Panning For Gold

• Charlotte Stevenson, Grade 6
• Poetry
• 2010

Panning for Gold
When I was a little girl I lived on the gold fields. It was just Dad, my brother and I. We were the Kelly’s, my brother’s name was Joe, Dad’s name was Daniel and my name is Siobhan. When my mum died, everything changed and we had to go to the gold fields. Dad said, it was to get away from the sadness. Dad also said I would have to do all that work mum had. I knew it would be hard but I was happy to do it for him.

I am an old lady now but I still remember my time on the gold fields as though it happened yesterday…

After Dad and Joe left one morning I went to get a bucket of water from the river so I could do the washing and the dishes. I could never get the clothes clean, I would hang them up in the morning and by afternoon they were red from the dust. I had to hurry because when Dad and Joe got home they’d want to have dinner. Last night Joe had complained that I didn’t have to do anything during the day.
“Why doesn’t Siobhan go to school, I had to!” Joe said.
“Is it fair that I have to wash clothes; cook dinner, make lunches and teach myself how to do things?” I shouted. Then Dad sent Joe to bed and said to me “tidy up please then go to bed it’s late!”

It was a long walk to the river and when I got there I saw another kid there,
“Hello! My name is Siobhan, what is your name!” I shouted.
“Um it is Jimmy Ton please do not hurt me!” Jimmy said, he sounded scared.
“What is wrong, I want to be friends!” I said confused.
“Ok let us go for a walk!” he answered.
“ Ok!” we started to walk; I was having trouble with my bucket so Jimmy took it for me. Then I tripped on a lump of dirt, we found some sticks and started to dig
“You are so lucky, I am so hot, I have to wear two layers of dress, an apron and boots!” I complained.

Then we hit something
“It’s a bag of coins. Let’s take it home cause it’s nearly dark. How do you think it got there?” Jimmy said, whispering in my ear.
“I think that someone dropped it and the dust buried it !”
“Ok lets go!” we started running and when we got home I started to cook, Jimmy helped. Then Dad got home
“Dad, I made a new friend today!”
“Who?”
“ Jimmy, and we found some money buried”
“ We’ll take it to the troopers, tomorrow” said Dad.

The reward the trooper gave us that day meant that we could move to a farm and I went back to a proper school. I still remember my friend Jimmy and how he helped me change my family’s life.