Matilda throws in her lot with the working men, who give her a lift into town where her father will be - it's a big night for the union, and her dad is the man who began it in Gibber's Creek. Three men are there to pick up a union speaker who rode the train with her also waiting to be picked up are a well-dressed woman and her daughter, who's about Matilda's age. When the train stops for Gibber's Creek, she finds no station or town, but the faint demarcation of a road which she might not have spotted if a wagon wasn't stopped at it. Instead, she takes her few meagre possessions, learns which train to catch from her friend Tommy, a young boy with a knack for machinery and inventing, and heads off to find her father.Īll she really knows is the name of her father's farm - Moura - and the nearest town, Gibber's Creek. Their landlady, Mrs Dawkins, is willing to let her stay if she works for her board, but Matilda has no intention of becoming a maid. When her mother dies, leaving her alone in the world, Matilda is left with few choices. She continues to write to the father she's never met, who is building a home for them in the country and getting established before they move - or so her mother has always told her, and she's never doubted it. Matilda is just twelve, pretending to be fourteen so she can work in the nearby jam factory while her mother is ill and bedridden.
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