AustLit

Sister's Love, or Lost in the Bush, is a poem about Scottish settlers' children Johnny, Frankie and Jeanie, who get lost in the bush while collecting broom. A search party is formed but fails to find the children. The father, unwilling to give up until the children are found, enlists the help of the local indigenous people, who pick up the trail again. The children are found almost dead but live to tell the tale.

According to the preface it is claimed that, 'the principal incidents in the story, are faithfully narrated from an account published, and well substantiated in the Melbourne Argus. The parents of the children were natives of Scotland, who inhabited a hut in the district, known as the "Mallee Scrub." The age of the boy, the oldest of the three children, was not more than nine years. During the period of nine days and eight nights in which they were lost, it would appear that they ate nothing and drank but once. From a private account it has come to light that during this long interval of anxious suspense, fervent prayer was made to God for the preservation of the little wanderers, and for those who sought them, coupled with the interesting fact that little Jeanie had regularly repeated the well-known child's evening prayer, beginning "Gentle Jesus," as she said, " for them all." The incident excited great interest in Melbourne, Ballarat, and Geelong, where a subscription was raised, to the amount of 226 pounds, to be appropriated to the children's education.'