Books: On Our Selection
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Steele Rudd (Arthur Hoey Davis) >> On Our Selection
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"Well, we must do the best we can at present," Dad answered, "and I'll go
to the store this evening and see what is to be done."
Putting the fence up again in the hurry that Dad was in was the very
devil! He felled the saplings--and such saplings!--TREES many of them
were--while we, "all of a muck of sweat," dragged them into line. Dad
worked like a horse himself, and expected us to do the same. "Never mind
staring about you," he'd say, if he caught us looking at the sun to see if
it were coming dinner-time--"there's no time to lose if we want to get the
fence up and a crop in."
Dan worked nearly as hard as Dad until he dropped the butt-end of a heavy
sapling on his foot, which made him hop about on one leg and say that he
was sick and tired of the dashed fence. Then he argued with Dad, and
declared that it would be far better to put a wire-fence up at once,
and be done with it, instead of wasting time over a thing that would only
be burnt down again. "How long," he said, "will it take to get the posts?
Not a week," and he hit the ground disgustedly with a piece of stick he
had in his hand.
"Confound it!" Dad said, "have n't you got any sense, boy? What earthly
use would a wire-fence be without any wire in it?"
Then we knocked off and went to dinner.
No one appeared in any humour to talk at the table. Mother sat silently
at the end and poured out the tea while Dad, at the head, served the
pumpkin and divided what cold meat there was. Mother would n't have any
meat--one of us would have to go without if she had taken any.
I don't know if it was on account of Dan arguing with him, or if it was
because there was no bread for dinner, that Dad was in a bad temper;
anyway, he swore at Joe for coming to the table with dirty hands. Joe
cried and said that he could n't wash them when Dave, as soon as he had
washed his, had thrown the water out. Then Dad scowled at Dave, and Joe
passed his plate along for more pumpkin.
Dinner was almost over when Dan, still looking hungry, grinned and asked
Dave if he was n't going to have some BREAD? Whereupon Dad jumped up in a
tearing passion. "D--n your insolence!" he said to Dan, "make a jest of
it, would you?"
"Who's jestin'?" Dan answered and grinned again.
"Go!" said Dad, furiously, pointing to the door, "leave my roof, you
thankless dog!"
Dan went that night.
It was only upon Dad promising faithfully to reduce his account within two
months that the storekeeper let us have another bag of flour on credit.
And what a change that bag of flour wrought! How cheerful the place
became all at once! And how enthusiastically Dad spoke of the farm and the
prospects of the coming season!
Four months had gone by. The fence had been up some time and ten acres of
wheat put in; but there had been no rain, and not a grain had come up,
or was likely to.
Nothing had been heard of Dan since his departure. Dad spoke about him
to Mother. "The scamp!" he said, "to leave me just when I wanted
help--after all the years I've slaved to feed him and clothe him, see what
thanks I get! but, mark my word, he'll be glad to come back yet." But
Mother would never say anything against Dan.
The weather continued dry. The wheat did n't come up, and Dad became
despondent again.
The storekeeper called every week and reminded Dad of his promise. "I
would give it you willingly," Dad would say, "if I had it, Mr. Rice; but
what can I do? You can't knock blood out of a stone."
We ran short of tea, and Dad thought to buy more with the money Anderson
owed him for some fencing he had done; but when he asked for it, Anderson
was very sorry he had n't got it just then, but promised to let him have
it as soon as he could sell his chaff. When Mother heard Anderson
could n't pay, she DID cry, and said there was n't a bit of sugar in the
house, nor enough cotton to mend the children's bits of clothes.
We could n't very well go without tea, so Dad showed Mother how to make a
new kind. He roasted a slice of bread on the fire till it was like a
black coal, then poured the boiling water over it and let it "draw" well.
Dad said it had a capital flavour--HE liked it.
