Enough order had now come out of the first chaos to encourage them to write for the elder Mrs. Stevenson. Her son went to Sydney to meet her, but was there taken very ill and returned in that condition with his mother as nurse. During his absence his wife remained in sole charge, and, judging by the entries in her diary, she had her hands full every moment of the time. Everybody--white, brown, or black--went to her with apparently full confidence that she was able to cure any wound or disease. "One day," she says, "I heard a loud weeping as of some one in great pain; a man had just had two fingers dreadfully crushed. I really didn't know what to do except to go to a doctor, but as the wound was bleeding a good deal I mixed up some crystals of iron in water and washed his hand in that. To my surprise his cries instantly ceased, and he declares he has had no pain since. It was only for the effect on his mind that I gave the iron, which so far as I know is a styptic only; I always think it best to give something--perhaps on the principle of the doctors when they give bread pills. I have cured both Paul and the carpenter of violent lumbago, but there I had a little knowledge to go upon. To-day a man came to us with the sole of his foot very much inflamed from having run a nail into it the day before yesterday. I bound a bit of fat bacon on the foot--an old Negro remedy which was the only one I could think of. It is even more difficult when they bring me their domestic troubles to settle, in which they seem to think I am as great an expert as in curing their physical ills."
In the effort to keep things from being lost or improperly used she fell into the habit of storing them in her bedroom, so that in time it became a veritable junk-shop. "Among my dresses," she writes, "hang bridle straps and horse robes. On the camphor-wood trunk which serves as my dressing-table, beside my comb and toothbrush, a collection of tools--chisels, pincers, and the like--is spread out. Leather straps and parts of harness hang from the walls, as well as a long carved spear, a pistol, strings of teeth--of fish, beasts, and human beings--necklaces of shells, and several hats. Fine mats and _tapas_ are piled up in heaps. My little cot bed seems to have got into its place by mistake. Besides the above mentioned articles there are an easel and two cameras stowed in one corner. A strange lady's chamber indeed."