The Sausage Tree Read Online Free PDF Page B

two lights were to be on at the one time, so in fear of punishment we were always careful not to disobey. Sometimes we even avoided switching on the light at all, but one night when Dad went to clean his teeth, he scratched around as usual in the drawer where he kept all his personal items, found the tube that he assumed was toothpaste, squeezed some onto his toothbrush and began to clean his teeth. From the dining room we heard him spluttering and gagging. It wasn’t toothpaste he was using, it was his shaving cream! The next night he turned the light on and the “two lights at one time” rule was relaxed a little.
    Another rule was that once we sat down in the dining room after we had finished washing the dishes, we weren’t to move from the spot we had chosen to sit. If we forgot to get some wool or embroidery cotton, a book or whatever, it was too bad. We knew that if we left our chair for the slightest reason we were sent to bed. Bad luck for us if weneeded to go to the dunny, because when we came back we were sent to bed.
    Except for asking for something to be passed we were not allowed to talk while we were sitting at the table during meal times. Usually when one or two of us got the giggles it was contagious and we all started, but on one occasion it was Valda and Wilma who were in heaps of trouble for giggling. Dad threw his knife at Valda and after it was returned to him he threw it at Wilma who thought she had escaped his displeasure. They were probably giggling because Mum was always prodding Wilma between the shoulder blades so that she would sit up straight.
    We did not get an electric hot-water service until 1952 when Mum and Dad bought the house and renovated the back, making the kitchen into a fourth bedroom and building a new kitchen and bathroom where the back verandah had been. What a luxury! A bath long enough for comfort and plenty of hot water, although the bath mustn’t be more than a quarter full. Washing the dishes was easy now we had a sink with a draining board and a hot water tap. The wood-burning stove was moved from the old kitchen to the new.
    The moving of the stove called for a new flue and as Mum was sick and Peter had to go to town for allergy tests he was told to go to the hardware shop before catching the bus home. The instruction was to order six feet of flue pipe with a cowl on the top. All seemed well until 12 year old Peter came home and asked Mum how a cow was going to sit on top of the flue!
    Mum never wanted an electric stove, saying that wood was cheaper than electricity and the kitchen would be much warmer in the early mornings and the winter. The kettles were still always singing on the top of the stove so there was no need to buy an electric one.
    Our toast was always made on a long fork made of wire,in front of the firebox of the stove. Toast could never taste as good from an electric toaster so we didn’t need one of those either. We had, however, progressed from hot bricks in our beds to hot-water bottles as by 1952 there were only two dependent children living at home. Because of the intense cold of winter in Lilydale warm beds were a necessity. After Dad had completed the improvements to the house more power points were added, including two in each bedroom. Now we even had bed lights. Mum and Dad could see no reason for outside lights, although we did have lights in the new outside laundry and new toilet, complete with septic tank.

    A big change that came to Lilydale because of the electricity was the installation in 1941 of a flax mill in the old agricultural show building. The annual show was abandoned and was never revived, being replaced with the school show.
    The flax mill was imported from England. All the parts, right down to the last nuts and bolts, were packed in crates and secretly transported by ship. The engineers, foremen and workers travelled with the machinery. Because of fear of the presence of German submarines in the route to the