June 27, 1964

Mr. Cully Wilson
Route 7
Calverton

I know it's only one day since we left but I saw these cows and it made me so homesick I had to send it to you. I would give anything to be back there with you and Lassie. How is she? Is she eating okay? Does she miss me?

Maybe I sounded awfully brave yesterday when I left Lassie with you, but I don’t feel that way now. I miss her a lot. Right after we left Capitol City I had a big fight with Dad and now I'm not speaking to him. In fact, I’m sitting at the other end of the car from both him and Mom. She doesn't look very happy but I don't care.

Your pal,
Timmy

P.S. I miss you, too.

P.P.S. Please hug Lassie for me and tell her I miss her!

June 28, 1964

Mr. Cully Wilson
Route 7
Calverton

We have a stopover here in Denver so I thought I would send you this postcard. The mountains are just as beautiful as they look in the picture but I would rather not have ever seen them.

Mom and Dad wanted to go to church this morning when we arrived, and I went. Mom and I have sort of made up; Australia was Dad's idea, not hers. I wouldn’t sit next to him and he looked awfully hurt. I don’t think he knows how much I miss Lassie.

I can’t wait until we get somewhere where I can get your letters. You will write as often as you can, promise? I forgot to remind you about brushing Lassie’s coat. Oh, I don’t expect you to brush her every day—I know you have a lot of work to do, but don't let it go too long. Her coat is awfully hard to brush if you leave it.

Please give Lassie a hug for me. I miss her an awful lot. I wish there was some way for Dad to turn this whole trip around so we could come home.

Your pal,
Timmy

June 30, 1964

Mr. Cully Wilson
Route 7
Calverton

Just a short stop. We have gotten word that we will be staying at the Fremont Hotel, 711 Fremont Street, San Francisco, 02, California until we sail. Please write to me there and tell me all about Lassie and the farm. We will be there at the hotel for a week at least. Gotta mail this now.

Timmy

July 2, 1964

Room 241
Fremont Hotel
711 Fremont Street
San Francisco, 02, California

Mr. Cully Wilson
Route 7
Calverton

Dear Mr. Cully,

Dad had a message to call the realtor selling our farm and Jenny told him about your heart attack! Are you okay? What about Lassie? Is she okay? Who is taking care of her and Silky while you are sick? Dad wouldn't tell me all of what Jenny said.

We are in San Francisco waiting for our ship to take us to Australia. Mom took me shopping yesterday and I got to see a lot of the city. It was pretty nice even though you know I am not the city type. But the hills around here are awful, worse than the cliffs at home.

I miss you and Lassie and Calverton and the Scouts and my friends. I even miss school, even though it’s vacation. If I were there I could help with your farm work the way I did the last time you went to the hospital and you wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I wish the stupid Australians had never advertised for farmers. I want to come home!

Please take care of yourself!!!!!

Your pal,
Timmy

July 22, 1964

Mr. Corey Stuart
c/o Franklin National Forest Ranger Station
Franklin 30, California

Dear Mr. Stuart,

It has been a long time since I got any mail and the first letter I opened was from Mr. Cully telling me about your having Lassie. I'm awfully sorry things didn't work out with her staying with Mr. Cully, but I'm glad she is with you after what you two went through together last year. Mr. Cully is pretty old to be taking care of a big dog like my Lassie. Silky is almost too much of a handful for him.

I was glad to hear how you had saved Silky, too. He sure is a little pest sometimes!

We docked in Sydney yesterday and the customs people are still going over our things to make sure we have not imported anything dangerous into the country, especially insects or some type of contaminated grain. It makes me mad that they have to do this especially since it was their idea—or I guess the government's idea, really—that we come over here. I guess Mr. Cully told you I didn't want to come here. He probably told you a lot of things, like about the fight I had with Dad. We still aren’t speaking much. When I lie awake at night thinking, I know I'm acting like a little kid and I feel kinda ashamed, but I really didn't want to come here if it meant leaving Lassie behind.

