The Little World Left Behind.
I lately revisited a western agricultural district in Australia aftermany years. The railway had reached it, but otherwise things weredrearily, hopelessly, depressingly unchanged. There was the same oldgrant, comprising several thousands of acres of the richest land in thedistrict, lying idle still, except for a few horses allowed to run therefor a shilling a-head per week.
There were the same old selections--about as far off as ever frombecoming freeholds--shoved back among the barren ridges; dusty littlepatches in the scrub, full of stones and stumps, and called farms,deserted every few years, and tackled again by some little dried-upfamily, or some old hatter, and then given best once more. There wasthe cluster of farms on the flat, and in the foot of the gully, owned byAustralians of Irish or English descent, with the same number of stumpsin the wheat-paddock, the same broken fences and tumble-down huts andyards, and the same weak, sleepy attempt made every season to scratch upthe ground and raise a crop. And along the creek the German farmers--theonly people there worthy of the name--toiling (men, women, and children)from daylight till dark, like slaves, just as they always had done; theelder sons stoop-shouldered old men at thirty.
The row about the boundary fence between the Sweeneys and the Joneseswas unfinished still, and the old feud between the Dunderblitzensand the Blitzendunders was more deadly than ever--it started threegenerations ago over a stray bull. The O'Dunn was still fighting for hisgreat object in life, which was not to be 'onneighborly', as he put it.'I DON'T want to be onneighborly,' he said, 'but I'll be aven wid someof 'em yit. It's almost impossible for a dacent man to live in sich aneighborhood and not be onneighborly, thry how he will. But I'll be avenwid some of 'em yit, marruk my wurrud.'
Jones's red steer--it couldn't have been the same red steer--wascontinually breaking into Rooney's 'whate an' bringin' ivery head avthe other cattle afther him, and ruinin' him intirely.' The Rooneys andM'Kenzies were at daggers drawn, even to the youngest child, over theimpounding of a horse belonging to Pat Rooney's brother-in-law, by adistant relation of the M'Kenzies, which had happened nine years ago.
The same sun-burned, masculine women went past to market twice a-weekin the same old carts and driving much the same quality of carrion. Thestring of overloaded spring-carts, buggies, and sweating horses wentwhirling into town, to 'service', through clouds of dust and broilingheat, on Sunday morning, and came driving cruelly out again at noon.The neighbours' sons rode over in the afternoon, as of old, and hung uptheir poor, ill-used little horses to bake in the sun, and sat on theirheels about the verandah, and drawled drearily concerning crops, fruit,trees, and vines, and horses and cattle; the drought and 'smut' and'rust' in wheat, and the 'ploorer' (pleuro-pneumonia) in cattle,and other cheerful things; that there colt or filly, or that therecattle-dog (pup or bitch) o' mine (or 'Jim's'). They always talkedmost of farming there, where no farming worthy of the name waspossible--except by Germans and Chinamen. Towards evening the old localrelic of the golden days dropped in and announced that he intended to'put down a shaft' next week, in a spot where he'd been going to putit down twenty years ago--and every week since. It was nearly time thatsomebody sunk a hole and buried him there.
An old local body named Mrs Witherly still went into town twice a-weekwith her 'bit av prodjuce', as O'Dunn called it. She still drove a long,bony, blind horse in a long rickety dray, with a stout sapling for awhip, and about twenty yards of clothes-line reins. The floor of thedray covered part of an acre, and one wheel was always ahead of theother--or behind, according to which shaft was pulled. She wore, to allappearances, the same short frock, faded shawl, men's 'lastic sides, andwhite hood that she had on when the world was made. She still stoppedjust twenty minutes at old Mrs Leatherly's on the way in for a yarn anda cup of tea--as she had always done, on the same days and at the sametime within the memory of the hoariest local liar. However, she had anew clothes-line bent on to the old horse's front end--and we fancy thatwas the reason she didn't recognise us at first. She had never lookedyounger than a hard hundred within the memory of man. Her shrivelledface was the colour of leather, and crossed and recrossed with linestill there wasn't room for any more. But her eyes were bright yet, andtwinkled with humour at times.
