WHEEEEEE! Pearl found herself standing out in the street, every nerve and hair root on edge, her pencil still in her hand. The steam whistle on the roof of the printing company continued to shriek. But who had set it off?
“Fire!” someone yelled, and beyond the roofs she could see the smoke—over in Oak Street, it appeared. At least it wasn’t the new hospital. George, the city editor, came running out with a notebook and with Mr. Campbell himself right behind him. George pointed at Pearl. “You! Come with me!” and off he went. There would be no more ad proofing today. She followed them down the street at a run.
Smoke was pouring out of every window of the Railway Hotel. A rumble and roar inside told her the first floor had just collapsed into the ground floor. Moments later the tin sheets on the roof began to pop; smoke and flame shot skyward.
George ripped his notebook in two and stuffed half into her hand. “Write down everything you see and get as many names as you can—don’t forget to note what the person’s doing. I’m going over to the bore—be back in five minutes. You’re my eyes and ears here, understand?”
She understood, but she had no idea how to go about it. She began jotting things willy-nilly, mentioning people she knew. She failed to recognize most of the faces. When she saw Mr. Campbell writing feverishly on a big foolscap pad, she sort of gave up. He’d record it all a lot more thoroughly than she could.
The buildings on either side of the hotel were literally turning black. All the curtains in the windows of the little rooming house to the west caught on fire; then its wall dissolved in flames. Now the building on the east side was afire, too.
The man responsible for the artesian bore that supplied most of the town’s water came running upstreet. Pearl scribbled down his last name—she couldn’t remember his first name. He was shouting about cutting off the rest of the town’s water and diverting the full force of the bore into the Oak Street main. There went Mum’s laundry.
The fire was now so hot that the crowd had to move back half a block. People were rushing in and out of the Black house two doors up from the fire. Screaming wildly, Mrs. Black threw something out the upstairs window. It hit the street and sprayed pieces all over—a clock! She threw a jewelry case out the window as two husky men came out the front door carefully carrying a mattress and bedstead.
In the little pub across from Pearl, two fellows struggled in the doorway with a barrel. They broke its spigot off getting it out the door. Down the street they ran with the barrel spilling rum by the gallon. Finally the firemen arrived with hoses. The hotel was already gutted, so they turned their efforts to the adjacent buildings, spraying them down, trying to limit the fire to what it had already consumed.
Within ten minutes the fire had spread to two more stores, voraciously engulfing the structures and filling the sky with acrid smoke, nearly roasting the eyes of anyone brave enough to watch—which was just about the whole town. Water didn’t slow the fire down. The flames licked in every direction, seemingly unstoppable. The violent, howling furnace of destruction appeared to have a power all its own.
The Barcaldine Building Society ignited next. Adjacent to that building was an unoccupied shop, which a small army of townsmen stormed against, trying to tear it down with the meager tools available. It worked. The fire reached that point and smoldered. Workers on the other side tore down an occupied one-story building, and another, and in their enthusiasm, still another. One would have done it.
As the sun set that night twelve buildings lay in ruins, gnawed by fire or ripped apart by frantic hands. Pearl’s notebook had but two pages of illegible scribbling. It was nearly nine when the excitement finally died down and people drifted away. She returned to the office and flopped into her chair, rubbing her burning, aching eyes. She must try to make some sense of her notes. George would want them shortly.
This disaster convinced her. Instead of the smoothly concerted efforts such as one saw in a city fire brigade, she had witnessed the frenzied antics of panicked country bumpkins. She was not going to stay here another week. Not another day. Tomorrow she would pack and escape this madness. Oh, how she hated this dinky cow town!
A sudden thought chilled her. She picked up her notebook and trudged out into the dark of night for a personal interview and hoped against hope that she’d find the man she wanted to see.
He was there. The manager of the Barcaldine Building Society was still at his former place of business, poking dejectedly through the ruins. In the light of the flickering flames stood the big safe gaping open, the smoldering ledgers ruined.
