Summer at Mount Hope by Rosalie Ham

thruppence between them.
    Beyond Kensington Palace, an engineer advertised a portable farm steam tractor – ‘A Miracle Machine to Replace the Expensive Horse and Wagon’ – and a man wearing a strap-on Cahoon’s Patent Broadcast Seed Sower strolled through the crowd turning the handle on a box strapped to his chest so that a huge disc of seed sprayed around him, pounding the ground like hard hail and flinging it into the air to land on ladies’ parasols and gather in hat brims. Passing on her way to the produce tent, Maude scolded the salesman. The seed spray would surely get stuck in a child’s ear, she declared, and bumped into two women wearing badges, Australian Women’s Suffrage Society. They stood either side of a sandwich board that obstructed passing pedestrians. One was well groomed, her hair cut short and neat. Her dress was bohemian, loose and sack-like but well made, and she held a signboard: VOTING RIGHTS FOR WOMEN IN ALL STATES AND TERRITORIES, NOW . The other was dressed similarly, only her hem was short enough to show the top of her boots.
    Henrietta and Phoeba headed straight for them.
    â€˜Women in South Australia will be able to vote this year and stand for government as well,’ they said. Curious, the girls took pamphlets from them, tucking them into their pockets and out of their mothers’ sight.
    They took their time in the produce tent, admiring the fine knitting and lace work, the preserves and fresh vegetables, the tumbles of wool clips and vases of wheat, the watercolours and oil landscapes – including Aunt Margaret’s dead fowl – and eggs on their straw beds. Then they wandered out to the field. ‘We should find Hadley,’ said Henrietta.
    â€˜You go,’ said Phoeba, lifting her skirt as if to flee. But Henrietta caught her arm.
    â€˜He’ll be disappointed if you don’t come, Phoeba.’
    â€˜Has he said anything?—’
    â€˜Not a thing.’
    â€˜Right,’ said Phoeba, and braced herself. It would be worse if she didn’t go; she may as well get it over with.
    They walked along the line of thick, competent draughthorses, plaited and burnished with their harnesses almost gleaming, on through air thick with manure and pungent horse. Hadley was standing behind his team, the harness reins around his neck and his hands gripping the single-furrow mould-board. He tilted it from side to side, and made the soft noise of a blade carving through earth.
    â€˜Hello,’ called Phoeba and he dropped the handles instantly, the colour in his cheeks deepening. He rushed towards Phoeba but the reins were still around his neck and they pulled him up, jerking his head so his hat fell off. Almost without missing a beat he picked up his hat and came towards her. He always recovered himself well, she thought.
    â€˜I knew you’d be here for me,’ he said.
    â€˜I always will be,’ she said, then regretted it and added, ‘as any good friend should be.’
    â€˜Of course,’ said Hadley, and gestured at the horses, ‘My team—’
    â€˜Yes, they’re lovely—’
    â€˜The furrow horse tends to race a bit.’
    â€˜If you win,’ said Henrietta, ‘we’ll have our photograph taken.’
    â€˜We should have one taken anyway,’ said Phoeba, ‘to remember the good times.’
    Hadley looked at her, levelly. ‘Are the good times over, Phoeba?’
    â€˜Of course not, Hadley,’ said Henrietta, quickly. ‘Don’t be a dill. She meant as a keepsake so we can look at it together when we’re eighty.’ She straightened his tie and slapped his shoulders. ‘So, Had, what did the man say about your emasculator?’
    â€˜Oh,’ said Hadley, and explained that he had spoken to the chap wearing the strap-on Cahoon’s Patent Broadcast Seed Sower about his invention but that the man had said he’d need