My brother Stuart and me met Mrs. Rigby our first day at Copper-Top. She was
digging in the bed of the Leichhardt when we went down there to explore. The bank
as high just there, and we saw this square sort of old woman digging against the side
where the rocks leaned over and the sand was shaded. She had a deep hole dug and
the sides were wet-looking.
Stu has real nice manners, and he’s clever, too. He said “Good-day. Can we help
you dig?” He went near her to take the shovel, but she moved away sharply from him
and said: “Who’re yous boys?” and peered at us with hard, shiny black eyes, like little
winking marbles.

She had on an old felt hat, a man’s sort-very
shapeless. And her dress was a faded blue color
of strong stuff and square. Her body moved !”round
inside it like someone in a tent. And while she
was looking at us and waiting for our answer, she
pushed the hat back off her hair, which was
streaky grey and short like a man’s, too.
Stu told her our names, and that we were the
new station-master ‘s boys, and just come to have
a look round the place while Mum and Sis were
fixing things up at the house like they have to
every time Dad gets a transfer to a new place.
She said, “I’m Mrs. Rigby,” and held out her
hand to us both, and we shook it. Then she handed
Stu the shovel to dig, and sat on a rock to fan
herself with the hat. She said: “Like I told you,
I’m Mrs. Rigby. Not old Ma Rigby, and mindj oo,
if ever I catches either of yous boys calling me
that I’ll let you know. See?” She looked pretty
fier~e then and I wan ted to go, but Stu said “Yes”,
and dug on for a bit.
I said: “What is the hole for?”
“That’s me soak.”
Stu and me hadn’t seen a soak befbre. After a
bit, she took the shovel from Stu and dug a bit
more, very quickly, so the wet sand flew out zunk!
zunk! in thuds like heavy rain falling. Then she
stood back and said: “There. See?” pointing, and
we looked down into the hole kneeling carefully
so’s not to push the sides in. It was lovely! The
water oozed in and filled the bottom gently like
the tide at the sea coming in. It was a real little
toy well.
Mrs. Rigby handed us an enamel pint, and Stu
scooped the clear water up in it for us to drink.
It was cool, too, and tasted nice . .
Then she got a wooden case and lined the sides
so the sand wouldn’t fall in and then put an old
sheet of iron over it and told us to fetch some
big stones and put on top-to hold it down in the
wind, I thought, but she said: “That’s to keep
them ‘roos and goats off-uv it.”
Stu had filled the big, black old billy-can and
he carried it up the bank and I took the shovel
for her. A little way from the river was a low,
iron humpy sort of building. It had a good strong
fence around it, of rusted barb wire, and the
walls were white-washed.
“That’s me place,” she told us, and we went in
the gate.
An old blue-black dog came to meet us, very
fat and with big dark dugs, its baggy body hanging
shapeless and floppy from its backbone.
Mrs. Rigby said: “This here’s Lucy.” And the
dog nodded, sort of, and went off again to lie down
under some shade.
It was dark inside the place, till she went over
and pushed up a shutter with a stick. There was
a red ant bed floor, and, in the corner, a bag bunk
with blankets on one end and some cases round
the walls with newspapers spread on top, and in
the m1ddle, a scrubbed deal table.
She made us strong tea in a billy and told us
she was a champeen rider and could drive a team
as good as her Dad. We weren’t too sure about
teams-only football and cricket ones. She said
her Dad came up from the Cooper with teams.
“They’re all gone now. But he was a champeen
those days.” She sighed then, remembering him.
We had to go then, but we thanked her for
the tea and she said: “Yous seem decent boys and
mindjoo I don’t like anything less it’s proper.
None of the ‘Old Ma Rigby’ stuff, or I’ll let yous
know!”
Mum and Sis didn’t bother too much where
we’d been. They were tired from the fixing. We
had to start school then, and only on Saturdays
for sure, and sometimes other afternoons or after
dinner Sundays, we could call on Mrs. Rigby.
