Books: On Our Selection
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Steele Rudd (Arthur Hoey Davis) >> On Our Selection
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Shingles were dislodged from the roof of the house, and huge hailstones
pelted in and put the fire out, and split the table, and fell on the sofa
and the beds.
Rain fell also, but we did n't catch any in the cask--the wind blew the
spout away. It was a curled piece of bark. Nevertheless, the storm did
good. We did n't lose ALL the potatoes. We got SOME out of them. We had
them for dinner one Sunday.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Agricultural Reporter.
It had been a dull, miserable day, and a cold westerly was blowing. Dave
and Joe were at the barn finishing up for the day.
Dad was inside grunting and groaning with toothache. He had had it a week,
and was nearly mad. For a while he sat by the fire, prodding the tooth
with his pocket-knife; then he covered his jaw with his hand and went out
and walked about the yard.
Joe asked him if he had seen Nell's foal anywhere that day. He did n't
answer.
"Did y' see the brown foal any place ter-day, Dad?"
"Damn the brown foal!"--and Dad went inside again.
He walked round and round the table and in and out the back room till
Mother nearly cried with pity.
"Is n't it any easier at all, Father?" she said commiseratingly.
"How the devil can it be easier?...Oh-h!"
The kangaroo-dog had coiled himself snugly on a bag before the fire. Dad
kicked him savagely and told him to get out. The dog slunk sulkily to the
door, his tail between his legs, and his back humped as if expecting
another kick. He got it. Dad sat in the ashes then, and groaned
lamentably. The dog walked in at the back door and dropped on the bag
again.
Joe came in to say that "Two coves out there wants somethink."
Dad paid no attention.
The two "coves"--a pressman, in new leggings, and Canty, the
storekeeper--came in. Mother brought a light. Dad moaned, but did n't
look up.
"Well, Mr. Rudd," the pressman commenced (he was young and fresh-looking),
"I'm from the (something-or-other) office. I'm--er--after information
about the crops round here. I suppose--er----"
"Oh-h-h!" Dad groaned, opening his mouth over the fire, and pressing the
tooth hard with his thumb.
The pressman stared at him for awhile; then grinned at the storekeeper,
and made a derisive face at Dad's back. Then--"What have you got in this
season, Mr. Rudd? Wheat?"
"I don't know....Oh-h--it's awful!"
Another silence.
"Did n't think toothache so bad as THAT," said the man of news, airily,
addressing Mother. "Never had it much myself, you see!"
He looked at Dad again; then winked slyly at Canty, and said to Dad, in an
altered tone: "Whisky's a good thing for it, old man, if you've got any."
Nothing but a groan came from Dad, but Mother shook her head sadly in the
negative.
"Any oil of tar?"
Mother brightened up. "There's a little oil in the house," she said,
"but I don't know if we've any tar. Is there, Joe--in that old drum?"
"Nurh."
The Press looked out the window. Dad commenced to butcher his gums with
the pocket-knife, and threatened to put the fire out with blood and saliva.
"Let's have a look at the tooth, old man," the pressman said,
approaching Dad.
Dad submitted.
"Pooh!--I'll take that out in one act!"...To Joe--"Got a good strong piece
of string?"
Joe could n't find a piece of string, but produced a kangaroo-tail sinew
that had been tied round a calf's neck.
The pressman was enthusiastic. He buzzed about and talked dentistry in a
most learned manner. Then he had another squint at Dad's tooth.
"Sit on the floor here," he said, "and I won't be a second. You'll feel
next to no pain."
Dad complied like a lamb.
"Hold the light down here, missis--a little lower. You gentlemen" (to
Canty and Dave) "look after his legs and arms. Now, let your head come
back--right back, and open your mouth--wide as you can." Dad obeyed,
groaning the whole time. It was a bottom-tooth, and the dentist stood
behind Dad and bent over him to fasten the sinew round it. Then, twisting
it on his wrist, he began to "hang on" with both hands. Dad struggled and
groaned--then broke into a bellow and roared like a wild beast. But the
dentist only said, "Keep him down!" and the others kept him down.
Dad's neck was stretching like a gander's, and it looked as if his head
would come off. The dentist threw his shoulders into it like a crack
oarsman--there was a crack, a rip, a tear, and, like a young tree leaving
the ground, two huge, ugly old teeth left Dad's jaw on the end of that
sinew.
"Holy!" cried the dentist, surprised, and we stared. Little Bill made for
the teeth; so did Joe, and there was a fight under the table.
Dad sat in a lump on the floor propping himself up with his hands; his
head dropped forward, and he spat feebly on the floor.