Yes, every page of business records had gone up in smoke. No records of loans existed other than copies of agreements held by the recipients themselves. The loan recipient need only tear up his agreement and his debt was cancelled. The depositors? Of course they had their passbooks and could prove how much they had invested. But the passbooks were just as useless, for not a penny of the assets had been insured.
Chapter Eight
The Start of A Business
“Will you quit fidgeting?” Pearl watched Enid’s slim little fingers dance on her lap. Her fingers stilled by sheer force of will. Pearl sighed. “I’m sorry you’re coming. It was a bad decision. You should get off at the next stop and turn in your ticket on a return fare. Go back home now while it’s still easy to do, before this train carries you all the way to Brisbane.” She turned her attention to the hills and trees zipping past the window. It looked the same now as it had when she and her family had taken this train in the other direction a long, long time ago.
Enid tipped her head back and closed her eyes. “I don’t think it was a bad decision. I feel very strongly led to do this. Besides, this train won’t take us to Brisbane. We have to change trains at Rockhampton.”
“When I feel strongly led, you say it’s impulse. When you feel strongly led, you say it’s God. Precious little difference that I can see.”
“Pearl.” Enid’s voice took on that irritatingly condescending tone. “Pearl, you get an idea in your head and it becomes a compulsion. You worked long and hard hours for months and months when, quite frankly, hard work is not your normal lifestyle.”
“Thank you.”
“No offense intended. The difference is this: I hadn’t the slightest intention in the world of leaving Barcaldine. I enjoyed my job. I loved the church. I liked the town, even with half of Oak Street in ashes. When you lost your savings—almost at the very moment the building was burning—I was seized with an intense feeling that I should leave Barcaldine with you. Even if I could explain it better, you couldn’t understand—”
“Now don’t start that again!”
“Pearl, you do not have eternal life. Neither do you know the joy of serving Jesus Christ. You don’t know the pleasure of having a Master who deserves all the worship and service you can give Him. There are so many things in life to lure our desires. Only God is worthy of all our efforts. I’m happy. I’m so very happy. And I want you to be happy, too.”
“Correction. You used to be happy. Because of me you don’t have your job, or your church people, or even that town. Because of me all your happiness is behind you. Don’t think I haven’t thought about that a thousand times.”
Enid twisted around to talk to her more intently. Pearl hated when Enid did that. “Pearl, please don’t say that, because it’s not true. My happiness doesn’t come from the outside. Not the church or the job or anything. It comes from the inside. The church and job and all are gifts the Lord gave me, ways I can serve Him that give me pleasure, but they’re not the source of happiness. They’re a product. Do you see the difference between the source and the result?”
Pearl looked her little sister right in the eye, stared straight into that earnest face, and said quite sincerely, “I think you’re crazy.”
Enid abruptly sat back in the seat. Pearl bit her tongue. She didn’t apologize, but she knew she shouldn’t have said that. She owed Enid a great deal. When Pearl had announced her intention to l
eave Barcaldine with or without savings, Enid had brought out her Queensland National Bank passbook with her own savings. Enid didn’t just offer her money. She insisted Pearl use it.
When Enid explained to Papa how strongly she felt she should go also, he accepted her wild compulsion unquestioningly as the will of God. Papa had been so adamantly opposed when Pearl had wanted to leave. Now he had changed his mind—almost instantly. Now it was the will of God. For Pearl, maybe, but why Enid? She fit into small-town life. She wasn’t half the city person Pearl was. These last three days were very confusing.
Now here they sat, their trunks in the baggage car, and their tickets to Brisbane in their handbags.
Enid’s fingers began their dance again.
“If you’re so cocksure, why are you nervous?”
“I’m not nervous!” Enid bit her tongue, cutting off whatever else she might have snapped out. “This is God’s plan.”
Pearl stared at her, and stared at her. Sometimes that worked, just staring at Enid.
