoke until she came to
his side with his cup.

"I beg your pardon, dear," he said, trying to rise.  She kept him back,
a hand on his shoulder.

"You've been working: why shouldn't I bring you your tea?" she said,
smiling at him.

"Because I ought to be looking after you," he rejoined.  He was on his
feet with a quick movement, took her by the shoulders laughingly, and
put her into a big chair, bringing tea and hot cakes to a tiny table
beside her.

"There!" he said.  "No: you want another cushion.  Now lie back,
sweetheart, and rest; you're ever so much more tired than you'll admit,
even to yourself."

"Being tired doesn't matter, now," she said. "Nothing matters, now that
Garth is safe.  But it's nice to be bullied."  She smiled at him, with a
little restful movement, then took up her cup. Over it she looked at him
questioningly.

"Dr. Metcalfe _is_ quite satisfied, Tom?  What were you and he talking
about for so long?"

"Oh, he's quite satisfied with the boy's progress," Macleod answered.
"He says you and he can go away quite soon.  We--we were just yarning."
Something tied his tongue; she looked so tired, and yet so peaceful.  He
would not tell her just yet.

Aileen opened her