We fo~nd about the “Old Ma Rigby” she didn’t
like too. The Sergeant and his wife and the people
from the hotel, and stockmen who came to the
Railway Office for things, all . told Dad and Mum ·
about her.
“Old Ma Rigby’s a Holy Terror,” they’d say.
“You wait till she goes for you.” Everyone seemed
to think she would just call one day and “Go”
for Dad and Mum.
Stu and me never said about being friends with
her–Stu is clever and he said best not. The yellow
kids at school used to tell about chasing her and
giving cheek, but Stu said: “Bet I know who does
the chasing- not you .” So they shut up skiting.
She told us lots of stories about what they used
to do “on the roads” with the teams. Some days
she’d be cross about something or someone, and
tell us how she’d “let them know”.
At home we’d hear the sergeant’s wife tell Mum:
“Old Ma Rigby went off at so-and-so today.” They
all used to laugh a lot about that. Once when we
were coming from school for lunch we saw her
coming out of Daley’s store backwards, and yelling
out bad names at the stor ekeeper . As we passed,
we could see him standing well back against the
store wall and Jim, the yellow boy who helped
him, ran out the back.
When she saw us she dropped two gibbers from
her hand. Big ones. She wiped her hands on her
dress and came over to where we were walking.
I felt scared. But Stu raised his hat and said:
“Good-day, Mrs. Rigby.”
“Good-day Stoot,” she said, and nodded at me.
Then she stepped up close and peered into our
faces. I felt her breath, and wanted to run, but
I could see Stu wasn’t scared; then she said, still
peering into our faces and nodding her head from
one to the other: “Yous boys been good at school
today, hey?” .
Stu said: “Yes, Mrs. Rigby,” and then she looked
real pleased and said: “That’s all right, well,”
and turned away towards her place.
Everyone at the store and the hotel had been
standing still and watching, and Mum hurried to
the gate to meet us coming in, and said: “What
did that old thing say to you two?”
“Were we good at school today,” Stu said, and
went in to dinner.
Mum and Sis took deep breaths and then laughed
and looked at each other and Mum said: “Well,
can you beat that?”
Then, after dinner, she said: “If that old woman
ever speaks to you boys any time, you both be
polite and answer nicely. Some of the boys tease
her. She’s dangerous. Now, do you hear me?”
We said “Yes.”

Some Saturdays we learned to sew leather and
put rivets in. She showed us a little flowery plant
that made good yeast, and we went looking for
it for her along the river banks. She would bake
lovely bread in a big camp oven, and the days
we knew she had set it we would hurry down after
school and watch her knead it up, and wait till
she baked it. She never used the table to work on
like women do, but cut open a clean flour-bag
and knelt in front of it to roll and knead the
dough, round and round, and in on itself. She
showed us how to make the hole for the big old
iron camp oven “that me Dad had on the roads,”
and we would carry shovels full of coals or ashes
and put them carefully on the top. We had to be
careful and do everything proper too, my word;
if we didn’t do
We ate as much of the crisp bread as we wanted
to. I don’t think she really needed to make it.
She just liked to do It, and we liked her to. I
expect she got a bit lonely for her own boys, too.
There were ten of them, she said, “but they’s all
gorn over now.”
We weren’t too sure about that, but anyway
she didn’t seem to expect them back. Sometimes,
_ tum worried when we didn’t want much tea on
bread days, but Stu just said: “We had some
pieces.” Mum thought it would be at a boy’s
place.
After Christmas the river came down and the
sergeant called for us all and took us up in his
car to see the floods. There were a lot up there.
Everyone was out to see the river running, and I
saw Mrs. Rigby watching too, but she turned away
when she saw us with the sergeant. We went
o her place next day and she told us she’d seen
us. She said she didn’t go much on Them Fellers.