Enid glanced guiltily at her sister. “All right, so I overstated things a little. Do you remember when we first started working at the hospital and Jason and Marty took us to lunch?”
“Vividly.”
“And Jason made this elaborate speech about how I had found what I wanted to do?”
“I remember.”
“It was all rubbish. That hospital thing was a straw to grasp at. I figured if I was very good at that, Papa would be pleased. It’s a job that’s very…very…self-sacrificing. You know?”
“What do you mean, Papa would be pleased?”
“When is the last time he called you by name?”
“When he got mad at me just before we left.”
“And when did he speak my name?”
“He never gets mad at you. He—” Pearl stopped. “What do you mean, Enid?”
“At least he gets mad at you. He never says a bad thing to me or a good thing, either. Nothing I did in Barcaldine—nothing at all—pleased him or displeased him. I went calling with him, I helped him with his bookkeeping, I did everything I could. And he’s never spoken my name.”
“Yes, but he loves you. You know that.”
“Does he? He loves chocolate desserts, too. I already tried being wonderful in Barcaldine. Now I’m going to try being wonderful in Sydney. Sooner or later he’s going to have to notice me.”
What do you say to something like that? Pearl held her peace. Enid was wrong. She was surely wrong. Papa preferred her; Pearl was certain. Here was just one more confusing detail to add to the confusing trip.
Sydney. Soon. City.
After yearning so long for this moment, Pearl felt a rush of reluctance. “Enid? Say we reach Brisbane, not Sydney. Sydney’s too far, too expensive. If we go to Brisbane, we have enough money—your money—to live for a week or two. No more. Then what?”
“I trust the Lord will supply what we need.”
“Right. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “To attract a man of means, you have to dress well and circulate in the right society. I seriously doubt God is going to supply all that.”
“I have no intention of attracting a man, with or without means. I’ll become a sister or an attendant at some hospital or infirmary. There are always ready jobs of that sort. I don’t need fancy clothes.”
“Well, I do. That’s why this seems somewhat ill-considered. What we really ought to do is build a purse—a kitty, if you will—before we reach Brisbane.”
“How?”
“Well, uh, you can get work as a sister with some doctor, and I can be a newspaper employee or something.”
“I thought that George What’s-his-name fired you for not taking adequate notes.”
“I wouldn’t use him as a reference. But I know a little bit of the business now. We’ll build a nest egg first, maybe in Rockhampton. Yes—Rockhampton. That way we will be able to outfit ourselves as soon as we have enough money. Then we won’t look like country bumpkins when we reach the city.”
“I don’t mind looking like a country girl. I am one.”
“Oh, never mind, Enid.” Pearl glanced out the window. It all looked so mundane out there. “What’s the last town we passed, do you remember?”
“Jericho. No. Alpha.”
“And what’s the next town?” Pearl couldn’t find her timetable, but Enid pulled hers out.
Enid’s eyes got big. “Anakie. That’s where Jason James went gem mining! And unless he changed his mind, Marty Frobel will be there by now, too.”
“How big is Anakie? Do you remember from the last time we went this way?”
“No. I was only nine or ten. I don’t remember hearing anything about it. All I recall is the lady who got on the train to sell gems. I’ll bet it doesn’t have a newspaper, though. Bet it doesn’t even have a doctor.”
Pearl smiled. The answer was shaping itself in her mind, clear as crystal. “Think of all the jobs I’ve had—the soap factory, the boot factory, the clerk position at Meacham and Leyland’s. Now add up all the time I spent between them, all the times I was unemployed; do you know what I’ve done more of than anything else?”
“Look for work.”
“Laundry. Mum always had work for me at home. I’ve done more laundry than anything else. Now. Who gets dirtier than a miner?”
“Who cares less about getting dirty than a miner? I don’t think you’ll have a very eager clientele. Certainly no silk shirts.”