She had been in the Bush for fifty years, and had fought fires,droughts, hunger and thirst, floods, cattle and crop diseases, and allthe things that God curses Australian settlers with. She had had twohusbands, and it could be said of neither that he had ever done anhonest day's work, or any good for himself or any one else. She hadreared something under fifteen children, her own and others; and therewas scarcely one of them that had not given her trouble. Her sons hadbrought disgrace on her old head over and over again, but she held upthat same old head through it all, and looked her narrow, ignorant worldin the face--and 'lived it down'. She had worked like a slave for fiftyyears; yet she had more energy and endurance than many modern city womenin her shrivelled old body. She was a daughter of English aristocrats.
And we who live our weak lives of fifty years or so in the cities--wegrow maudlin over our sorrows (and beer), and ask whether life is worthliving or not.
I sought in the farming town relief from the general and particularsameness of things, but there was none. The railway station was aboutthe only new building in town. The old signs even were as badly in needof retouching as of old. I picked up a copy of the local 'Advertiser',which newspaper had been started in the early days by a brilliantdrunkard, who drank himself to death just as the fathers of our nationwere beginning to get educated up to his style. He might have madeAustralian journalism very different from what it is. There was nothingnew in the 'Advertiser'--there had been nothing new since the last timethe drunkard had been sober enough to hold a pen. There was the sameold 'enjoyable trip' to Drybone (whereof the editor was the hero), andsomething about an on-the-whole very enjoyable evening in some placethat was tastefully decorated, and where the visitors did justice to thegood things provided, and the small hours, and dancing, and our host andhostess, and respected fellow-townsmen; also divers young ladies sangvery nicely, and a young Mr Somebody favoured the company with a comicsong.
There was the same trespassing on the valuable space by the oldsubscriber, who said that 'he had said before and would say again', andhe proceeded to say the same things which he said in the same paper whenwe first heard our father reading it to our mother. Farther on the oldsubscriber proceeded to 'maintain', and recalled attention to the factthat it was just exactly as he had said. After which he made a fewabstract, incoherent remarks about the 'surrounding district', andconcluded by stating that he 'must now conclude', and thanking theeditor for trespassing on the aforesaid valuable space.
There was the usual leader on the Government; and an agitation was stillcarried on, by means of horribly-constructed correspondence to bothpapers, for a bridge over Dry-Hole Creek at Dustbin--a place where nosane man ever had occasion to go.
I took up the 'unreliable contemporary', but found nothing there excepta letter from 'Parent', another from 'Ratepayer', a leader on theGovernment, and 'A Trip to Limeburn', which latter I suppose was made inopposition to the trip to Drybone.
There was nothing new in the town. Even the almost inevitable gang ofcity spoilers hadn't arrived with the railway. They would have beena relief. There was the monotonous aldermanic row, and the worse thanhopeless little herd of aldermen, the weird agricultural portion of whomcame in on council days in white starched and ironed coats, as we hadalways remembered them. They were aggressively barren of ideas; buton this occasion they had risen above themselves, for one of them hadremembered something his grandfather (old time English alderman) hadtold him, and they were stirring up all the old local quarrels andfamily spite of the district over a motion, or an amendment on a motion,that a letter--from another enlightened body and bearing on anequally important matter (which letter had been sent through thepost sufficiently stamped, delivered to the secretary, handed to thechairman, read aloud in co
uncil, and passed round several times forprivate perusal)--over a motion that such letter be received.
There was a maintenance case coming on--to the usual well-ventilateddisgust of the local religious crank, who was on the jury; but the casediffered in no essential point from other cases which were always comingon and going off in my time. It was not at all romantic. The local youthwas not even brilliant in adultery.
After I had been a week in that town the Governor decided to visitit, and preparations were made to welcome him and present him withan address. Then I thought that it was time to go, and slipped awayunnoticed in the general lunacy.