One of them had taken her old man orf. She
never said where to, and we didn’t ask. We walked
down to the river’s edge with her and stood
atching the water rushing along. It filled the
deep hole between the high banks where the soak
was, and was up over the end of the town too,
and over the railway bridge. “But this wasn’t
nothing”-she said of the roaring waters-“Yous
boys should’ve seen her the time my Harry went
over her.”
Harry, she said, was a good boy. She looked at
us very fiercely here, and seemed to be waiting
for us to say he wasn’t. “Harry never done anythlng
wrong,” she went on, “just had a lot of spirit
in him. Time the river come down that year,
Them Fellers had him locked up. There was a lot
of thunder about that night, a real big storm, and
y Harry kicked his way out-fancy, eh? kicked
down the door.”
She looked away into the distance as if she
could see Harry back, then: “Strong! My word
that Harry was strong!” she said, “he come and
got tucker and borrowed a horse and swum ‘er.”
She nodded at the swollen river.
“Did he? In all that flood?” Stu asked, and I
stared at the tumbling whitey-brown water rushing
along, and the boughs of trees and old logs
bobbing in it, and sticks and leafy bushes, and l
thought of Strong Harry swimming in that with
his borrowed horse, and I suppose pushing aside
the boughs and that out of his road with his strong
arms.
“Yes,” Mrs. Rigby answered Stu, “-Just acrorst
there.” She pointed at the low bank further along
and we waited to hear more. But she seemed to
have gone away somewhere for awhile, then. So
we all watched the patterns of the rushing water
and thought of Strong Harry in it in the night.
“Did he go far?” Stu asked.
“No,” she said. “No, not Harry. He done a fool
thing- borrowed the wrong horse. Corse, mindj
oo, it was real black that night, but I reckon I
never got over Harry to mistake a horse like
that.”
“Why-did the horse buck him off?” Stu asked
then.
“No. Drowned itself. Not a swimmer- lot of
horses like that. Look here now-” She bent down
and put a small twig at the edge of the water.
“Yous boys always wants to do that, see? Then
watch the water and you’ll know if she’s rising
or falling, see?”
We said “Yes,” we would remember what she
told us. She’d left Strong Harry, we could see,
and it didn’t seem proper to ask any more.

Once at breakfast Mum and Sis were talking
about her, and Mum said: “I feel a bit sorry for
her though, poor old thing. She’s had a lot of
trouble-and losing all those children . . .”
Dad said: “Has she lost them, though? I heard
a yarn or two about ;J. few of them beating the
police to the Territory border.” So we hoped
Strong Harry never drowned with that wrong
horse after all.
Then Mr. Harris left on transfer, and a new
sergeant came. We didn’t see as much of him as
we did of the Harris’s. Dad told Mum he was a
New Broom when she asked about him.
We were nearly finished lunch that day when
Dad came in and said to Mum: “Hear the sergeant
took old Ma Rigby up last night.”
“Goodness,” Mum said, “Whatever’s happened?”
“Oh, nothing, I don’t think. He’s just cleaning
up. Hear he’s goililg to ship her to Brisbane on
today’s train with young Fletcher. Not waiting
for the mail, in case she gets troublesome, I
suppose.”
We went out quick, without eating any more,
and I asked Stu: “Where will they take her?”
“Dunno.” The bottom of my stomach felt like
when I’ve told Mum a lie. The yeller kids at
school said they knew where she was getting
taken to but we wouldn’t tell them we believed
it. And Stu was real silly in lessons all afternoon.
The slow train got in at four. We hurried and
got through the fence for a short cut instead of
going home first and being stopped by anything.
We stood up the end of the dirt platform-it was
red an t-bed, a bit higher than the other ground.
We knew Dad would be in his office till the train
came in, and Jelly Neil the porter wouldn’t mind
us.
The new sarge (Mum said it was disrespectful
to say “sarge”, but I was always going to now,
and so was Stu; we made it up at school that day)
well, the new sarge and Constable Fletcher were
standing at the door of the waiting shed. We
walked along quietly and saw Mrs. Rigby sitting
on the bench inside.