Everyone says I will learn to like it here and the man from Agriculture Ministry, Mr. Coppersmith, has been very nice to us, but I still miss home and I miss Lassie most of all.

Please can you keep me up-to-date on what you are doing and how she is?

Yours truly,
Timmy Martin

P.S. I guess if Dad was really mean he wouldn’t be letting me buy an air mail stamp to send this.

But he still could have looked into things more carefully.

July 26, 1964

Mr. Corey Stuart
c/o Franklin National Forest Ranger Station
Franklin 30, California

Dear Mr. Stuart,

You probably don’t have my last letter by now but it is Sunday and I don’t have anything to do but write letters. Dad wanted to know if I would go sight-seeing with him and Mom, but I said no. There isn’t anything in this place I want to see, not even that weird looking new building on the harbor. Dad said we could even take a few days and go see the tracking station where they communicate with the astronauts if I wanted, but I turned him down. If I have to be in Australia and go to a new farm, I’ll be here and I'll go, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

At home, once we’d gone to church and had dinner, Lassie and I would have been free to do anything we wanted, go fishing, or visit Mr. Cully, or maybe watch Jed West train his new horse. Jed was going to let me ride Ranger when he was fully broken and now I’ll never get to do that. Or Lassie and I could have walked into Calverton and I could have stopped for an ice-cream soda and we could have visited Mr. Washburne. I don’t even know if they have ice-cream sodas here. It’s an awful place. I hardly want to go outside.

You know, Lassie was always so good with wild animals that Mr. Cully and Mom and Dad always said she should be in the Forest Service. So now she’s made it…and I’m not there to be with her. I guess I should be jealous of you but I’m not.

Please, please write soon, I am all alone.

Yours truly,
Timmy Martin

August 10, 1964

Mr. Corey Stuart
c/o Franklin National Forest Ranger Station
Franklin, California 99330

Dear Mr. Stuart,

Thanks for the long letter and the pictures of Lassie! I have pinned them up in my room. I thought the eagle story was great! Did you know Lassie once had another eagle friend? She lost her own baby so we gave her a goose egg to raise. We eventually brought the goose back to our farm but "Mrs. Eagle" came by to see her once in a while. Once she helped Lassie when she had puppies. She disappeared about a year ago. Maybe she got killed or found another mate.

Thanks also for the stuff you said in your letter. Remember the letter I sent you last Sunday? I left it on my desk and Dad saw the P.S. I put in it about the stamp and all. He said he wanted to talk to me and could we sit down and do it? Usually Dad tells me to sit down, not asks, so I thought I should make him happy.

So we had a long talk, and while I'm still kinda upset at Dad I guess he was doing what he thought was best for us. He reminded me that before I had Lassie she belonged to Jeff Miller and he gave her up to me to do what was best for her.

He said something else that made me think, that now that I was fourteen I wasn’t just a kid anymore, I was a partner in the farm and that he’d always hoped we’d grow up to be partners and I’d want to stay with farming rather than going away. And that he’d missed talking to his partner. So I guess we are “speaks” again, according to Seamus (see next page).

I suppose I will have to think of myself the way you said, like a pioneer. Those folks who settled the West had to give up a lot of things, too. But it was usually houses and things, not their dog! Their dogs went with them, under the wagon.

Anyway, a lot of things have happened since I wrote you last. We are still in Sydney, being put up at the Ministry buildings while Dad is buying supplies for the farm, and there is another family here, the Donnegans, who also pulled up stakes. They're from Ireland. One of them is a boy just a year older than me (he's fifteen). He had to give up his dog, too. His name is Seamus, but that's pronounced "Shamus." He has two little sisters who are big pests and a little brother who can't do much but crawl around the floor when we talk. So we get together and talk about our dogs, or go out for a walk. He used to have a border collie named Gyp. His "da"—that's what he calls his father—says they will get another dog when they move out to their new property. They will be moving further west than us, where the country is better for raising cattle and sheep. So they won't have a farm, but a "sheep station."

