Brighten's Sister-In-Law.
Jim was born on Gulgong, New South Wales. We used to say 'on'Gulgong--and old diggers still talked of being 'on th' Gulgong'--thoughthe goldfield there had been worked out for years, and the place wasonly a dusty little pastoral town in the scrubs. Gulgong was about thelast of the great alluvial 'rushes' of the 'roaring days'--and drearyand dismal enough it looked when I was there. The expression 'on' camefrom being on the 'diggings' or goldfield--the workings or the goldfieldwas all underneath, of course, so we lived (or starved) ON them--not innor at 'em.
Mary and I had been married about two years when Jim came----His namewasn't 'Jim', by the way, it was 'John Henry', after an uncle godfather;but we called him Jim from the first--(and before it)--because Jim was apopular Bush name, and most of my old mates were Jims. The Bush is fullof good-hearted scamps called Jim.
We lived in an old weather-board shanty that had been a sly-grog-shop,and the Lord knows what else! in the palmy days of Gulgong; and I dida bit of digging ('fossicking', rather), a bit of shearing, a bit offencing, a bit of Bush-carpentering, tank-sinking,--anything, just tokeep the billy boiling.
We had a lot of trouble with Jim with his teeth. He was bad with everyone of them, and we had most of them lanced--couldn't pull him throughwithout. I remember we got one lanced and the gum healed over beforethe tooth came through, and we had to get it cut again. He was a pluckylittle chap, and after the first time he never whimpered when the doctorwas lancing his gum: he used to say 'tar' afterwards, and want to bringthe lance home with him.
The first turn we got with Jim was the worst. I had had the wife and Jimout camping with me in a tent at a dam I was making at Cattle Creek; Ihad two men working for me, and a boy to drive one of the tip-drays,and I took Mary out to cook for us. And it was lucky for us that thecontract was finished and we got back to Gulgong, and within reach ofa doctor, the day we did. We were just camping in the house, with ourgoods and chattels anyhow, for the night; and we were hardly back homean hour when Jim took convulsions for the first time.
Did you ever see a child in convulsions? You wouldn't want to see itagain: it plays the devil with a man's nerves. I'd got the beds fixed upon the floor, and the billies on the fire--I was going to make some tea,and put a piece of corned beef on to boil over night--when Jim(he'd been queer all day, and his mother was trying to hush him tosleep)--Jim, he screamed out twice. He'd been crying a good deal, andI was dog-tired and worried (over some money a man owed me) or I'd havenoticed at once that there was something unusual in the way the childcried out: as it was I didn't turn round till Mary screamed 'Joe!Joe!' You know how a woman cries out when her child is in danger ordying--short, and sharp, and terrible. 'Joe! Look! look! Oh, my God! ourchild! Get the bath, quick! quick! it's convulsions!'
Jim was bent back like a bow, stiff as a bullock-yoke, in his mother'sarms, and his eyeballs were turned up and fixed--a thing I saw twiceafterwards, and don't want ever to see again.
I was falling over things getting the tub and the hot water, when thewoman who lived next door rushed in. She called to her husband to runfor the doctor, and before the doctor came she and Mary had got Jim intoa hot bath and pulled him through.
The neighbour woman made me up a shake-down in another room, and stayedwith Mary that night; but it was a long while before I got Jim andMary's screams out of my head and fell asleep.
You may depend I kept the fire in, and a bucket of water hot over it,for a good many nights after that; but (it always happens like this)there came a night, when the fright had worn off, when I was too tiredto bother about the fire, and that night Jim took us by surprise. Ourwood-heap was done, and I broke up a new chair to get a fire, and hadto run a quarter of a mile for water; but this turn wasn't so bad as thefirst, and we pulled him through.
You never saw a child in convulsions? Well, you don't want to. It mustbe only a matter of seconds, but it seems long minutes; and half anhour afterwards the child might be laughing and playing with you,or stretched out dead. It shook me up a lot. I was always prettyhigh-strung and sensitive. After Jim took the first fit, every time hecried, or turned over, or stretched out in the night, I'd jump: I wasalways feeling his forehead in the dark to see if he was feverish, orfeeling his limbs to see if he was 'limp' yet. Mary and I often laughedabout it--afterwards. I tried sleeping in another room, but for nightsafter Jim's first attack I'd be just dozing off into a sound sleep,when I'd hear him scream, as plain as could be, and I'd hear Mary cry,'Joe!--Joe!'--short, sharp, and terrible--and I'd be up and into theirroom like a shot, only to find them sleeping peacefully. Then I'd feelJim's head and his breathing for signs of convulsions, see to the fireand water, and go back to bed and try to sleep. For the first few nightsI was like that all night, and I'd feel relieved when daylight came.I'd be in first thing to see if they were all right; then I'd sleep tilldinner-time if it was Sunday or I had no work. But then I was run downabout that time: I was worried about some money for a wool-shed I put upand never got paid for; and, besides, I'd been pretty wild before I metMary.