Dave's only pair of pants were pretty well worn off him; Joe had n't a
decent coat for Sunday; Dad himself wore a pair of boots with soles tied
on with wire; and Mother fell sick. Dad did all he could--waited on her,
and talked hopefully of the fortune which would come to us some day; but
once, when talking to Dave, he broke down, and said he did n't, in the
name of the Almighty God, know what he would do! Dave could n't say
anything--he moped about, too, and home somehow did n't seem like home
at all.
When Mother was sick and Dad's time was mostly taken up nursing her; when
there was nothing, scarcely, in the house; when, in fact, the wolf was at
the very door;--Dan came home with a pocket full of money and swag full of
greasy clothes. How Dad shook him by the hand and welcomed him back!
And how Dan talked of "tallies", "belly-wool", and "ringers" and implored
Dad, over and over again, to go shearing, or rolling up, or branding--
ANYTHING rather than work and starve on the selection.
That's fifteen years ago, and Dad is still on the farm.
Chapter V.
The Night We Watched For Wallabies.
It had been a bleak July day, and as night came on a bitter westerly howled
through the trees. Cold! was n't it cold! The pigs in the sty, hungry
and half-fed (we wanted for ourselves the few pumpkins that had survived
the drought) fought savagely with each other for shelter, and squealed all
the time like--well, like pigs. The cows and calves left the place to
seek shelter away in the mountains; while the draught horses, their hair
standing up like barbed-wire, leaned sadly over the fence and gazed up at
the green lucerne. Joe went about shivering in an old coat of Dad's with
only one sleeve to it--a calf had fancied the other one day that Dad hung
it on a post as a mark to go by while ploughing.
"My! it'll be a stinger to-night," Dad remarked to Mrs. Brown--who sat,
cold-looking, on the sofa--as he staggered inside with an immense log for
the fire. A log! Nearer a whole tree! But wood was nothing in Dad's eyes.
Mrs. Brown had been at our place five or six days. Old Brown called
occasionally to see her, so we knew they could n't have quarrelled.
Sometimes she did a little house-work, but more often she did n't. We
talked it over together, but could n't make it out. Joe asked Mother,
but she had no idea--so she said. We were full up, as Dave put it, of
Mrs. Brown, and wished her out of the place. She had taken to ordering us
about, as though she had something to do with us.
After supper we sat round the fire--as near to it as we could without
burning ourselves--Mrs. Brown and all, and listened to the wind whistling
outside. Ah, it was pleasant beside the fire listening to the wind! When
Dad had warmed himself back and front he turned to us and said:
"Now, boys, we must go directly and light some fires and keep those
wallabies back."
That was a shock to us, and we looked at him to see if he were really in
earnest. He was, and as serious as a judge.
" TO-NIGHT!" Dave answered, surprisedly--"why to-night any more than last
night or the night before? Thought you had decided to let them rip?"
"Yes, but we might as well keep them off a bit longer."
"But there's no wheat there for them to get now. So what's the good of
watching them? There's no sense in THAT."
Dad was immovable.
"Anyway"--whined Joe--" I'M not going--not a night like this--not when I
ain't got boots."
That vexed Dad. "Hold your tongue, sir!" he said--"you'll do as you're
told."
But Dave had n't finished. "I've been following that harrow since sunrise
this morning," he said, "and now you want me to go chasing wallabies about
in the dark, a night like this, and for nothing else but to keep them from
eating the ground. It's always the way here, the more one does the more
he's wanted to do," and he commenced to cry. Mrs. Brown had something to
say. SHE agreed with Dad and thought we ought to go, as the wheat might
spring up again.
"Pshah!" Dave blurted out between his sobs, while we thought of telling
her to shut her mouth.
Slowly and reluctantly we left that roaring fireside to accompany Dad that
bitter night. It WAS a night!--dark as pitch, silent, forlorn and
forbidding, and colder than the busiest morgue. And just to keep wallabies
from eating nothing! They HAD eaten all the wheat--every blade of it--and
the grass as well. What they would start on next--ourselves or the
cart-harness--was n't quite clear.