Dad says we will have a small flock of sheep like we did back in Calverton, nothing like the flock the Donnegans will have, and that we’ll need at least one dog. He’s right, but it can be his dog. I don't want another. Ever.

Miss Hazlit taught us all about Australia and New Zealand in our geography classes, but it still didn't hit me until we arrived how funny it was to be on the other side of the Earth. Winter is just beginning to end here and it will be going on spring, so I won't get to see a full winter until next year. Mr. Coppersmith said the place we were to gets fairly cold but almost never gets any snow. When Shamus and I go for walks we have started looking for the new trees and plants that are in the guidebooks Mr. Coppersmith gave us. The only tree I can identify right now is the eucalyptus, or gum tree. It has funny long leaves and a really weird smell.

You know what else? It is midsummer here at Christmastime so people who live along the coastline go to the beach on Christmas Day! Country people have picnics. Me, I'm going to miss having snow.

Seamus says that since now we're in Australia we need to start using their words. Everything is spelled funny down here. They put a "u" in "color" and "flavor," and spell "tire" with a "y." I don't think I'll ever get used to it. If something makes you proud you say you are "chuffed." And a friend is a "mate." Strange, huh?

Your "mate,"
Timmy Martin

August 30, 1964

Waratah Farm
c/o Narromine Post Office
Postbox 75
New South Wales, Australia

Mr. Corey Stuart
c/o Franklin National Forest Ranger Station
Franklin, California 99330

Dear Mr. Stuart,

Thanks for yet another great letter! I loved the picture of Lassie with the beavers. She's always liked beavers.

You can write to me at the new return address now. Yes, we are finally on our new farm and have been here for almost a week. We have four times as much land as we did in Calverton, but a lot of it has been reclaimed by the bush (that is what they call the woods here), so Dad and I have plenty of work cut out for us. According to Mr. Coppersmith, the people who had this property previous to us didn't like to farm and finally sold out. They sure left a mess.

Oh, the farm has a name. Mr. Coppersmith says that is a tradition brought over from England. It’s called Waratah Farm because of the flowers the original owners planted on either side of the front gate. A waratah is a big red flower that looks a little like a thistle; Mom has already fallen in love with pictures of them. She can't believe how bright they are. Ours haven't bloomed yet, though, so I can't tell you if the colour is really that brilliant.

Mom looked a little funny when we first drove up to the house. It is a old-fashioned place, two storys, that was built in the 1920s, with a big porch (called a verandah) around the front, sided with weathered wooden boards. Mom was afraid the kitchen would be just as old-fashioned because someone in the city had told her that some Australian sheep stations still had iceboxes and kerosene lamps. (Mom hates iceboxes. If Lassie could talk she could tell you a good story about our old icebox!) But this one has electricity "laid on," as they say here. It generated from a windmill and then there's a generator to store the power. The windmill also pumps water from the well. The ground floor—that's what they call the first floor—has a kitchen, pantry, dining room, and a big "parlor." Upstairs is the bathroom and three bedrooms. Mom is using the smallest room for a sewing room.

Dad was really pleased when he saw the condition of the land and is already making plans what will be planted in which fields, what else needs to be cleared and what he will plant there, and what will be used for pasturage. They told us this area was pretty flat but we do have some woods and a good woodlot, which is nice because the one thing the house doesn't have, is a furnace! There is a weird stove—well, weird for us; they are common here, we are told—called an Aga that also heats a portion of the house; it runs on oil.

The best surprise is that we are near a school. Before we knew the area Dad thought I might have to go to a “school of the air” and I was actually hoping I could. Seamus and his sisters are so far from a school that they will have to do this: you listen to the teacher and get all your tests by radio and then you mail them in and they are graded. It sounded neat. But there is a school about five miles from here. Dad says that it too long for me to bicycle and since some of the roads really aren’t that good, guess what…I am going to have a HORSE! I’ve always wanted a horse, and I’m already fixing up the stall for it.

