Sentence of Marriage Read Online Free PDF

for them. Like—well, what about Ben and Frank Kelly? I bet they never have any pudding.’
    ‘Yes, isn’t that sad,’ Edie said. She knitted her brows in thought. Lizzie leapt in to help.
    ‘What a pity they can’t have one of our pies,’ she said, glancing sideways at her mother.
    ‘Perhaps we could give them one,’ said Aunt Edie.
    ‘That’s a good idea, Ma!’ Lizzie said, then looked crestfallen. ‘How would we get it to them? Amy and I couldn’t really go there by ourselves, it wouldn’t be right.’
    ‘I suppose Bill could take it down to them,’ Edie said slowly.
    ‘That’s a good idea!’ said Lizzie. ‘I’ll go and find him right now. Come on, Amy, you’ve finished haven’t you?’
    ‘Not really,’ Amy said, her hands deep in scone dough, but she found herself caught up in the whirlwind Lizzie created. She scraped the dough off her hands, pushed it into a heap and resigned herself to being an accomplice.
    ‘Oh, are you girls going with him?’ Aunt Edie looked surprised. ‘Well, take Ernie with you, then—he’ll enjoy an outing.’
    ‘All right, Ma,’ Lizzie said sweetly. ‘I’ll just get ready first.’ She whisked Amy into her bedroom. Amy watched while Lizzie brushed her hair and tied a pink ribbon in it. They rushed back through the kitchen, collecting two pies on their way out the back door, too quickly for Edie to notice they had ‘forgotten’ to take Ernie.
    ‘I don’t know why Ma had to go having a baby,’ Lizzie grumbled as they went down the path. ‘There’s ten years between Alf and Ernie—you’d think she’d have more sense at her age. I hope she’s not going to do it again.’
    ‘Have babies, you mean?’ Amy shrugged. Being farm bred, they had much more idea of the mechanics of reproduction than city girls would have, but they were both rather hazy on the fine details. ‘Babies just happen, I suppose. But Aunt Edie must be getting a bit old to have any more, isn’t she?’
    ‘I hope so.’
    They found Lizzie’s older brother cleaning tack. ‘Ma says you have to take us down to Kelly’s farm’ said Lizzie. ‘Hurry up and get the buggy ready.’
    Bill was happy enough to stop work, though he grumbled as a matter of form. ‘What does Ma want you to go down there for?’
    ‘Just a message,’ said Lizzie.
    She and Amy held a pie each as they rode down to the Kelly farm at the end of the valley.
    ‘Have you ever been to the house before?’ Amy asked.
    ‘Ma says she brought me here when Frank’s mother was still alive, but I don’t remember. I think I was about five when she died. Ma says she was a lovely person.’
    ‘Your Ma thinks everyone’s lovely.’
    ‘That’s true.’
    As they drove past Charlie Stewart’s farm Amy said mischievously, ‘Don’t you feel sorry for Charlie as well? I bet he doesn’t get any nice apple pies to eat, either.’
    ‘Humph!’ Lizzie said. ‘He shouldn’t be so grumpy, then.’
    The Kelly farm was good-sized, but the paddocks were all full of stumps; too full for maize to be grown even in the flattest of them. Every summer, when the men of the valley got together for the communal task of haymaking, Amy’s brothers complained bitterly about how difficult those paddocks were to work.
    They turned off the valley road and crossed the Kelly’s bridge over the Waituhi; Amy had a bad moment when she noticed some missing planks. The farm buildings they passed all had a neglected look, with doors loose on their hinges and a few rotten boards that needed replacing.
    They pulled up in front of the house. It was a good-sized homestead, much like Amy’s, but she could see that it was sorely in need of a coat of paint. The iron roof over the verandah sagged drunkenly at one end, weighed down by the creeper that had engulfed much of it. There were a few rose bushes, grown straggly through neglect, but no other suggestion of a garden.
    ‘You’d better come in with us, Bill,’ Lizzie said as they got out of the