We stumbled along in the dark one behind the other, with our hands stuffed
into our trousers. Dad was in the lead, and poor Joe, bare-shinned and
bootless, in the rear. Now and again he tramped on a Bathurst-burr, and,
in sitting down to extract the prickle, would receive a cluster of them
elsewhere. When he escaped the burr it was only to knock his shin against
a log or leave a toe-nail or two clinging to a stone. Joe howled, but the
wind howled louder, and blew and blew.
Dave, in pausing to wait on Joe, would mutter:
"To HELL with everything! Whatever he wants bringing us out a night like
this, I'm DAMNED if I know!"
Dad could n't see very well in the dark, and on this night could n't see
at all, so he walked up against one of the old draught horses that had
fallen asleep gazing at the lucerne. And what a fright they both got!
The old horse took it worse than Dad--who only tumbled down--for he plunged
as though the devil had grabbed him, and fell over the fence, twisting
every leg he had in the wires. How the brute struggled! We stood and
listened to him. After kicking panels of the fence down and smashing
every wire in it, he got loose and made off, taking most of it with him.
"That's one wallaby on the wheat, anyway," Dave muttered, and we giggled.
WE understood Dave; but Dad did n't open his mouth.
We lost no time lighting the fires. Then we walked through the "wheat"
and wallabies! May Satan reprove me if I exaggerate their number by one
solitary pair of ears--but from the row and scatter they made there were
a MILLION.
Dad told Joe, at last, he could go to sleep if he liked, at the fire.
Joe went to sleep--HOW, I don't know. Then Dad sat beside him, and for
long intervals would stare silently into the darkness. Sometimes a string
of the vermin would hop past close to the fire, and another time a curlew
would come near and screech its ghostly wail, but he never noticed them.
Yet he seemed to be listening.
We mooched around from fire to fire, hour after hour, and when we wearied
of heaving fire-sticks at the enemy we sat on our heels and cursed the
wind, and the winter, and the night-birds alternately. It was a lonely,
wretched occupation.
Now and again Dad would leave his fire to ask us if we could hear a noise.
We could n't, except that of wallabies and mopokes. Then he would go back
and listen again. He was restless, and, somehow, his heart was n't in the
wallabies at all. Dave could n't make him out.
The night wore on. By-and-by there was a sharp rattle of wires, then a
rustling noise, and Sal appeared in the glare of the fire. "DAD!" she
said. That was all. Without a word, Dad bounced up and went back to the
house with her.
"Something's up!" Dave said, and, half-anxious, half-afraid, we gazed into
the fire and thought and thought. Then we stared, nervously, into the
night, and listened for Dad's return, but heard only the wind and the
mopoke.
At dawn he appeared again, with a broad smile on his face, and told us
that mother had got another baby--a fine little chap. Then we knew why
Mrs. Brown had been staying at our place.
Chapter VI.
Good Old Bess.
Supper was over at Shingle Hut, and we were all seated round the fire--all
except Joe. He was mousing. He stood on the sofa with one ear to the
wall in a listening attitude, and brandished a table-fork. There were
mice--mobs of them--between the slabs and the paper--layers of newspapers
that had been pasted one on the other for years until they were an inch
thick; and whenever Joe located a mouse he drove the fork into the wall
and pinned it--or reckoned he did.
Dad sat pensively at one corner of the fire-place--Dave at the other with
his elbows on his knees and his chin resting in his palms.
"Think you could ride a race, Dave?" asked Dad.
"Yairs," answered Dave, without taking his eyes off the fire, or his chin
from his palms--"could, I suppose, if I'd a pair o' lighter boots 'n
these."
Again they reflected.
Joe triumphantly held up the mutilated form of a murdered mouse and
invited the household to "Look!" No one heeded him.