To finish the Seamus story, the Donnegans moved to a sheep station near Wilcannia, which is on the other side of NSW from us. We’re going to be pen pals, though, and maybe I can visit him sometime (the train—I mean railway—goes quite close to his new place). He already has written to me about their new place and also his new dog, named Floss. I guess she's pretty. It's some kind of a dog they call a "kelpie," and looks to me a lot like a German Shepherd. Seamus says they are actually part collie. I'd rather have a real collie, though.

Give Lassie a big hug for me.

Your mate,
Timmy

October 15, 1964

Waratah Farm
c/o Narromine Post Office
Postbox 75
New South Wales, Australia

Mr. Corey Stuart
c/o Franklin National Forest Ranger Station
Franklin, California 99330

Dear Mr. Stuart,

Sorry I haven't written in a while but things have been very busy. School began just after I wrote to you. It is very odd to be learning Australian history instead of American history, but a lot of it is fun. Do you know they had cowboys here, and stagecoaches, and waystations just like in the Old West? The master had us read a great poem called "The Man from Snowy River" that is just like a great old Western movie—except Snowy River is a real place south of here. The poem is about a cowboy who rounds up a herd of wild horses by himself, even though the other men think he and his horse aren't good enough.

Okay, so I mentioned the horses on purpose! I have my horse already, and I have to tell you all about him. He is descended from "brumbies," which are wild horses, like mustangs. He's not a handsome horse, but he's very fast and pretty smart. He's a chestnut, 15 hands, with one white forefoot (the left) and a white snip on his nose. I call him "Cobber," which is another name for a buddy. I used some birthday and Christmas money I had saved to buy a bridle and Mom and Dad surprised me with an early Christmas present, a saddle. I was embarrassed when Dad gave it to me because of the way I acted on the way here, and I apologized to him before I took it. It was nice of them after the way I behaved and I knew it. Dad said it was okay. I'm glad we've made up.

Mom says she hardly sees me anymore because when I'm not at school or helping Dad I am off exploring the bush with Cobber. Lassie sure would have thought it was fun running with us.

Oh, there’s something else, and don’t laugh. I have a new mate—and she is a girl!

It happened this way: the first day I went riding with Cobber on my own we took a trail through the bush to a creek that is nearby. I've started keeping a list of the new animals and birds I see. I was trying to find kookaburras that day—I could hear them making a fuss but couldn't see them—and was almost on top of a horse and rider before I even noticed them. The rider was in a hat and bluejeans and a shirt, and when I said hi to him—it turned out "he" was a girl, one I had seen at school! Her name is Clementine Watford, called Clemmy. Her parents emigrated here after World War II and she is named after Winston Churchill's wife. When I was a little kid one of my favorite songs was "My Darling Clementine." Isn't that funny?

Mom had told me that at the next farm up the road they had a daughter my age but I never wanted to meet her. When I saw her in school I figured she was just some fussy thing in dresses like Willy Brewster or the girls in Miss Hazlit's class. Boy, was I wrong. She's great. She can ride like nobody's business and has her own flock of lambs that she takes care of all by herself.

She's even trained her own dog to take care of the sheep. Kellie seems like a pretty good dog. She's what they call a bluey (blue heeler). Like Cobber, they’re not very handsome, but they seem to be pretty smart. Mr. Watford—Clemmy's father—has several of them to help out with the sheep and cows.

Mom is calling me and I need to get this in the post. We have to drive to town if we want to mail things, and Dad is going tomorrow.

Your mate,
Timmy

P.S. Say hi to Lassie for me. I have put the picture you sent in my album.

November 14, 1964

Waratah Farm
c/o Narromine Post Office
Postbox 75
New South Wales, Australia

Mr. Corey Stuart
c/o Franklin National Forest Ranger Station
Franklin, California 99330

Dear Corey,

I’d planned to write you right after your last post came but I have been so busy. I really enjoyed your last letter. I didn’t know you had been a Marine stationed near here during the war. Someday you'll have to tell me about it. Dad has become great friends with Clemmy's father: he served in the RAF during World War II, just like Dad served in the Air Force.