We wouldn’t have known her. She had on a
black dress with a lot of lace stuff at the throat
and a big brooch with yellow glass stones in it,
pinned on the neck, very high, and as she swallowed
it moved up and down and wobbled a bit .
There were black cotton gloves on her hands, and
a shiny black hat with a funny broken grape on
one side of a ribbon band sat on her head. On
her lap she had a small basket, very neatly strapped
with one of the strong leather ones we’d seen
her make. Then I saw it was the one I put the
rivets in too, and I just wished her Strong Harry
would ride up then and hit that new sarge.
We went in the waiting room, and it was dark
after outside. Mrs. Rigby was looking away like
she did after Harry that day. Then she looked
at us, peering how she did, and Stu said: “Hullo
Mrs. Rigby. Is there anything you’d like us to
do while you are away?” Gee! Stu is game.
She sat up straight then, from where she had
been kind of slumped and tired-looking, and the
sun came in and I saw that the black hat and
her clothes were really a kind of greeny-color.
“Well, good-day yous boys,” she said, real st rong
and loud for that old sarge to hear too. “Yes now,
there is a few things.” Her voice got much stronger
as she went on, real like the old Ma Rigby they
were all afraid of.
“Look after my soak now. Don’t let none of
Them Fellers near it!” I thought of the water
rushing along over it but didn’t say. “-And let
no one near my place neither, Stoot. Any Them
Fellers goes near it, my wor<l I’ll let ’em know!”
The train whistle sounded at the bend. Mrs.
Rigby got up and handed Stu the basket and me
a little box from under the seat. You could see
she felt a lot better now. But not the sarge and
the constable . . . They came close to the waiting
shed and looked at us hard. Mrs. Rigby bustled
us down the step and shouldered the two of them
aside as we passed. The slow goods pulled up
and Dad came out of his office. The train guard
got down, and seeing Mrs. Rigby, said, “Where
to, lady?”
Stu said, real quick, before that old sarge could
say anything, “Brisbane–and a good seat facing_
the engine, please.”
The guard grinned and handed Mrs. Rigby in
and found her a good seat where she could talk
to us from the window while Neil and he unloaded
some stuff from the van. We stood close to the
window and Stu talked about Brisbane to her. I
felt someone touch my shoulder. It was the sarge,
and he was handing two shillings to me.
“Go and get your friend some soft drink for the
train,” he said, “-you’ve got time.”
I looked at Stu and he nodded. I ran fast to
the store for it. On the way I thought, “Oh, I
never asked her what sort.” But I got lemonade
because I like that and anyway she mightn’t have
known the names of soft drinks. I never saw her
have any. I reckon they only had tea on the
roads. But I bet she’d like lemonade. When I
got back with the soft-drink Dad was talking to
Mrs. Rigby and smiling. She looked real well and
proud too-her head kept turning to the other
people in the carr iage, and she called Dad “Station
Master”.
“You got two sensible sorts of boys here, Station
Master.” She nodded at us. “Mindjoo boys get
out of band- you got ter let them know you want
things done proper.”
I didn’t give the cold bottle to Stu to give her,
either. I reached up to her myself. “Here’s some
lemonade for the journey, Mrs. Rigby,” I said.
Journey sounded more proper than just train.
She took the bottle and showed it to the other
passengers.
“See, eh? Thank yous, boys.” Then the whistle
had gone and the train was moving before I had
time to tell her it wasn’t us that bought it for, her.
We waved till the train went round the bend,
and Stu looked at me so’s we’d go through the
short cut again and miss Dad and them, and we
went quick.
My stomach felt better than at dinner-time. You
bet there wasn’t anything to worry about. Mrs.
Rigby wouldn’t let anyone get HER down at any
old looney house like the yellow kids had said.
Not her. She’d let them know, you bet. And I’m
going to say “The Sergeant” again, now. I bet
Stu does, too.