I was fighting hard then--struggling for something better. Both Mary andI were born to better things, and that's what made the life so hard forus.
Jim got on all right for a while: we used to watch him well, and havehis teeth lanced in time.
It used to hurt and worry me to see how--just as he was getting fatand rosy and like a natural happy child, and I'd feel proud to take himout--a tooth would come along, and he'd get thin and white and pale andbigger-eyed and old-fashioned. We'd say, 'He'll be safe when he gets hiseye-teeth': but he didn't get them till he was two; then, 'He'll be safewhen he gets his two-year-old teeth': they didn't come till he was goingon for three.
He was a wonderful little chap--Yes, I know all about parents thinkingthat their child is the best in the world. If your boy is small for hisage, friends will say that small children make big men; that he's avery bright, intelligent child, and that it's better to have a bright,intelligent child than a big, sleepy lump of fat. And if your boy isdull and sleepy, they say that the dullest boys make the cleverestmen--and all the rest of it. I never took any notice of that sort ofclatter--took it for what it was worth; but, all the same, I don'tthink I ever saw such a child as Jim was when he turned two. He waseverybody's favourite. They spoilt him rather. I had my own ideas aboutbringing up a child. I reckoned Mary was too soft with Jim. She'd say,'Put that' (whatever it was) 'out of Jim's reach, will you, Joe?' andI'd say, 'No! leave it there, and make him understand he's not to haveit. Make him have his meals without any nonsense, and go to bed at aregular hour,' I'd say. Mary and I had many a breeze over Jim. She'dsay that I forgot he was only a baby: but I held that a baby could betrained from the first week; and I believe I was right.
But, after all, what are you to do? You'll see a boy that was brought upstrict turn out a scamp; and another that was dragged up anyhow (by thehair of the head, as the saying is) turn out well. Then, again, whena child is delicate--and you might lose him any day--you don't like tospank him, though he might be turning out a little fiend, as delicatechildren often do. Suppose you gave a child a hammering, and the samenight he took convulsions, or something, and died--how'd you feel aboutit? You never know what a child is going to take, any more than you cantell what some women are going to say or do.
I was very fond of Jim, and we were great chums. Sometimes I'd sitand wonder what the deuce he was thinking about, and often, the way hetalked, he'd make me uneasy. When he was two he wanted a pipe above allthings, and I'd get him a clean new clay and he'd sit by my side, on theedge of the verandah, or on a log of the wood-heap, in the cool of theevening, and suck away at his pipe, and try to spit when he saw me doit. He seemed to understand that a cold empty pipe wasn't quite thething, yet to have the sense to know that he couldn't smoke tobaccoyet: he made the best he could of things. And if he broke a clay pipehe wouldn't have a new one, and there'd be a row; the old one had to bemended up, somehow, with string or wire. If I got my hair cut, h
e'dwant his cut too; and it always troubled him to see me shave--as if hethought there must be something wrong somewhere, else he ought to haveto be shaved too. I lathered him one day, and pretended to shave him:he sat through it as solemn as an owl, but didn't seem to appreciateit--perhaps he had sense enough to know that it couldn't possibly be thereal thing. He felt his face, looked very hard at the lather I scrapedoff, and whimpered, 'No blood, daddy!'
I used to cut myself a good deal: I was always impatient over shaving.
Then he went in to interview his mother about it. She understood hislingo better than I did.
But I wasn't always at ease with him. Sometimes he'd sit looking intothe fire, with his head on one side, and I'd watch him and wonder whathe was thinking about (I might as well have wondered what a Chinamanwas thinking about) till he seemed at least twenty years older than me:sometimes, when I moved or spoke, he'd glance round just as if to seewhat that old fool of a dadda of his was doing now.
I used to have a fancy that there was something Eastern, orAsiatic--something older than our civilisation or religion--aboutold-fashioned children. Once I started to explain my idea to a woman Ithought would understand--and as it happened she had an old-fashionedchild, with very slant eyes--a little tartar he was too. I supposeit was the sight of him that unconsciously reminded me of my infernaltheory, and set me off on it, without warning me. Anyhow, it got memixed up in an awful row with the woman and her husband--and all theirtribe. It wasn't an easy thing to explain myself out of it, and the rowhasn't been fixed up yet. There were some Chinamen in the district.