“Plenty of shirts with buttons missing, though. If they have a lot of Chinese, they’ll have a laundry already. But if they don’t, Enid, the town is mine!”
Enid cocked her head. “And if they do, we simply move on to the next town. Actually, that’s not too bad a plan—at least to try.”
Aha! Pearl had her! “I thought God told you to go to Brisbane.”
“No. Leave Barcaldine with you. Nothing about Brisbane at all.”
Pearl sniffed. Enid and Papa. Everything in life revolved around religion, and they were always so certain about everything. The thing they were most certain about—which irritated Pearl most—was that she was not a Christian. She was not “saved.” That was why she had no joy, they’d say. What kind of gloom is that to preach to your own daughter and sister?
Pearl would love to find some joy in anything—anything at all. She was nearly convinced joy was just an illusion. About the best one can hope for is to minimize one’s misery.
“Next stop, Anakie.” The conductor staggered from car to car with his call. You’d think he’d be used to walking through these lurching cars.
Pearl held up a hand to stop him on his way. “Do you know if there is a laundry in Anakie?”
“Laundry.” He frowned. “Sorry, mum, don’t remember. You’ll have thirty minutes if you want to ask. We’re loading cattle and some things.”
“Thirty minutes. Splendid. Thank you.”
Screeching and swaying and clanging its bell, the train lumbered to a halt. Enid walked down to the baggage car to watch and wait, while Pearl took off at a smart clip. Anakie. This little settlement lay under the summer sun even more desolate and insignificant than Pearl remembered.
She didn’t even have to ask about a barber shop. There it was, a rather crooked homemade pole with red stripes winding down it, attached to the front of what looked like a pig shed. Pearl stepped inside hurriedly. She had no time to hesitate.
The barber was snipping and trimming at a very rough-looking fellow. They looked at her and stared, their mouths agape.
She smiled. “I must learn quickly if there is a laundry around here, and I thought the town barber would probably know. Can you advise me?”
“A laundry.” The bald-headed little barber leaned one elbow on the chair his customer was sitting in and tapped his chin with a comb. “Used to have one. Mrs. Potter down by the creek took in wash, but then her husband decided to try his luck down to Lightning Ridge and they left. And there was this Chinese who did it for a while until some hotheads fr
om Clermont decided Chinese weren’t welcome. Scared the pudding out of him and he left. Back to China, I s’pose. Couple of the women might do some for you if you’re friends with them. They don’t work at it.”
“Mrs. Harris over on the ridge,” the customer volunteered.
“When she ain’t in the sauce. Launders all right, I s’pose, but she drinks so much that her ironing ain’t too impressive.”
“Thank you, gentlemen!” This was perfect! Pearl could barely contain her glee. “I am an experienced laundress, and I cordially invite you to patronize my brand new laundry services here in town. And if you would, spread the word.”
“Surely so.” The bald head nodded.
Pearl headed for the door in a haze of delight. This was going better than she had hoped.
“Wait!” called the barber. “Where are you located?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.” She hurried out the door and up the dusty street as fast as decorum would allow. Half a block this side of the railway station, she waved vigorously to Enid. By the time she reached the train, a porter was digging their trunks out of the baggage car as per Enid’s directions. They had arrived.
The town of Anakie—if you could call it a town—clustered about the railway depot, spreading out in all directions. A haphazard knot of nondurable buildings comprised its center. As the space between buildings widened around the edges of the settlement, the structures themselves became smaller and smaller, more and more ramshackle.
Farther out, houses and living quarters were mostly tents or mere shade frames, wall-less against the wind. Pale mullock piles, the refuse of countless claims, speckled the ragged hills for miles about. Some had shacks and camps, some not. Compared to Anakie, Barcaldine looked like the court at Versailles.
Although any business entrepreneur will tell you that you must have ample basic capital with which to begin an enterprise, Pearl knew better. Her mother had started with nothing; it couldn’t be that hard—even here.
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