"Would your Mother's go on you?"
"Might," and Dave spat into the fire.
"Anyway," Dad went on, "we must have a go at this handicap with the old
mare; it's worth trying for, and, believe me, now! she'll surprise a few
of their flash hacks, will Bess."
"Yairs, she can go all right." And Dave spat again into the fire.
" GO! I've never known anything to keep up with her. Why, bless my soul,
seventeen years ago, when old Redwood owned her, there was n't a horse in
the district could come within coo-ee of her. All she wants is a few
feeds of corn and a gallop or two, and mark my words she'll show some of
them the way."
Some horse-races were being promoted by the shanty-keeper at the
Overhaul--seven miles from our selection. They were the first of the kind
held in the district, and the stake for the principal event was five
pounds. It was n't because Dad was a racing man or subject to turf
hallucinations in any way that he thought of preparing Bess for the
meeting. We sadly needed those five pounds, and, as Dad put it, if the
mare could only win, it would be an easier and much quicker way of making
a bit of money than waiting for a crop to grow.
Bess was hobbled and put into a two-acre paddock near the house. We put
her there because of her wisdom. She was a chestnut, full of villainy, an
absolutely incorrigible old rogue. If at any time she was wanted when in
the grass paddock, it required the lot of us from Dad down to yard her, as
well as the dogs, and every other dog in the neighbourhood. Not that she
had any brumby element in her--she would have been easier to yard if she
had--but she would drive steadily enough, alone or with other horses,
until she saw the yard, when she would turn and deliberately walk away.
If we walked to head her she beat us by half a length; if we ran she ran,
and stopped when we stopped. That was the aggravating part of her! When
it was only to go to the store or the post-office that we wanted her, we
could have walked there and back a dozen times before we could run her
down; but, somehow, we generally preferred to work hard catching her
rather than walk.
When we had spent half the day hunting for the curry-comb, which we
did n't find, Dad began to rub Bess down with a corn-cob--a shelled
one--and trim her up a bit. He pulled her tail and cut the hair off her
heels with a knife; then he gave her some corn to eat, and told Joe he was
to have a bundle of thistles cut for her every night. Now and again,
while grooming her, Dad would step back a few paces and look upon her
with pride.
"There's great breeding in the old mare," he would say, "great breeding;
look at the shoulder on her, and the loin she has; and where did ever you
see a horse with the same nostril? Believe me, she'll surprise a few
of them!"
We began to regard Bess with profound respect; hitherto we had been
accustomed to pelt her with potatoes and blue-metal.
The only thing likely to prejudice her chance in the race, Dad reckoned,
was a small sore on her back about the size of a foal's foot. She had had
that sore for upwards of ten years to our knowledge, but Dad hoped to have
it cured before the race came off with a never-failing remedy he had
discovered--burnt leather and fat.
Every day, along with Dad, we would stand on the fence near the house to
watch Dave gallop Bess from the bottom of the lane to the barn--about a
mile. We could always see him start, but immediately after he would
disappear down a big gully, and we would see nothing more of the gallop
till he came to within a hundred yards of us. And would n't Bess bend to
it once she got up the hill, and fly past with Dave in the stirrups
watching her shadow!--when there was one: she was a little too fine to
throw a shadow always. And when Dave and Bess had got back and Joe had
led her round the yard a few times, Dad would rub the corn-cob over her
again and apply more burnt-leather and fat to her back.
On the morning preceding the race Dad decided to send Bess over three
miles to improve her wind. Dave took her to the crossing at the
creek--supposed to be three miles from Shingle Hut, but it might have been
four or it might have been five, and there was a stony ridge on the way.
We mounted the fence and waited. Tommy Wilkie came along riding a
plough-horse. He waited too.
"Ought to be coming now," Dad observed, and Wilkie got excited. He said
he would go and wait in the gully and race Dave home. "Race him home!"