I took a good-size fencing contract, the frontage of a ten-mile paddock,near Gulgong, and did well out of it. The railway had got as far as theCudgeegong river--some twenty miles from Gulgong and two hundredfrom the coast--and 'carrying' was good then. I had a couple ofdraught-horses, that I worked in the tip-drays when I was tank-sinking,and one or two others running in the Bush. I bought a broken-down waggoncheap, tinkered it up myself--christened it 'The Same Old Thing'--andstarted carrying from the railway terminus through Gulgong and along thebush roads and tracks that branch out fanlike through the scrubs to theone-pub towns and sheep and cattle stations out there in the howlingwilderness. It wasn't much of a team. There were the two heavy horsesfor 'shafters'; a stunted colt, that I'd bought out of the pound forthirty shillings; a light, spring-cart horse; an old grey mare, withpoints like a big red-and-white Australian store bullock, and with thegrit of an old washerwoman to work; and a horse that had spanked alongin Cob & Co.'s mail-coach in his time. I had a couple there that didn'tbelong to me: I worked them for the feeding of them in the dry weather.And I had all sorts of harness, that I mended and fixed up myself. Itwas a mixed team, but I took light stuff, got through pretty quick, andfreight rates were high. So I got along.
Before this, whenever I made a few pounds I'd sink a shaft somewhere,prospecting for gold; but Mary never let me rest till she talked me outof that.
I made up my mind to take on a small selection farm--that an old mate ofmine had fenced in and cleared, and afterwards chucked up--about thirtymiles out west of Gulgong, at a place called Lahey's Creek. (The placeswere all called Lahey's Creek, or Spicer's Flat, or Murphy's Flat, orRyan's Crossing, or some such name--round there.) I reckoned I'd havea run for the horses and be able to grow a bit of feed. I always had adread of taking Mary and the children too far away from a doctor--or agood woman neighbour; but there were some people came to live on Lahey'sCreek, and besides, there was a young brother of Mary's--a young scamp(his name was Jim, too, and we called him 'Jimmy' at first to make roomfor our Jim--he hated the name 'Jimmy' or James). He came to live withus--without asking--and I thought he'd find enough work at Lahey'sCreek to keep him out of mischief. He wasn't to be depended on much--hethought nothing of riding off, five hundred miles or so, 'to have a lookat the country'--but he was fond of Mary, and he'd stay by her till Igot some one else to keep her company while I was on the road. He wouldbe a protection against 'sundowners' or any shearers who happened towander that way in the 'D.T.'s' after a spree. Mary had a married sistercome to live at Gulgong just before we left, and nothing would suit herand her husband but we must leave little Jim with them for a month orso--till we got settled down at Lahey's Creek. They were newly married.
Mary was to have driven into Gulgong, in the spring-cart, at the endof the month, and taken Jim home; but when the time came she wasn't toowell--and, besides, the tyres of the cart were loose, and I hadn't timeto get them cut, so we let Jim's time run on a week or so longer, till Ihappened to come out through Gulgong from the river with a small load offlour for Lahey's Creek way. The roads were good, the weather grand--nochance of it raining, and I had a spare tarpaulin if it did--I wouldonly camp out one night; so I decided to take Jim home with me.
Jim was turning three then, and he was a cure. He was so old-fashionedthat he used to frighten me sometimes--I'd almost think that there wassomething supernatural about him; though, of course, I never took anynotice of that rot about some children being too old-fashioned to live.There's always the ghoulish old hag (and some not so old nor haggisheither) who'll come round and shake up young parents with such croaksas, 'You'll never rear that child--he's too bright for his age.' To thedevil with them! I say.
But I really thought that Jim was too intelligent for his age, and Ioften told Mary that he ought to be kept back, and not let talk too muchto old diggers and long lanky jokers of Bushmen who rode in and hungtheir horses outside my place on Sunday afternoons.
I don't believe in parents talking about their own childreneverlastingly--you get sick of hearing them; and their kids aregenerally little devils, and turn out larrikins as likely as not.
But, for all that, I really think that Jim, when he was three years old,was the most wonderful little chap, in every way, that I ever saw.
For the first hour or so, along the road, he was telling me all abouthis adventures at his auntie's.
'But they spoilt me too much, dad,' he said, as solemn as a native bear.'An' besides, a boy ought to stick to his parrans!'
I was taking out a cattle-pup for a drover I knew, and the pup took up agood deal of Jim's time.
