Dear mum:
Finally we are in Australia. We still have lots of pressure of owning people money in China. We are working very hard to get the money to pay them back. Please don’t worry about it, we are gonna work it out as quick as we can.
As you know, it’s very dirty work on the goldfields. In the morning I have to plant flowers and take care of them. After a few hours, I sell all the plants that have grown properly to a shop and I get the money. In the night when Jack comes back from digging I cook dinner for him and we both go to sleep. Every morning Jack have to go digging very early so that he can get more gold. If he finds any gold he will sell it to get money or sometimes he keeps it. By the way, last week Jack found heaps of gold because he worked so hard that he doesn’t even want to talk when he come back from digging.
It’s very hard to stay safe on the goldfields. Because every time the English people give up finding gold in a place because they can’t find any, the Chinese can find gold there. So I guess that the English people are pretty jealous and we get treated in a different way. Every time they find us on the goldfield we get chased. Oh! It is this important to have a digging license or you’ll get in to big trouble, may be you will never be allowed on the goldfields any more, or maybe you can’t do digging for a long time if they found out you don’t have a license. It’s also hard to get a license because you need to pay lots of money to get one. Jack thinks we wasted too much money on buying the license, but I think it’s OK because we are gonna get the money back from digging gold.
I know you miss you grand children, but please don’t worry about them. They are going to a school in the town. They are very healthy. They have heaps of friends, they probably are having lots of fun at school.
Lots of love
From Clarice
22. Jun.1861
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