Explore "A Sydney-Side Saxon" by Rolf Boldrewood on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
ABOUT the first thing I can call to mind rightly, I was living with father and mother in a bit of a cottage in the village of Applegate, near Westerham, in Kent, not far from the Sussex border, where the river Darent rises. Sister Jane was there too. There had been ten of us, but only me and she were left.
We were well scattered, sure enough. Bob, he was the eldest, had 'listed for a soldier and got killed in the Indies. Jack went to sea, and was never heard of after. Bill was smothered in a coal mine, and Joe was hurt that bad in a fight with the keepers--he being given to poaching--that he never got rightly shut of it, and died within the year. Bessie married and went to America, and Sally was in service in Rochester. Two of 'em, a boy and a girl, died young; all the better for 'em, the folks said. So Jenny and I were the only ones left with the old folks, and quite enough too, considering what there was to keep house on.