Sometimes he'd jolt me, the way he talked; and other times I'd haveto turn away my head and cough, or shout at the horses, to keep fromlaughing outright. And once, when I was taken that way, he said--
'What are you jerking your shoulders and coughing, and grunting, andgoing on that way for, dad? Why don't you tell me something?'
'Tell you what, Jim?'
'Tell me some talk.'
So I told him all the talk I could think of. And I had to brighten up,I can tell you, and not draw too much on my imagination--for Jim was aterror at cross-examination when the fit took him; and he didn't thinktwice about telling you when he thought you were talking nonsense. Oncehe said--
'I'm glad you took me home with you, dad. You'll get to know Jim.'
'What!' I said.
'You'll get to know Jim.'
'But don't I know you already?'
'No, you don't. You never has time to know Jim at home.'
And, looking back, I saw that it was cruel true. I had known in my heartall along that this was the truth; but it came to me like a blow fromJim. You see, it had been a hard struggle for the last year or so; andwhen I was home for a day or two I was generally too busy, or too tiredand worried, or full of schemes for the future, to take much notice ofJim. Mary used to speak to me about it sometimes. 'You never take noticeof the child,' she'd say. 'You could surely find a few minutes of anevening. What's the use of always worrying and brooding? Your brain willgo with a snap some day, and, if you get over it, it will teach you alesson. You'll be an old man, and Jim a young one, before you realisethat you had a child once. Then it will be too late.'
This sort of talk from Mary always bored me and made me impatient withher, because I knew it all too well. I never worried for myself--onlyfor Mary and the children. And often, as the days went by, I said t
omyself, 'I'll take more notice of Jim and give Mary more of my time,just as soon as I can see things clear ahead a bit.' And the hard dayswent on, and the weeks, and the months, and the years---- Ah, well!
Mary used to say, when things would get worse, 'Why don't you talkto me, Joe? Why don't you tell me your thoughts, instead of shuttingyourself up in yourself and brooding--eating your heart out? It's hardfor me: I get to think you're tired of me, and selfish. I might be crossand speak sharp to you when you are in trouble. How am I to know, if youdon't tell me?'
But I didn't think she'd understand.
And so, getting acquainted, and chumming and dozing, with the gumsclosing over our heads here and there, and the ragged patches ofsunlight and shade passing up, over the horses, over us, on the front ofthe load, over the load, and down on to the white, dusty road again--Jimand I got along the lonely Bush road and over the ridges, some fifteenmiles before sunset, and camped at Ryan's Crossing on Sandy Creek forthe night. I got the horses out and took the harness off. Jim wantedbadly to help me, but I made him stay on the load; for one of thehorses--a vicious, red-eyed chestnut--was a kicker: he'd broken aman's leg. I got the feed-bags stretched across the shafts, and thechaff-and-corn into them; and there stood the horses all round withtheir rumps north, south, and west, and their heads between the shafts,munching and switching their tails. We use double shafts, you know, forhorse-teams--two pairs side by side,--and prop them up, and stretch bagsbetween them, letting the bags sag to serve as feed-boxes. I threw thespare tarpaulin over the wheels on one side, letting about half ofit lie on the ground in case of damp, and so making a floor and abreak-wind. I threw down bags and the blankets and 'possum rug againstthe wheel to make a camp for Jim and the cattle-pup, and got a gin-casewe used for a tucker-box, the frying-pan and billy down, and made a goodfire at a log close handy, and soon everything was comfortable. Ryan'sCrossing was a grand camp. I stood with my pipe in my mouth, my handsbehind my back, and my back to the fire, and took the country in.
Reedy Creek came down along a western spur of the range: the banks herewere deep and green, and the water ran clear over the granite bars,boulders, and gravel. Behind us was a dreary flat covered with thosegnarled, grey-barked, dry-rotted 'native apple-trees' (about as muchlike apple-trees as the native bear is like any other), and a nasty bitof sand-dusty road that I was always glad to get over in wet weather.To the left on our side of the creek were reedy marshes, with frogscroaking, and across the creek the dark box-scrub-covered ridges endedin steep 'sidings' coming down to the creek-bank, and to the main roadthat skirted them, running on west up over a 'saddle' in the ridges andon towards Dubbo. The road by Lahey's Creek to a place called Cobborahbranched off, through dreary apple-tree and stringy-bark flats, to theleft, just beyond the crossing: all these fanlike branch tracks from theCudgeegong were inside a big horse-shoe in the Great Western Line, andso they gave small carriers a chance, now that Cob & Co.'s coaches andthe big teams and vans had shifted out of the main western terminus.There were tall she-oaks all along the creek, and a clump of big onesover a deep water-hole just above the crossing. The creek oaks haverough barked trunks, like English elms, but are much taller, and higherto the branches--and the leaves are reedy; Kendel, the Australianpoet, calls them the 'she-oak harps Aeolian'. Those trees are alwayssigh-sigh-sighing--more of a sigh than a sough or the 'whoosh' ofgum-trees in the wind. You always hear them sighing, even when you can'tfeel any wind. It's the same with telegraph wires: put your head againsta telegraph-post on a dead, still day, and you'll hear and feel thefar-away roar of the wires. But then the oaks are not connected with thedistance, where there might be wind; and they don't ROAR in a gale, onlysigh louder and softer according to the wind, and never seem to go aboveor below a certain pitch,--like a big harp with all the strings thesame. I used to have a theory that those creek oaks got the wind's voicetelephoned to them, so to speak, through the ground.