Dad chuckled, as Tommy cantered off, "he'll never see the way Bess goes."
Then we all laughed.
Just as someone cried "Here he is!" Dave turned the corner into the lane,
and Joe fell off the fence and pulled Dad with him. Dad damned him and
scrambled up again as fast as he could. After a while Tommy Wilkie hove
in sight amid a cloud of dust. Then came Dave at scarcely faster than a
trot, and flogging all he knew with a piece of greenhide plough-rein.
Bess was all-out and floundering. There was about two hundred yards yet
to cover. Dave kept at her--THUD! THUD! Slower and slower she came.
"Damn the fellow!" Dad said; "what's he beating her for?" "Stop it,
you fool!" he shouted. But Dave sat down on her for the final effort and
applied the hide faster and faster. Dad crunched his teeth.
Once--twice--three times Bess changed her stride, then struck a branch-root
of a tree that projected a few inches above ground, and over she
went--CRASH! Dave fell on his head and lay spread out, motionless. We
picked him up and carried him inside, and when Mother saw blood on him she
fainted straight off without waiting to know if it were his own or not.
Both looked as good as dead; but Dad, with a bucket of water, soon brought
them round again.
It was scarcely dawn when we began preparing for a start to the races.
Dave, after spending fully an hour trying in vain to pull on Mother's
elastic-side boots, decided to ride in his own heavy bluchers. We went
with Dad in the dray. Mother would n't go; she said she did n't want to
see her son get killed, and warned Dad that if anything happened the blame
would for ever be on his head.
We arrived at the Overhaul in good time. Dad took the horse out of the
dray and tied him to a tree. Dave led Bess about, and we stood and
watched the shanty-keeper unpacking gingerbeer. Joe asked Dad for sixpence
to buy some, but Dad had n't any small change. We remained in front of
the booth through most of the day, and ran after any corks that popped out
and handed them in again to the shanty-keeper. He did n't offer us
anything--not a thing!
"Saddle up for the Overhaul Handicap!" was at last sung out, and Dad,
saddle on arm, advanced to where Dave was walking Bess about. They saddled
up and Dave mounted, looking as pale as death.
"I don't like ridin' in these boots a bit," he said, with a quiver in
his voice.
"Wot's up with 'em?" Dad asked.
"They're too big altogether."
"Well, take 'em off then!"
Dave jumped down and pulled them off-leaving his socks on.
More than a dozen horses went out, and when the starter said "Off!"
did n't they go! Our eyes at once followed Bess. Dave was at her right
from the jump--the very opposite to what Dad had told him. In the first
furlong she put fully twenty yards of daylight between herself and the
field--she came after the field. At the back of the course you could see
the whole of Kyle's selection and two of Jerry Keefe's hay-stacks between
her and the others. We did n't follow her any further.
After the race was won and they had cheered the winner, Dad was n't to be
found anywhere.
Dave sat on the grass quite exhausted. "Ain't y' goin' to pull the saddle
off?" Joe asked.
"No," he said. "I AIN'T. You don't want everyone to see her back,
do you?"
Joe wished he had sixpence.
About an hour afterwards Dad came staggering along arm-in-arm with another
man--an old fencing-mate of his, so he made out.
"Thur yar," he said, taking off his hat and striking Bess on the rump with
it; "besh bred mare in the worl'."
The fencing-mate looked at her, but did n't say anything; he could n't.
"Eh?" Dad went on; "say sh'ain't? L'ere-ever y' name is--betcher pound
sh'is."
Then a jeering and laughing crowd gathered round, and Dave wished he
had n't come to the races.
"She ain't well," said a tall man to Dad--"short in her gallops." Then a
short, bulky individual without whiskers shoved his face up into Dad's and
asked him if Bess was a mare or a cow. Dad became excited, and only that
old Anderson came forward and took him away there must have been a row.
Anderson put him in the dray and drove it home to Shingle Hut.
