Meggie crouched down beside his discarded shirt and undervest to watch, awed. Three spare axes were lying nearby, for eucalyptus wood blunted the sharpest axe in no time at all. She grasped one by its handle and dragged it onto her knees, wishing she could chop wood like Frank. The axe was so heavy she could hardly lift it. Colonial axes had only one blade, honed to hair- splitting sharpness, for double-bladed axes were too light for eucalyptus. The back of the axe head was an inch thick and weighted, the handle passing through it, firmly anchored with small bits of extra wood. A loose axe head could come off in midswing, snap through the air as hard and fast as a cannonball and kill someone.
Frank was cutting almost instinctively in the fast fading light; Meggie dodged the chips with the ease of long practice and waited patiently for him to spy her. The log was half severed, and he turned himself the opposite way, gasping; then he swung the axe up again, and began to cut the second side. It was a deep, narrow gap, to conserve wood and hasten the process; as he worked toward the center of the log the axe head disappeared entirely inside the cut, and the big wedges of wood flew out closer and closer to his body. He ignored them, chopping even faster. The log parted with stunning suddenness, and at the same moment he leaped lithely into the air, sensing that it was going almost before the axe took its last bite. As the wood collapsed inward, he landed off to one side, smiling; but it was not a happy smile.
He turned to pick up a new axe and saw his sister sitting patiently in her prim nightgown, all buttoned up and buttoned down. It was still strange to see her hair clustering in a mass of short ringlets instead of done up in its customary rags, but he decided the boyish style suited her, and wished it could remain so. Coming over to her, he squatted down with his axe held across his knees.
"How did you get out, you little twerp?"
"I climbed through the window after Stu was asleep."
"If you don't watch out, you'll turn into a tomboy."
"I don't mind. Playing with the boys is better than playing all by myself." "I suppose it is." He sat down with his back against a log and wearily turned his head toward her. "What's the matter, Meggie?" "Frank, you're not really going away, are you?" She put her hands with their mangled nails down on his thigh and stared up at him anxiously, her mouth open because her nose was stuffed full from fighting tears and she couldn't breathe through it very well.
"I might be, Meggie." He said it gently.
"Oh, Frank, you can't! Mum and I need you! Honestly, I don't know what we'd do without you!"
He grinned in spite of his pain, at her unconscious echoing of Fee's way of speaking.
"Meggie, sometimes things just don't happen the way you want them to. You ought to know that. We Clearys have been taught to work together for the good of all, never to think of ourselves first. But I don't agree with that; I think we ought to be able to think of ourselves first. I want to go away because I'm seventeen and it's time I made a life for myself. But Daddy says no, I'm needed at home for the good of the family as a whole. And because I'm not twenty-one, I've got to do as Daddy says."
Meggie nodded earnestly, trying to untangle the threads of Frank's explanation.
"Well, Meggie, I've thought long and hard about it. I'm going away, and that's that. I know you and Mum will miss me, but Bob's growing up fast, and Daddy and the boys won't miss me at all. It's only the money I bring in interests Daddy."
"Don't you like us anymore, Frank?"
He turned to snatch her into his arms, hugging and caressing her in tortured pleasure, most of it grief and pain and hunger. "Oh, Meggie! I love you and Mum more than all the others put together! God, why weren't you older, so I could talk to you? Or maybe it's better that you're so little, maybe it's better . . . ."
He let her go abruptly, struggling to master himself, rolling his head back and forth against the log, his throat and mouth working. Then he looked at her. "Meggie, when you're older you'll understand better."
"Please don't go away, Frank," she repeated.
He laughed, almost a sob. "Oh, Meggie! Didn't you hear any of it? Well, it doesn't really matter. The main thing is you're not to tell anyone you saw me tonight, hear? I don't want them thinking you're in on it."
"I did hear, Frank, I heard all of it," Meggie said. "I won't say a word to anybody, though, I promise. But oh, I do wish you didn't have to go away!" She was too young to be able to tell him what was no more than an unreasoning something within her heart; who else was there, if Frank went? He was the only one who gave her overt affection, the only one who held her and hugged her. When she was smaller Daddy used to pick her up a lot, but ever since she started at school he had stopped letting her sit on his knee, wouldn't let her throw her arms around his neck, saying, "You're a big girl now, Meggie." And Mum was always so busy, so tired, so wrapped in the boys and the house. It was Frank who lay closest to her heart, Frank who loomed as the star in her limited heaven. He was the only one who seemed to enjoy sitting talking to her, and he explained things in a way she could understand.