I happened to look down, and there was Jim (I thought he was on thetarpaulin, playing with the pup): he was standing close beside me withhis legs wide apart, his hands behind his back, and his back to thefire.
He held his head a little on one side, and there was such an old, old,wise expression in his big brown eyes--just as if he'd been a child fora hundred years or so, or as though he were listening to those oaks andunderstanding them in a fatherly sort of way.
'Dad!' he said presently--'Dad! do you think I'll ever grow up to be aman?'
'Wh--why, Jim?' I gasped.
'Because I don't want to.'
I couldn't think of anything against this. It made me uneasy. But Iremembered *I* used to have a childish dread of growing up to be a man.
'Jim,' I said, to break the silence, 'do you hear what the she-oakssay?'
'No, I don't. Is they talking?'
'Yes,' I said, without thinking.
'What is they saying?' he asked.
I took the bucket and went down to the creek for some water for tea. Ithought Jim would follow with a little tin billy he had, but he didn't:when I got back to the fire he was again on the 'possum rug, comfortingthe pup. I fried some bacon and eggs that I'd brought out with me. Jimsang out from the waggon--
'Don't cook too much, dad--I mightn't be hungry.'
I got the tin plates and pint-pots and things out on a clean newflour-bag, in honour of Jim, and dished up. He was leaning back on therug looking at the pup in a listless sort of way. I reckoned he wastired out, and pulled the gin-case up close to him for a table and puthis plate on it. But he only tried a mouthful or two, and then he said--
'I ain't hungry, dad! You'll have to eat it all.'
It made me uneasy--I never liked to see a child of mine turn from hisfood. They had given him some tinned salmon in Gulgong, and I was afraidthat that was upsetting him. I was always against tinned muck.
'Sick, Jim?' I asked.
'No, dad, I ain't sick; I don't know what's the matter with me.'
'Have some tea, sonny?'
'Yes, dad.'
I gave him some tea, with some milk in it that I'd brought in a bottlefrom his aunt's for him. He took a sip or two and then put the pint-poton the gin-case.
'Jim's tired, dad,' he said.
I made him lie down while I fixed up a camp for the night. It had turneda bit chilly, so I let the big tarpaulin down all round--it was made tocover a high load, the flour in the waggon didn't come above the rail,so the tarpaulin came down well on to the ground. I fixed Jim up acomfortable bed under the tail-end of the waggon: when I went to lifthim in he was lying back, looking up at the stars in a half-dreamy,half-fascinated way that I didn't like. Whenever Jim was extraold-fashioned, or affectionate, there was danger.
'How do you feel now, sonny?'
It seemed a minute before he heard me and turned from the stars.
'Jim's better, dad.' Then he said something like, 'The stars are lookingat me.' I thought he was half asleep. I took off his jacket and boots,and carried him in under the waggon and made him comfortable for thenight.
'Kiss me 'night-night, daddy,' he said.
I'd rather he hadn't asked me--it was a bad sign. As I was going to thefire he called me back.
'What is it, Jim?'
'Get me my things and the cattle-pup, please, daddy.'
I was scared now. His things were some toys and rubbish he'd broughtfrom Gulgong, and I remembered, the last time he had convulsions, hetook all his toys and a kitten to bed with him. And ''night-night' and'daddy' were two-year-old language to Jim. I'd thought he'd forgottenthose words--he seemed to be going back.
'Are you quite warm enough, Jim?'
'Yes, dad.'
I started to walk up and down--I always did this when I was extraworried.
I was frightened now about Jim, though I tried to hide the fact frommyself. Presently he called me again.
'What is it, Jim?'
'Take the blankets off me, fahver--Jim's sick!' (They'd been teachinghim to say father.)
I was scared now. I remember
ed a neighbour of ours had a little girl die(she swallowed a pin), and when she was going she said--
'Take the blankets off me, muvver--I'm dying.'
