Breeding was the "in" thing. People talked of Haddon Rig near Warren, started actively competing with its owner, Max Falkiner, for the top ram and ewe prizes at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney. And the price of wool began to creep up, then skyrocketed. Europe, the United States and Japan were hungry for every bit of fine wool Australia. could produce. Other countries yielded coarser wools for heavy fabrics, carpets, felts; but only the long, silky fibers from Australian merinos could make a woolen textile so fine it slipped through the fingers like softest lawn. And that sort of wool reached its peak out on the black-soil plains of northwest New South Wales and southwest Queensland.
It was as if after all the years of tribulation, a just reward had arrived. Drogheda's profits soared out of all imagination. Millions of pounds every year. Fee sat at her desk radiating contentment, Bob put another two stockmen on the books. If it hadn't been for the rabbits, pastoral conditions would have been ideal, but the rabbits were as much of a blight as ever. On the homestead life was suddenly very pleasant. The wire screening had excluded flies from all Drogheda interiors; now that it was up and everyone had grown used to its appearance, they wondered how they had ever survived without it. For there were multiple compensations for the look of it, like being able to eat al fresco on the veranda when it was very hot, under the tapping leaves of the wistaria vine.
The frogs loved the screening, too. Little fellows they were, green with a delicate overlay of glossy gold. On suckered feet they crept up the outside of the mesh to stare motionless at the diners, very solemn and dignified. Suddenly one would leap, grab at a moth almost bigger than itself, and settle back into inertia with two-thirds of the moth flapping madly out of its overladen mouth. It amused Dane and Justine to time how long it took a frog to swallow a big moth completely, staring gravely through the wire and every ten minutes getting a little more moth down. The insect lasted a long time, and would often still be kicking when the final piece of wingtip was engulfed. "Erckle! What a fate!" chuckled Dane. "Fancy half of you still being alive while the other half of you is busy being digested."
Avid reading-that Drogheda passion-had given the two O'neill children excellent vocabularies at an early age. They were intelligent, alert and interested in everything. Life was particularly pleasant for them. They had their thoroughbred ponies, increasing in size as they did; they endured their correspondence lessons at Mrs. Smith's green kitchen table; they played in the pepper tree cubbyhouse; they had pet cats, pet dogs, even a pet goanna, which walked beautifully on a leash and answered to its name. Their favorite pet was a miniature pink pig, as intelligent as any dog, called Iggle-Piggle. So far from urban congestion, they caught few diseases and never had colds or influenza. Meggie was terrified of infantile paralysis, diphtheria, anything which might swoop out of nowhere to carry them off, so whatever vaccines became available they received. It was an ideal existence, full of physical activity and mental stimulation.
When Dane was ten and Justine eleven they were sent to boarding school in Sydney, Dane to Riverview as tradition demanded, and Justine to Kincoppal. When she put them on the plane the first time, Meggie watched as their white, valiantly composed little faces stared out of a window, handkerchiefs waving; they had never been away from home before. She had wanted badly to go with them, see them settled in for herself, but opinion was so strongly against her she yielded. From Fee down to Jims and Patsy, everyone felt they would do a great deal better on their own.
"Don't mollycoddle them," said Fee sternly.
But indeed she felt like two different people as the DC-3 took off in a cloud of dust and staggered into the shimmering air. Her heart was breaking at losing Dane, and light at the thought of losing Justine. There was no ambivalence in her feelings about Dane; his gay, even-tempered nature gave and accepted love as naturally as breathing. But Justine was a lovable, horrible monster. One had to love her, because there was much to love: her strength, her integrity, her self-reliance--lots of things. The trouble was that she didn't permit love the way Dane did, nor did she ever give Meggie the wonderful feeling of being needed. She wasn't matey or full of pranks, and she had a disastrous habit of putting people down, chiefly, it seemed, her mother. Meggie found much in her that had been exasperating in Luke, but at least Justine wasn't a miser. For that much be thankful.
A thriving airline meant that all the children's vacations, even the shortest ones, could be spent on Drogheda. However, after an initial period of adjustment both children enjoyed their schooling. Dane was always homesick after a visit to Drogheda, but Justine took to Sydney as if she had always lived there, and spent her Drogheda time longing to be back in the city. The Riverview Jesuits were delighted; Dane was a marvelous student, in the classroom and on the playing field.
The Kincoppal nuns, on the other hand, were definitely not delighted; no one with eyes and a tongue as sharp as Justine's could hope to be popular. A class ahead of Dane, she was perhaps the better student of the two, but only in the classroom.
The Sydney Morning Herald of August 4th, 1952, was very interesting. Its big front page rarely bore more than one photograph, usually middle and high up, the interest story of the day. And that day the picture was a handsome portrait of Ralph de Bricassart.