You should see our oats and wheat! They are already sprouting. Dad said in an fertile area like this we might even be able to harvest wheat twice in a year! Mom has a big vegetable garden as well and we are planning on selling the surplus once it is ripe. The soil is so good here the Watfords tell us the vegetables will be huge. Things never grew like this in Calverton!

We are also getting a flock of sheep sometime after Christmas. We already have a cow for our own use, but Dad is thinking of getting another and also about having a herd of steers to fatten for market. Dad has already hired two permanent farmhands, and even with my help and Mom pitching in a lot we shall have to hire a couple more blokes during the harvest.

Another bit of good news: the local boys have organized a Scout troop, with Mr. Watford as the Scoutmaster! I'm glad I kept my Scouting things instead of tossing them the way I wanted to after I found we were going to move. The blokes here think my Indian beadwork and crafts are wonderful. I was really chuffed! In a few weeks we are going on a horse campout. All the boys in the troop have horses, so I'm really glad for Cobber now. I'm going to teach them some Scout songs from the States and one of the boys, Charlie, has promised to teach me how to use a boomerang! Of course they think that stuff is "old hat" but it looks fun to me. Charlie has entered contests and won prizes for his throwing. He’s an aborigine and his grandfather still follows the old ways and lives out in the bush, so Charlie knows all the authentic ways to do things. I bet Mr. Cully would have liked to know his grandfather; he always did say the old ways were best. I'll have to write to him about it.

I've been helping Clemmy a lot with her lambs. Kellie is ace with them, but she's not friendly with other dogs, so I guess if Lassie had come she would have to stay home when I am at the Watfords. I visit there so often Mrs. Watford just sets a place for me at table now!

Your mate,
Timmy

December 5, 1964

Waratah Farm
c/o Narromine Post Office
Postbox 75
New South Wales, Australia

Mr. Corey Stuart
c/o Franklin National Forest Ranger Station
Franklin, California 99330

Dear Corey,

Been very busy. Not a lot of time to write. They give lots of homework here and there are chores and Scouts and grooming and riding Cobber. Plus it is lambing time! I am super busy helping Clemmy so I will be able to help Dad when we get our own flock.

Did I tell you that Kellie was going to have puppies?

Hope you and Lassie are okay.

Tim

P.S. You asked me what a bluey was. Clemmy says in the States they call them Australian cattle dogs.

December 20, 1964

Waratah Farm
c/o Narromine Post Office
Postbox 75
New South Wales, Australia

Mr. Corey Stuart
c/o Franklin National Forest Ranger Station
Franklin, California 99330

Dear Corey,

Enclosed are some snapshots of our farm. That pretty one of Mom was taken in the orchard when the apple trees blossomed. We will have twice the fruit crop we had in Calverton. The rest of the farm is doing fine and Dad and I are working hard on the sheepfold. We get our sheep right after the New Year. Dad asked me if I would pick out a dog for us. I guess I need to. Maybe even a heeler would do.

Don't laugh at the last picture. The school here has a Christmas dance for fifth form and older students. I asked Clemmy to go with me. Isn't she pretty?

Hope you—and Lassie, too—have (or had by the time this letter gets to you) a Merry Christmas.

Tim

December 31, 1964

Waratah Farm
c/o Narromine Post Office
Postbox 75
New South Wales, Australia

Mr. Corey Stuart
C/o Franklin National Forest Ranger Station
Franklin, California 99330

Dear Corey,

Kellie had her puppies on Boxing Day, during the big picnic we had at our farm. The puppy I'm holding is mine, Clemmy's Christmas prezzy to me.

I've named her "Lassie." I didn't think she'd mind.

Thanks for all your letters and help this year.

Happy New Year,
Your mate,
Tim