And I couldn't get that out of my head.
I threw back a fold of the 'possum rug, and felt Jim's head--he seemedcool enough.
'Where do you feel bad, sonny?'
No answer for a while; then he said suddenly, but in a voice as if hewere talking in his sleep--
'Put my boots on, please, daddy. I want to go home to muvver!'
I held his hand, and comforted him for a while; then he slept--in arestless, feverish sort of way.
I got the bucket I used for water for the horses and stood it over thefire; I ran to the creek with the big kerosene-tin bucket and gotit full of cold water and stood it handy. I got the spade (we alwayscarried one to dig wheels out of bogs in wet weather) and turned acorner of the tarpaulin back, dug a hole, and trod the tarpaulin downinto the hole, to serve for a bath, in case of the worst. I had a tin ofmustard, and meant to fight a good round for Jim, if death came along.
I stooped in under the tail-board of the waggon and felt Jim. His headwas burning hot, and his skin parched and dry as a bone.
Then I lost nerve and started blundering backward and forward betweenthe waggon and the fire, and repeating what I'd heard Mary say the lasttime we fought for Jim: 'God! don't take my child! God! don't take myboy!' I'd never had much faith in doctors, but, my God! I wanted onethen. The nearest was fifteen miles away.
I threw back my head and stared up at the branches, in desperation;and--Well, I don't ask you to take much stock in this, though most oldBushmen will believe anything of the Bush by night; and--Now, it mighthave been that I was all unstrung, or it might have been a patch of skyoutlined in the gently moving branches, or the blue smoke rising up. ButI saw the figure of a woman, all white, come down, down, nearly to thelimbs of the trees, point on up the main road, and then float up and upand vanish, still pointing. I thought Mary was dead! Then it flashed onme----
Four or five miles up the road, over the 'saddle', was an old shantythat had been a half-way inn before the Great Western Line got round asfar as Dubbo and took the coach traffic off those old Bush roads. A mannamed Brighten lived there. He was a selector; did a little farming,and as much sly-grog selling as he could. He was married--but it wasn'tthat: I'd thought of them, but she was a childish, worn-out, spiritlesswoman, and both were pretty 'ratty' from hardship and loneliness--theyweren't likely to be of any use to me. But it was this: I'd heard talk,among some women in Gulgong, of a sister of Brighten's wife who'd goneout to live with them lately: she'd been a hospital matron in the city,they said; and there were yarns about her. Some said she got the sackfor exposing the doctors--or carrying on with them--I didn't rememberwhich. The fact of a city woman going out to live in such a place, withsuch people, was enough to make talk among women in a town twenty milesaway, but then there must have been something extra about her, elseBushmen wouldn't have talked and carried her name so far; and I wanteda woman out of the ordinary now. I even reasoned this way, thinkinglike lightning, as I knelt over Jim between the big back wheels of thewaggon.
I had an old racing mare that I used as a riding hack, following theteam. In a minute I had her saddled and bridled; I tied the end of ahalf-full chaff-bag, shook the chaff into each end and dumped it on tothe pommel as a cushion or buffer for Jim; I wrapped him in a blanket,and scrambled into the saddle with him.
The next minute we were stumbling down the steep bank, clattering andsplashing over the crossing, and struggling up the opposite bank to thelevel. The mare, as I told you, was an old racer, but broken-winded--shemust have run without wind after the first half mile. She had the oldracing instinct in her strong, and whenever I rode in company I'd haveto pull her hard else she'd race the other horse or burst. She ran lowfore and aft, and was the easiest horse I ever rode. She ran likewheels on rails, with a bit of a tremble now and then--like a railwaycarriage--when she settled down to it.
The chaff-bag had slipped off, in the creek I suppose, and I let thebridle-rein go and held Jim up to me like a baby the whole way. Let thestrongest man, who isn't used to it, hold a baby in one position forfive minutes--and Jim was fairly heavy. But I never felt the ache in myarms that night--it must have gone before I was in a fit state of mindto feel it. And at home I'd often growled about being asked to hold thebaby for a few minutes. I could never brood comfortably and nurse a babyat the same time. It was a ghostly moonlight night. There's no timber inthe world so ghostly as the Australian Bush in moonlight--or just aboutdaybreak. The all-shaped patches of moonlight falling between ragged,twisted boughs; the ghostly blue-white bark of the 'white-box' trees; adead naked white ring-barked tree, or dead white stump starting out hereand there, and the ragged patches of shade and light on the road thatmade anything, from the shape of a spotted bullock to a nakedcorpse laid out stark. Roads and tracks through the Bush made bymoonlight--every one seeming straighter and clearer than the real one:you have to trust to your horse then. Sometimes the naked white trunk ofa red stringy-bark tree, where a sheet of bark had been taken off, wouldstart out like a ghost from the dark Bush. And dew or frost glisteningon these things, according to the season. Now and again a great greykangaroo, that had been feeding on a green patch down by the road, wouldstart with a 'thump-thump', and away up the siding.
