Remembered By Heart: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing Read Online Free PDF Page B

the girls in the dormitory jumped up and went to the verandah. The dormitory was all blocked off with a trellis but we could just see through to the outside. I looked and saw these girls standing out there in the middle of the street, between the two dormitories, singing.
    It was the girls’ choir, and I could see the two Darby girls, Dinah Hall and several others. They sang, ‘Christians Awake’ and ‘Oh, Come All Ye Faithful’. They really made the ranges ring, and that’s the only time Mogumber was ever beautiful.
    I was going to school in the settlement up until that Christmas, and for a couple of months after. But I can truly say that they never taught me anything in all that time.
    I’d finished up to grade three at the school in Toolbrunup, and that was as high as Moore River went. So when the teacher was busy she’d get me to go out and keep the infants occupied while she taught the bigger class.
    Moore River did nothing for me by way of schooling; I had to learn through experience and picking up little bits here and there on my own. Really, all I ever did there was work. I had chores to do before school and chores to do after. I tell you, they never allowed me to be idle.
    I was still going to school when they decided to show usa movie. We all went up to the church, men and boys on one side and girls and grown up ladies on the other. This was a Charlie Chaplin movie and you know how funny he is.
    Nanna Leyand used to always wear this hat and her and a couple of the old ladies were sitting in front of us. A lot of the people there had never seen a movie before, especially these old ones. Anyway, the thing went on, flickering away, when this motor car came full ball down the street towards us. Poor old Nanna went, aaarrrgghh, and ducked right down. Oh, look, it was such a laugh, funnier than the movie. Every now and again this motor car would come around the corner and Nanna and these old ladies would duck. Us little girls sitting behind her were killing ourselves laughing, but we couldn’t laugh out loud or she would have thumped us.
    That’s the only movie I can recall them ever showing us. We had a couple of slide nights too, religious ones, but those soon fell by the wayside.
    I hadn’t been at the settlement long when I got a letter from Jessie Hornsey. Miss Greenwood had married while we were with the Campbells and her name became Mrs Hornsey. When we were at Pallingup we used to ride over to her place and do odd jobs. Anyway, she wrote to me and asked if I’d come and work for her. Mr Brodie knew all about it, because everybody’s letter that was written into that place was read before it was given out. He didn’t say anything to me when I got the letter but he called me into his office a couple of days later.
    â€˜Do you really want to go and work for Mrs Hornsey?’ he asked.
    I said that I’d like to because she’d written and asked me.
    â€˜But,’ he said, ‘you can’t go because we’ve got another job lined up for you.’
    Well I don’t know what that job was but I never went to it. I think they just wouldn’t let me go to Mrs Hornsey’s because they wanted to disconnect people from their past. I was still at school at this time, but not long after they needed girls in the sewing room so they put me there to work. So whether that was the other job he was talking about or not, I don’t know.
    All the girls who were taken out of school and sent down to the sewing room, were started off on button holing and things like that. We had no choice about working there and we were never paid for it. We’d work a full week, then we’d go down every Saturday morning to clean the machines, brush them and oil them up ready for Monday. Then they’d come along with a little block of chocolate for us and that was our pay.
    Every so often, Mr Neville, or an outside visitor, used to come up to the settlement.