Queensland Cousins — Key Ideas to Explore

(0 User reviews) 1014

In Category - Fairy Moral Tales

Authors: Haverfield, Eleanor Luisa, 1870- Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2008 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Australia -- Juvenile fiction; Adventure stories; Family -- Juvenile fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 61,574

Reading time 268 min

Text sections 7

The catalog record for Queensland Cousins — Key Ideas to Explore provides practical reading context through 61,574 words, 4 hr 28 min estimated reading time, and 7 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 14.5 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Australia -- Juvenile fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #25079

An editorial note on E. L. Haverfield's 'Queensland Cousins' (1908), focusing on its shifts between domestic banter and survival tension, the use of direct speech to characterize siblings, and the abrupt transition to a captive's perspective.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg25079

Read the Text

"It has come, it has come, it has come! Oh, do be quick, father!"

The cry rang out lustily from three young voices, three eager heads were thrust over the veranda railings. Below, on horseback, was a big, brown-haired, brown-bearded man, who looked up from under his soft slouch hat with a laugh, and exclaimed,--

"What has come, you outrageously noisy youngsters? One would think I had a family of dingoes, to hear you."

Then another head appeared over the railings--a gentle-faced, fair-haired woman looked down.

"It is the parcel from home, Jack," she said. "Hadji brought it up an hour ago."

"Yes, yes, father; it is the parcel from England at last, and mother wouldn't open it till you came, so we have been waiting a whole hour--the longest hour I have ever lived."

Nesta Orban, to whom one of the first heads over the railing belonged, shook back her masses of fair, fluffy hair with an impatient little toss.

"Stuff, Nesta; you always say that," exclaimed Eustace, her twin of fourteen. "You said it yesterday coming through the scrub because you were tired; and the day before when mother made you sew for an hour instead of reading; and the day before--"

"Oh, shut up!" Nesta retorted. "You needn't quote pages from my biography like that. Let's think about the parcel.--Hurry up, dad, darling."

This last she called after her father, for Mr. Orban had not stayed a second after his wife's explanation of the excitement.

"The parcel from home," he repeated, all the laughter dying out of his face, and he spurred his horse into a trot round the house towards the stable.

The heads all came back into the veranda, and there fell a hush of expectancy as every one listened for Mr. Orban's footsteps coming up through the house.

"La, la, la! look, Nesta. Dolly downside up; Becky done it," piped a little voice from the floor.

"Oh, do be quiet, Becky. Think about the parcel from England. Perhaps there is something in it for you," said Nesta.

Mrs. Orban had seated herself again in a low wicker chair, and was busy sewing--patching a well-worn shirt with utmost patience.

"Don't be cross with Becky," she said gently. "She can't be expected at two years old to realize the meaning of a parcel from home. I don't believe you do yourself, Nesta. It is just a lot of nice things from England to you--only to father and me is it 'a parcel from home.'"

Nesta flushed a little and looked grave as she stood by the table fingering the string of the wonderful parcel. Such a lot of string there was, and so much sewing and writing! Whatever it might contain, at least the parcel looked interesting.

The owner of the third head that had looked over the veranda railing to shout the news was ten-year-old Peter. It always seemed to Nesta and Eustace that he was ever so much younger than they were--perhaps because he had been the baby for so many years, till Becky came.

"Mother," said Peter, setting himself right in front of her, and staring at her with wide blue eyes, "why don't you and father live in England when you want to so much?"

Peter was fair, and very like his mother and Nesta. Eustace and little Becky were the two who were like their father, brown-haired and brown-eyed. Peter had a delicate, sensitive face, and he was always wondering about things in a queer, dreamy sort of way.

"It is easier said than done, my little son," Mrs. Orban answered, bending low over her sewing that the child might not see the tears his question had brought to her eyes. "Father must work."

"But couldn't he work in England just as well as Queensland?" asked Peter.

"Unfortunately not," said his mother sadly. "Work is not easy to get in England, or anywhere for the matter of that."

Eustace caught the note of sadness in his mother's voice, and strolling behind Peter he gave him a kick on the ankle with all the air of its being accidental.

"Ow-wow-wow!" exclaimed Peter, hopping on one leg and holding on to the other. "You hurt me."

"Sorry," said Eustace carelessly, following him across the veranda.

"La, la, la! dolly upside downey," crooned Becky from the floor, where she sat deeply engaged in trying to make her boy doll stand on its head as she had seen Eustace do.

"Look here," said Eustace under cover of Becky's singing, "don't ask stupid questions, Peter. It always makes mother feel bad to talk about England--any silly could see that without being told, I should think."

But Peter looked surprised.

"Then you kicked me on purpose," he said, no louder than Eustace had spoken.

Continue Reading →

The opening pages of Queensland Cousins establish a crowded veranda and a parcel from England as the immediate focus. Three children—Nesta, Eustace, and a toddler named Becky—clamour for their father’s attention, their dialogue peppered with exclamations and interruptions. The narrative voice is brisk, favouring short exchanges and physical gestures: heads thrust over railings, a mother sewing patiently, a father spurring his horse. This domestic scene, with its emphasis on waiting and impatience, sets a tone of contained energy that will later give way to more isolated, perilous episodes.

From Veranda to Scrub: A Shift in Pace

The early chapters move at a conversational clip, with dialogue carrying much of the action. Nesta’s retort—“Oh, shut up!”—and her twin Eustace’s methodical teasing create a rhythm of quick exchanges. The narrator seldom lingers on description; even the arrival of the parcel is handled through exclamation and gesture rather than extended reflection. This pace changes markedly when Eustace finds himself alone among an unfamiliar group. The sentences lengthen, and the focus turns inward: “Eustace was wondering drearily how long they would stand staring at him.” The shift from spoken banter to silent observation signals a change in the story’s tempo, from communal chatter to solitary waiting.

Voice and the Captive’s Perspective

Once Eustace is separated from his family, the narration adopts a more restricted point of view. His thoughts are rendered in short, anxious questions: “Were they cannibals these people?” and “But what is going to happen to me?” The dialogue of the captors is not translated—the chief’s speech is described only as “something with many gesticulations.” This choice keeps the reader inside Eustace’s confusion. The physical details that do appear—the chief’s painted stripes, the smell of cooking—are filtered through the boy’s hunger and fear. The narrative voice becomes less assured, mirroring his loss of control.

Recurring Details of Waiting and Watching

Waiting structures both the opening and the captivity scenes. In the first chapter, the children wait an hour for their father; later, Eustace waits to see what his captors will do. The verb “stared” recurs: the children stare over the railing, the native people stare at Eustace “as if he were a monkey in a cage at the Zoo.” The author uses this repetition to connect the two settings. Even the horse, Bolter, becomes an object of scrutiny—first as a means of arrival, then as a guarded prize. These recurring details of watching and being watched give the narrative a consistent visual thread, even as the situation changes dramatically.

Readers may find it useful to note how Haverfield balances the twins’ contrasting temperaments—Nesta’s impatience versus Eustace’s more deliberate nature—before the separation. The early banter establishes a baseline of family dynamics that makes the later isolation more stark. Pay attention to the way the author handles time: the “longest hour” of the opening is echoed in the captive’s disoriented sense of duration. These structural echoes reward a second reading.

I keep circling back to that editorial note on Queensland Cousins, the way its family banter dissolves into a captive’s dread. It reminded me, oddly, of the quieter puzzle in Mary Louise Solves a Mystery — Story, Setting & Ideas—both feel like the same afternoon light, shifting from sunlit chatter to something held breathless, waiting. I hadn’t expected them to share that hush.