The pressman laughed and slapped Dad on the back, and asked "How do you
feel, old boy?" Dad shook his head and spat and spat. But presently he
wiped his eyes with his shirt-sleeve and looked up. The pressman told
Mother she ought to be proud of Dad. Dad struggled to his feet then, pale
but smiling. The pressman shook hands with him, and in no time Dad was
laughing and joking over the operation. A pleased look was in Mother's
face; happiness filled the home again, and we grew quite fond of that
pressman--he was so jolly and affable, and made himself so much at home,
Mother said.
"Now, sit over, and we'll have supper," said Dad, proud of having some
fried steak to offer the visitors. We had killed a cow the evening
before--one that was always getting bogged in the dam and taking up much
of Dad's time dragging her out and cutting greenstuff to keep her alive.
The visitors enjoyed her. The pressman wanted salt. None was on the
table. Dad told Joe to run and get some--to be quick. Joe went out, but
in a while returned. He stood at the door with the hammer in his hand
and said:
"Did you shift the r-r-r-rock-salt from where S-Spotty was lickin' it this
evenin', Dave?"
Dave reached for the bread.
"Don't bother--don't bother about it," said the pressman. "Sit down,
youngster, and finish your supper."
"No bother at all," Dad said; but Joe sat down, and Dad scowled at him.
Then Dad got talking about wheat and wallabies--when, all at once, the
pressman gave a jump that rattled the things on the table.
"Oh-h-h!...I'VE got it now!" he said, dropping his knife and fork and
clapping his hands over his mouth. "Ooh!"
We looked at him. "Got what?" Dad asked, a gleam of satisfaction
appearing in his eyes.
"The toothache!--the d----d toothache!...Oh-h!"
"Ha! ha! Hoo! hoo! hoo!" Dad roared. In fact, we all roared--all but the
pressman. "OH-H!" he said, and went to the fire. Dad laughed some more.
We ate on. The pressman continued to moan.
Dad turned on his seat. "What paper, mister, do you say you come from?"
"OH-H!...Oh-h, Lord!"
"Well, let me see; I'll have in altogether, I daresay, this year, about
thirty-five acres of wheat--I suppose as good a wheat----"
"Damn the wheat!...OOH!"
"Eh!" said Dad, "why, I never thought toothache was THET bad! You reminds
me of this old cow we be eatin'. SHE moaned just like thet all the time
she was layin' in the gully, afore I knocked 'er on the head."
Canty, the storekeeper, looked up quickly, and the pressman looked round
slowly--both at Dad.
"Here," continued Dad--"let's have a look at yer tooth, old man!"
The pressman rose. His face was flushed and wild-looking. "Come on out
of this--for God's sake!" he said to Canty--"if you're ready."
"What," said Dad, hospitably, "y're not going, surely!" But they were.
"Well, then--thirty-five acres of wheat, I have, and" (putting his head
out the door and calling after them) "NEXT year--next year, all being
well, please God, I'll have SIXTY!"
CHAPTER XXIV.
A Lady at Shingle Hut.
Miss Ribbone had just arrived.
She was the mistress of the local school, and had come to board with us a
month. The parents of the score of more of youngsters attending the
school had arranged to accommodate her, month about, and it was our turn.
And did n't Mother just load us up how we were to behave--particularly Joe.
Dad lumbered in the usual log for the fire, and we all helped him throw it
on--all except the schoolmistress. Poor thing! She would have injured
her long, miserable, putty-looking fingers! Such a contrast between her
and Sal! Then we sat down to supper--that old familiar repast, hot meat
and pumpkin.
Somehow we did n't feel quite at home; but Dad got on well. He talked
away learnedly to Miss Ribbone about everything. Told her, without
swearing once, how, when at school in the old country, he fought the
schoolmaster and leathered him well. A pure lie, but an old favourite of
Dad's, and one that never failed to make Joe laugh. He laughed now. And
such a laugh!--a loud, mirthless, merciless noise. No one else joined in,
though Miss Ribbone smiled a little. When Joe recovered he held out
his plate.
"More pumpkin, Dad."
"If--what, sir?" Dad was prompting him in manners.
"IF?" and Joe laughed again. "Who said 'if'?--I never."
Just then Miss Ribbone sprang to her feet, knocking over the box she had
been sitting on, and stood for a time as though she had seen a ghost. We
stared at her. "Oh," she murmured at last, "it was the dog! It gave me
such a fright!"
Mother sympathised with her and seated her again, and Dad fixed his eye
on Joe.
"Did n't I tell you," he said, "to keep that useless damned mongrel of a
dog outside the house altogether--eh?--did n't I? Go this moment and tie
the brute up, you vagabond!"