The Bush seemed full of ghosts that night--all going my way--and beingleft behind by the mare. Once I stopped to look at Jim: I just satback and the mare 'propped'--she'd been a stock-horse, and was usedto 'cutting-out'. I felt Jim's hands and forehead; he was in a burningfever. I bent forward, and the old mare settled down to it again. I keptsaying out loud--and Mary and me often laughed about it (afterwards):'He's limp yet!--Jim's limp yet!' (the words seemed jerked out of me bysheer fright)--'He's limp yet!' till the mare's feet took it up. Then,just when I thought she was doing her best and racing her hardest, shesuddenly started forward, like a cable tram gliding along on its own andthe grip put on suddenly. It was just what she'd do when I'd be ridingalone and a strange horse drew up from behind--the old racing instinct.I FELT the thing too! I felt as if a strange horse WAS there! Andthen--the words just jerked out of me by sheer funk--I started saying,'Death is riding to-night!... Death is racing to-night!... Death isriding to-night!' till the hoofs took that up. And I believe the oldmare felt the black horse at her side and was going to beat him or breakher heart.
I was mad with anxiety and fright: I remember I kept saying, 'I'll bekinder to Mary after this! I'll take more notice of Jim!' and the restof it.
I don't know how the old mare got up the last 'pinch'. She must haveslackened pace, but I never noticed it: I just held Jim up to me andgripped the saddle with my knees--I remember the saddle jerked from thedesperate jumps of her till I thought the girth would go. We topped thegap and were going down into a gully they called Dead Man's Hollow, andthere, at the back of a ghostly clearing that opened from the roadwhere there were some black-soil springs, was a long, low, oblongweatherboard-and-shingle building, with blind, broken windows in thegable-ends, and a wide steep verandah roof slanting down almost to thelevel of the window-sills--there was something sinister about it, Ithought--like the hat of a jail-bird slouched over his eyes. The placelooked both deserted and haunted. I saw no light, but that was becauseof the moonlight outside. The mare turned in at the corner of theclearing to take a short cut to the shanty, and, as she struggled acrosssome marshy ground, my heart kept jerking out the words, 'It's deserted!They've gone away! It's deserted!' The mare went round to the back andpulled up between the back door and a big bark-and-slab kitchen. Someone shouted from inside--
'Who's there?'
'It's me. Joe Wilson. I want your sister-in-law--I've got the boy--he'ssick and dying!'
Brighten came out, pulling up his moleskins. 'What boy?' he asked.
'Here, take him,' I shouted, 'and let me get down.'
'What's the matter with him?' asked Brighten, and he seem
ed to hangback. And just as I made to get my leg over the saddle, Jim's head wentback over my arm, he stiffened, and I saw his eyeballs turned up andglistening in the moonlight.
I felt cold all over then and sick in the stomach--but CLEAR-HEADED ina way: strange, wasn't it? I don't know why I didn't get down and rushinto the kitchen to get a bath ready. I only felt as if the worst hadcome, and I wished it were over and gone. I even thought of Mary and thefuneral.
Then a woman ran out of the house--a big, hard-looking woman. She hadon a wrapper of some sort, and her feet were bare. She laid her hand onJim, looked at his face, and then snatched him from me and ran into thekitchen--and me down and after her. As great good luck would have it,they had some dirty clothes on to boil in a kerosene tin--dish-cloths orsomething.
Brighten's sister-in-law dragged a tub out from under the table,wrenched the bucket off the hook, and dumped in the water, dish-clothsand all, snatched a can of cold water from a corner, dashed that in,and felt the water with her hand--holding Jim up to her hip all thetime--and I won't say how he looked. She stood him in the tub andstarted dashing water over him, tearing off his clothes between thesplashes.
'Here, that tin of mustard--there on the shelf!' she shouted to me.
She knocked the lid off the tin on the edge of the tub, and went onsplashing and spanking Jim.
It seemed an eternity. And I? Why, I never thought clearer in my life. Ifelt cold-blooded--I felt as if I'd like an excuse to go outside tillit was all over. I thought of Mary and the funeral--and wished that thatwas past. All this in a flash, as it were. I felt that it would be agreat relief, and only wished the funeral was months past. I felt--well,altogether selfish. I only thought for myself.