Dad reckons now that there is nothing in horse-racing, and declares it a
fraud. He says, further, that an honest man, by training and racing a
horse, is only helping to feed and fatten the rogues and vagabonds that
live on the sport.
Chapter VII.
Cranky Jack.
It was early in the day. Traveller after traveller was trudging by Shingle
Hut. One who carried no swag halted at the rails and came in. He asked
Dad for a job. "I dunno," Dad answered--"What wages would you want?"
The man said he would n't want any. Dad engaged him at once.
And SUCH a man! Tall, bony, heavy-jawed, shaven with a reaping-hook,
apparently. He had a thick crop of black hair--shaggy, unkempt, and full
of grease, grass, and fragments of dry gum-leaves. On his head were two
old felt hats--one sewn inside the other. On his back a shirt made from
a piece of blue blanket, with white cotton stitches striding up and down
it like lines of fencing. His trousers were gloom itself; they were a
problem, and bore reliable evidence of his industry. No ordinary person
would consider himself out of work while in them. And the new-comer was
no ordinary person. He seemed to have all the woe of the world upon him;
he was as sad and weird-looking as a widow out in the wet.
In the yard was a large heap of firewood--remarkable truth!--which Dad
told him to chop up. He began. And how he worked! The axe rang
again--particularly when it left the handle--and pieces of wood scattered
everywhere. Dad watched him chopping for a while, then went with Dave
to pull corn.
For hours the man chopped away without once looking at the sun. Mother
came out. Joy! She had never seen so much wood cut before. She was
delighted. She made a cup of tea and took it to the man, and apologised
for having no sugar to put in it. He paid no attention to her; he worked
harder. Mother waited, holding the tea in her hand. A lump of wood
nearly as big as a shingle flew up and shaved her left ear. She put the
tea on the ground and went in search of eggs for dinner. (We were out
of meat--the kangaroo-dog was lame. He had got "ripped" the last time
we killed.)
The tea remained on the ground. Chips fell into it. The dog saw it.
He limped towards it eagerly, and dipped the point of his nose in it.
It burnt him. An aged rooster strutted along and looked sideways at it.
HE distrusted it and went away. It attracted the pig--a sow with nine
young ones. She waddled up, and poked the cup over with her nose; then
she sat down on it, while the family joyously gathered round the saucer.
Still the man chopped on.
Mother returned--without any eggs. She rescued the crockery from the pigs
and turned curiously to the man. She said, "Why, you've let them take the
tea!" No answer. She wondered.
Suddenly, and for the fiftieth time, the axe flew off. The man held the
handle and stared at the woodheap. Mother watched him. He removed his
hats, and looked inside them. He remained looking inside them.
Mother watched him more closely. His lips moved. He said, "LISTEN TO
THEM! THEY'RE COMING! I KNEW THEY'D FOLLOW!"
"Who?" asked Mother, trembling slightly.
"THEY'RE IN THE WOOD!" he went on. "Ha, ha! I've got them. They'll
never get out; NEVER GET OUT!"
Mother fled, screaming. She ran inside and called the children. Sal
assisted her. They trooped in like wallabies--all but Joe. He was away
earning money. He was getting a shilling a week from Maloney, for chasing
cockatoos from the corn.
They closed and barricaded the doors, and Sal took down the gun, which
Mother made her hide beneath the bed. They sat listening, anxiously and
intently. The wind began to rise. A lump of soot fell from the chimney
into the fireplace--where there was no fire. Mother shuddered. Some more
fell. Mother jumped to her feet. So did Sal. They looked at each other
in dismay. The children began to cry. The chain for hanging the kettle
on started swinging to and fro. Mother's knees gave way. The chain
continued swinging. A pair of bare legs came down into the fireplace--they
were curled round the chain. Mother collapsed. Sal screamed, and ran to
the door, but could n't open it. The legs left the chain and dangled in
the air. Sal called "Murder!"
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