"I did tie him up, but he chewed the greenhide."
"Be off with you, you--" (Dad coughed suddenly and scattered fragments of
meat and munched pumpkin about the table) "at once, and do as I tell you,
you----"
"That'll do, Father--that'll do," Mother said gently, and Joe took Stump
out to the barn and kicked him, and hit him against the corn-sheller, and
threatened to put him through it if he did n't stop squealing.
He was a small dog, a dog that was always on the watch--for meat; a
shrewd, intelligent beast that never barked at anyone until he got inside
and well under the bed. Anyway, he had taken a fancy to Miss Ribbone's
stocking, which had fallen down while he was lying under the table, and
commenced to worry it. Then he discovered she had a calf, and started to
eat THAT. She did n't tell US though--she told Mrs. Macpherson, who
imparted the secret to mother. I suppose Stump did n't understand
stockings, because neither Mother nor Sal ever wore any, except to a
picnic or somebody's funeral; and that was very seldom. The Creek was n't
much of a place for sport.
"I hope as you'll be comfortable, my dear," Mother observed as she showed
the young lady the back-room where she was to sleep. "It ain't s' nice as
we should like to have it f' y'; we had n't enough spare bags to line it
all with, but the cracks is pretty well stuffed up with husks an' one
thing an' 'nother, and I don't think you'll find any wind kin get in.
Here's a bear-skin f' your feet, an' I've nailed a bag up so no one kin
see-in in the morning. S' now, I think you'll be pretty snug."
The schoolmistress cast a distressed look at the waving bag-door and said:
"Th-h-ank you-very much."
What a voice! I've heard kittens that had n't their eyes open make a
fiercer noise.
Mother must have put all the blessed blankets in the house on the
school-teacher's bed. I don't know what she had on her own, but we only
had the old bag-quilt and a stack of old skirts, and other remnants of the
family wardrobe, on ours. In the middle of the night, the whole confounded
pile of them rolled off, and we nearly froze. Do what we boys would--tie
ourselves in knots and coil into each other like ropes--we could n't get
warm. We sat up in the bed in turns, and glared into the darkness towards
the schoolmistress's room, which was n't more than three yards away; then
we would lie back again and shiver. We were having a time. But at last
we heard a noise from the young lady's room. We listened--all we knew.
Miss Ribbone was up and dressing. We could hear her teeth chattering and
her knees knocking together. Then we heard her sneak back to bed again
and felt disappointed and colder than ever, for we had hoped she was
getting up early, and would n't want the bed any longer that night. Then
we too crawled out and dressed and tried it that way.
In answer to Mother at breakfast, next morning, Miss Ribbone said she had
"slept very well indeed."
We did n't say anything.
She was n't much of an eater. School-teachers are n't as a rule. They
pick, and paw, and fiddle round a meal in a way that gives a
healthy-appetited person the jim-jams. She did n't touch the fried
pumpkin. And the way she sat there at the table in her watch-chain and
ribbons made poor old Dave, who sat opposite her in a ragged shirt without
a shirt-button, feel quite miserable and awkward.
For a whole week she did n't take anything but bread and tea--though there
was always plenty good pumpkin and all that. Mother used to speak to Dad
about it, and wonder if she ate the little pumpkin-tarts she put up for
her lunch. Dad could n't understand anyone not eating pumpkin, and said
HE'D tackle GRASS before he'd starve.
"And did ever y' see such a object?" Mother went on. "The hands an' arms
on her! Dear me! Why, I do believe if our Sal was to give her one
squeeze she'd kill her. Oh, but the finery and clothes! Y' never see the
like! Just look at her!" And Dad, the great oaf, with Joe at his heels,
followed her into the young lady's bedroom.
"Look at that!" said Mother, pointing to a couple of dresses hanging on a
nail--"she wears THEM on week-days, no less; and here" (raising the lid of
a trunk and exposing a pile of clean and neatly-folded clothing that might
have been anything, and drawing the articles forth one by one)--"look at
them! There's that--and that--and this--and----"
"I say, what's this, Mother?" interrupted Joe, holding up something he had
discovered.
"And that--an'----"
"Mother!"
"And this----"
"Eh, Mother?"
"Don't bother me, boy, it's her tooth-brush," and Mother pitched the
clothes back into the trunk and glared round. Meanwhile, Joe was hard at
his teeth with the brush.
"Oh, here!" and she dived at the bed and drew a night-gown from beneath
the pillow, unfolded it, and held it up by the neck for inspection.
