Mr. Ramsdale Was Not Our Nearest English Neighbour - The One To Be
Described In Another Chapter; Nor Was He A Man We Cared Much About,
And His Meagre Establishment Was Not Attractive, As His Old Slatternly
Native Housekeeper And The Other Servants Were Allowed To Do Just What
They Liked.
But he was English and a neighbour, and my parents made it
a point of paying him an occasional
Visit, and I always managed to go
with them - certainly not to see Mr. Ramsdale, who had nothing to say
to a shy little boy and whose hard red face looked the face of a hard
drinker. _My_ visits were to the paroquets exclusively. Oh, why,
thought I many and many a time, did not these dear green people come
over to us and have their happy village in our trees! Yet when I
visited them they didn't like it; no sooner would I run out to the
grove where the nests were than the place would be in an uproar. Out
and up they would rush, to unite in a flock and hover shrieking over
my head, and the commotion would last until I left them.
On our return late one afternoon in early spring from one of our rare
visits to Mr. Ramsdale, we witnessed a strange thing. The plain at
that place was covered with a dense growth of cardoon-thistle or wild
artichoke, and leaving the estancia house in our trap, we followed the
cattle tracks as there was no road on that side.
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