Midget

Saturday, 8^th of January

Annie is so mad.  When she came home from work last night, mamma told her to help me fold the bed sheets that Harriet and I had made such a mess of.  She stamped her foot and declared it was not fair! She goes out to work and brings in money for the family and so she should NOT have to do chores around the barracks as well. 

I agree with her, but mamma said that Harriet wasn’t old enough to do the job properly and that I was too small to do the job on my own.  Annie grabbed the sheets in a huff and glared at me with rancour, then said one word - "Fine."

Annie would not talk to me for the rest of the night, nor today, except to occasionally sneer at me and call me “midget”.  I can’t help being small, mamma is short too and she says that I take after her. I hope I grow taller as I get older, like Annie; she has shot up four inches in the past year and is now up to dad’s shoulder and taller than mamma. I don’t know why Annie has to blame me when it was mamma who told her to fold the sheets.

A hot summer's day.

Friday 7^th  of January

This is very pleasant, sitting in the Barracks Library writing in my diary; it makes it seem so very special.  I also have a lantern on the table which provides better light than the candles on our kitchen table.  Colonel Fittock is in here again this evening reading the same book as last night.  He said “Good evening Miss Holmes,” when dad ushered me in.  I felt quite grown up, I blushed and dropped him a curtsey and responded “Good evening kind sir”.  

No-one has called me Miss Holmes before, it’s always been “Emily Holmes” or “Emily” and  sometimes I’m referred to as “Sgt Holmes’ daughter – the short one”, that really annoys me as I can’t help being short.  Mamma and dad sometimes just call me “Em” – for short.  Won’t Annie be jealous, even though she’s the eldest, people have only just started calling her Miss Holmes since her thirteenth birthday one month ago, when she started working at Charter’s Drapery Store, and she’s two years older than me!

Victoria Barracks Sydney 1871 -  State Library of NSW collection

I actually don’t have much to write about today, because well, today has been rather boring.  It’s been too hot to play outside and the western wind is blowing sand all over the Barracks.  Mamma kept us indoors, because if we tried to play outside we’d soon find our mouths and noses and eyes gritty from the sand; I know, I remember getting sand in my eyes last year and then I got an eye infection which was awful.  I’ve seen the soldiers suffer  something dreadful from the sand, as they don’t have mothers who tell them to stay indoors, instead they have Officers and NCOs who tell them to “form ranks” on the parade ground and drill them for hours, regardless of the weather.

image from Pinterest

‘As we were indoors, Mamma wanted Harriet and me to fold the bed sheets, but Harriet was still too small to manage the sheets, and I’m not much bigger, so we got into an awful muddle.  Mamma lost her temper with the two of us, and hit both of us with the wooden spoon.  We then had to help Mamma with the ironing, until it was just too hot to keep the fire going in the room anymore.  Then we were excused.

After that,  Harriet and I played with my paper dolls for a while and then I read some of Grimm’s Fairy Tales to Arthur and Alfie, before they had their afternoon sleep.  This afternoon Mamma asked me to prepare some vegetables for dinner.  We also watched the smoke from a bushfire on the north shore rise up into the sky and then be blown away towards the northern beaches and from there out to sea.  I wonder if it reaches New Zealand?

Sydney Harbour as seen from Paddington mid 1800s. State Library of NSW collection

King of Misrule

Thursday 6^th January, 1870  - night

What a nuisance Freddie is.  Truly, he has caused me to smudge ink on my book and ruin it!  It’s not fair, he ruins everything!  I hate him! 

Freddie came prancing into our room this evening as I was writing my earlier entry and announced that he was King of Misrule and then started jumping around the room, flinging his arms around and shouting “Misrule! Misrule! Misrule!”  He grabbed the cloth Mamma had placed on the table for dinner, knocked over the little vase of flowers Mamma had put there only five minutes earlier, and then tried to pull me from my chair just as I lifted my pen from the inkwell, causing me to smudge the  entry. 

  

Dad quickly came in from his office when he heard the commotion and promptly led Freddie back there by his ear. We heard dad give Freddie five whacks with the cane, “To teach him to have more respect and discipline”.  I don’t think Fred will ever learn that lesson; he’s more interested in games and pranks.

Anyway, now Dad has sought permission for me to write in the Barracks Library, where my brothers and sisters cannot interfere.  Annie is quite jealous; she says Dad has never favoured her with such a privilege and as the eldest, she should also be granted a similar privilege.  Can you believe it?  Annie is only marginally better than Fred, in that all she ever reads are stories about love and romance.  She never reads the newspaper, except for the serial, nor books about natural history, nor Shakespeare, nor Dickens.

Anyway, I am only allowed to use the Library if there is a responsible person present to supervise me.  Tonight Colonel Fittock is in here.  Dad explained to Colonel Fittock that I am keeping a diary and that Fred was making it difficult for me to concentrate on my writing. He asked if it would be  permissible for me to use the table in the library.  Colonel Fittock looked me in the eye as though he were staring into my soul, whilst he considered the request  and then replied "that it would be alright - under supervision".  As he was present (relaxing in a big leather chair) reading a report of the Crimean War, he would supervise me tonight.    

A British Colonel circa 1860s. Col Fittock is a fictional character.

Colonel Fittock has a gruff voice and scares me when he speaks. He asked me what I wrote about and I told him that I mainly wrote about things that happened that day.  For instance I was writing about how boring today was with no Twelfth Night celebrations, but now I have written about Freddie misbehaving and my being allowed to use the Library. Colonel Fittock asked if he could have a look at my penmanship.  I was too scared to tell him no, so I had to let him look.  I was terrified!  My hand was shaking as I passed my diary to him. I thought he would criticise my writing, which would not be fair – I have written this for myself, not for him to peruse as though it were a writing lesson with Miss Drury! 

But I was so wrong.  He complemented me on my “neat hand”.  He said that I obviously “took after my father”.  He asked me if I enjoyed school; I told him that I enjoyed reading and geography lessons, but I was not very good at needlework.  Colonel Fittock nodded his head and told me “To keep on with the good work.”  He then suggested that I should include some description of where I lived and some more detail about my family.  I was too scared to ask him why?  I mean, the diary is supposed to be for me, my secret thoughts.  Why would I need to describe where I live, when I know that?  It makes no sense to me.  He probably thinks I’m writing about those things now, but I’m not.