Dad, with his huge, ungainly, hairy paws behind him, stood mute, like the
great pitiful elephant he was, and looked at the tucks and the
rest--stupidly. "Where before did y'ever see such tucks and frills and
lace on a night-shirt? Why, you'd think 't were for goin' to picnics in,
'stead o' goin' to bed with. Here, too! here's a pair of brand new stays,
besides the ones she's on her back. Clothes!--she's nothin' else but
clothes."
Then they came out, and Joe began to spit and said he thought there must
have been something on that brush.
Miss Ribbone did n't stay the full month--she left at the end of the
second week; and Mother often used to wonder afterwards why the creature
never came to see us.
CHAPTER XXV.
The Man with the Bear-Skin Cap.
One evening a raggedly-dressed man, with a swag on his back, a bear-skin
cap on his head, and a sheath-knife in his belt, came to our place and
took possession of the barn. Dad ordered him off. The man offered to
fight Dad for the barn. Dad ran in and got the gun. Then the man picked
up his swag and went away. The incident caused much talk for a few days,
but we soon forgot all about it; and the man with the bear-skin cap passed
from our minds.
Church service was to be held at our selection. It was the first occasion,
in fact, that the Gospel had come to disturb the contentedly irreligious
mind of our neighbourhood. Service was to open at 3 p.m.; at break-of-day
we had begun to get ready.
Nothing but bustle and hurry. Buttons to be sewn on Dave's shirt; Dad's
pants--washed the night before and left on the clothes-line all night to
bleach--lost; Little Bill's to be patched up generally; Mother trotting
out to the clothes-line every minute to see if Joe's coat was dry. And,
what was unusual, Dave, the easy-going, took a notion to spruce himself
up. He wandered restlessly from one room to another, robed in a white
shirt which was n't starched or ironed, trying hard to fix a collar to it.
He had n't worn the turn-out for a couple of years, and, of course, had
grown out of it, but this did n't seem to strike him. He tugged and
fumbled till he lost patience; then he sat on the bed and railed at the
women, and wished that the shirt and the collar, and the church-service
and the parson, were in Heaven. Mother offered to fasten the collar, but
when she took hold of it--forgetting that her hands were covered with
dough and things--Dave flew clean off the handle! And when Sal advised
him to wear his coloured shirt, same as Dad was going to do, and reminded
him that Mary Anderson might n't come at all, he aimed a pillow at her and
knocked Little Bill under the table, and scattered husks all over the
floor. Then he fled to the barn and refused dinner.
Mid-day, and Dad's pants not found. We searched inside and outside and
round about the pig-sty, and the hay-stack, and the cow-yard; and eyed the
cows, and the pet kangaroo, and the draught-horses with suspicion; but saw
nothing of the pants. Dad was angry, but had to make the most of an old
pair of Dave's through the legs of which Dad thrust himself a lot too far.
Mother and Sal said he looked well enough in them, but laughed when he
went outside.
The people commenced to arrive on horseback and in drays. The women went
on to the verandah with their babies; the men hung round outside and
waited. Some sat under the peach-tree and nibbled sticks and killed
green-heads; others leant against the fence; while a number gathered round
the pig-sty and talked about curing bacon.
The parson came along. All of them stared at him; watched him unsaddle
his horse and hunt round for a place to fasten the beast. They regarded
the man in the long black coat with awe and wonder.
Everything was now ready, and, when Dad carried in the side-boards of the
dray and placed them on boxes for seat accommodation, the clergyman
awaited his congregation, which had collected at the back-door. Anderson
stepped in; the rest followed, timid-looking, and stood round the room
till the clergyman motioned them to sit. They sat and watched him closely.
"We'll now join in singing hymn 499," said the parson, commencing to sing
himself. The congregation listened attentively, but did n't join in.
The parson jerked his arms encouragingly at them, which only made them the
more uneasy. They did n't understand. He snapped his arms harder, as he
lifted his voice to the rafters; still they only stared. At last Dad
thought he saw through him. He bravely stood up and looked hard at the
others. They took the hint and rose clumsily to their feet, but just then
the hymn closed, and, as no one seemed to know when to sit again, they
remained standing.
They were standing when a loud whip-crack sounded close to the house, and
a lusty voice roared:
"Wah Tumbler! Wah Tumbler! Gee back, Brandy! Gee back,
you----!----!!----!!!"
People smiled. Then a team of bullocks appeared on the road. The driver
drawled, "Wa-a-a-y!" and the team stopped right in front of the door.
The driver lifted something weighty from the dray and struggled to the
verandah with it and dropped it down. It was a man. The bullock-driver,
of course, did n't know that a religious service was being conducted
inside, and the chances are he did n't much care. He only saw a number of
faces looking out, and talked at them.
"I've a ---- cove here," he said, "that I found lying on the ---- plain.
Gawd knows what's up with him--I don't. A good square feed is about what
he wants, I reckon." Then he went back for the man's swag.
Dad, after hesitating, rose and went out. The others followed like a
flock of sheep; and the "shepherd" brought up the rear. Church was out.
It gathered around the seeming corpse, and stared hard at it. Dad and
Dave spoke at the same time.
"Why," they said, "it's the cove with the bear-skin cap!" Sure enough it
was. The clergyman knelt down and felt the man's pulse; then went and
brought a bottle from his valise--he always carried the bottle, he said,
in case of snake-bite and things like that--and poured some of the contents
down the man's throat. The colour began to come to the man's face. The
clergyman gave him some more, and in a while the man opened his eyes.
They rested on Dad, who was bending benignly over him. He seemed to
recognise Dad. He stared for some time at him, then said something in a
feeble whisper, which the clergyman interpreted--"He wishes you--" looking
at Dad--"to get what's in his swag if he dies." Dad nodded, and his
thoughts went sadly back to the day he turned the poor devil out of
the barn.
They carried the man inside and placed him on the sofa. But soon he took
a turn. He sank quickly, and in a few moments he was dead. In a few
moments more nearly everyone had gone.
"While you are here," Dad said to the clergyman, in a soft voice, "I'll
open the swag." He commenced to unroll it--it was a big blanket--and when
he got to the end there were his own trousers--the lost ones, nothing
more. Dad's eyes met Mother's; Dave's met Sal's; none of them spoke. But
the clergyman drew his own conclusions; and on the following Sunday, at
Nobby-Nobby, he preached a stirring sermon on that touching bequest of the
man with the bear-skin cap.
CHAPTER XXVI.
One Christmas.
Three days to Christmas; and how pleased we were! For months we had
looked forward to it. Kate and Sandy, whom we had only seen once since
they went on their selection, were to be home. Dave, who was away
shearing for the first time, was coming home too. Norah, who had been
away for a year teaching school, was home already. Mother said she looked
quite the lady, and Sal envied the fashionable cut of her dresses.
Things were in a fair way at Shingle Hut; rain had fallen and everything
looked its best. The grass along the headlands was almost as tall as the
corn; the Bathurst-burr, the Scotch-thistles, and the "stinking Roger"
were taller. Grow! Dad never saw the like. Why, the cultivation was n't
large enough to hold the melon and pumpkin vines--they travelled into the
horse-paddock and climbed up trees and over logs and stumps, and they
would have fastened on the horses only the horses were fat and fresh and
often galloped about. And the stock! Blest if the old cows did n't carry
udders like camp-ovens, and had so much milk that one could track them
everywhere they went--they leaked so. The old plough-horses, too--only a
few months before dug out of the dam with a spade, and slung up between
heaven and earth for a week, and fed and prayed for regularly by
Dad--actually bolted one day with the dray because Joe rattled a dish of
corn behind them. Even the pet kangaroo was nearly jumping out of its
skin; and it took the big black "goanna" that used to come after eggs all
its time to beat Dad from the barn to the nearest tree, so fat was it.
And such a season for butterflies and grasshoppers, and grubs and snakes,
and native bears! Given an ass, an elephant, and an empty wine-bottle or
two, and one might have thought Noah's ark had been emptied at our
selection.
Two days to Christmas. The sun getting low. An old cow and a heifer in
the stock-yard. Dad in, admiring them; Mother and Sal squinting through
the rails; little Bill perched on one of the round posts, nursing the
steel and a long knife; Joe running hard from the barn with a plough-rein.
Dad was wondering which beast to kill, and expressed a preference for the
heifer. Mother said, "No, kill the cow." Dad inspected the cow again,
and shook his head.
"Well, if you don't she'll only die, if the winter's a hard one; then
you'll have neither." That settled it. Dad took the rope from Joe, who
arrived aglow with heat and excitement, and fixed a running noose on one
end of it. Then--
"Hunt 'em round!" he cried.
Joe threw his hat at them, and chased them round and round the yard.
Dad turned slowly in the centre, like a ring-master, his eye on the cow;
a coil of rope was in this left hand, and with the right he measuredly
swung the loop over and over his head for some time. At last the cow gave
him a chance at her horns, and he let fly. The rope whizzed across the
yard, caught little Bill round the neck, and brought him down off the post.
Dad could hardly believe it. He first stared at Bill as he rolled in the
yard, then at the cow. Mother wished to know if he wanted to kill the
boy, and Joe giggled and, with a deal of courage, assured Dad it was "a
fine shot." The cow and the heifer ran into a corner, and switched their
tails, and raked skin and hair off each other with their horns.
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