Brighten's sister-in-law splashed and spanked him hard--hard enough tobreak his back I thought, and--after about half an hour it seemed--theend came: Jim's limbs relaxed, he slipped down into the tub, and thepupils of his eyes came down. They seemed dull and expressionless, likethe eyes of a new baby, but he was back for the world again.
I dropped on the stool by the table.
'It's all right,' she said. 'It's all over now. I wasn't going to lethim die.' I was only thinking, 'Well it's over now, but it will come onagain. I wish it was over for good. I'm tired of it.'
She called to her sister, Mrs Brighten, a washed-out, helpless littlefool of a woman, who'd been running in and out and whimpering all thetime--
'Here, Jessie! bring the new white blanket off my bed. And you,Brighten, take some of that wood off the fire, and stuff something inthat hole there to stop the draught.'
Brighten--he was a nuggety little hairy man with no expression to beseen for whiskers--had been running in with sticks and back logs fromthe wood-heap. He took the wood out, stuffed up the crack, and wentinside and brought out a black bottle--got a cup from the shelf, and putboth down near my elbow.
Mrs Brighten started to get some supper or breakfast, or whatever itwas, ready. She had a clean cloth, and set the table tidily. I noticedthat all the tins were polished bright (old coffee- and mustard-tinsand the like, that they used instead of sugar-basins and tea-caddies andsalt-cellars), and the kitchen was kept as clean as possible. She wasall right at little things. I knew a haggard, worked-out Bushwoman whoput her whole soul--or all she'd got left--into polishing old tins tillthey dazzled your eyes.
I didn't feel inclined for corned beef and damper, and post-and-railtea. So I sat and squinted, when I thought she wasn't looking, atBrighten's sister-in-law. She was a big woman, her hands and feet werebig, but well-shaped and all in proportion--they fitted her. She was ahandsome woman--about forty I should think. She had a square chin, anda straight thin-lipped mouth--straight save for a hint of a turn downat the corners, which I fancied (and I have strange fancies) had been asign of weakness in the days before she grew hard. There was no signof weakness now. She had hard grey eyes and blue-black hair. She hadn'tspoken yet. She didn't ask me how the boy took ill or I got there, orwho or what I was--at least not until the next evening at tea-time.
She sat upright with Jim wrapped in the blanket and laid across herknees, with one hand under his neck and the other laid lightly on him,and she just rocked him gently.
She sat looking hard and straight before her, just as I've seen a tiredneedlewoman sit with her work in her lap, and look away back into thepast. And Jim might have been the work in her lap, for all she seemed tothink of him. Now and then she knitted her forehead and blinked.
Suddenly she glanced round and said--in a tone as if I was her husbandand she didn't think much of me--
'Why don't you eat something?'
'Beg pardon?'
'Eat something!'
I drank some tea, and sneaked another look at her. I was beginning tofeel more natural, and wanted Jim again, now that the colour was comingback into his face, and he didn't look like an unnaturally stiff andstaring corpse. I felt a lump rising, and wanted to thank her. I sneakedanother look at her.
She was staring straight before her,--I never saw a woman's face changeso suddenly--I never saw a woman's eyes so haggard and hopeless. Thenher great chest heaved twice, I heard her draw a long shuddering breath,like a knocked-out horse, and two great tears dropped from her wideopen eyes down her cheeks like rain-drops on a face of stone. And in thefirelight they seemed tinged with blood.
I looked away quick, feeling full up myself. And presently (I hadn'tseen her look round) she said--
'Go to bed.'
'Beg pardon?' (Her face was the same as before the tears.)
'Go to bed. There's a bed made for you inside on the sofa.'
'But--the team--I must----'
'What?'
'The team. I left it at the camp. I must look to it.'
'Oh! Well, Brighten will ride down and bring it up in the morning--orsend the half-caste. Now you go to bed, and get a good rest. The boywill be all right. I'll see to that.'
I went out--it was a relief to get out--and looked to the mare. Brightenhad got her some corn* and chaff in a candle-box, but she couldn't eatyet. She just stood or hung resting one hind-leg and then the other,with her nose over the box--and she sobbed. I put my arms round her neckand my face down on her ragged mane, and cried for the second time sinceI was a boy.
* Maize or Indian corn--wheat is never called corn in Australia.--
As I started to go in I heard Brighten's sister-in-law say, suddenly andsharply--
'Take THAT away, Jessie.'
And presently I saw Mrs Brighten go into the house with the blackbottle.
The moon had gone behind the range. I stood for a minute between thehouse and the kitchen and peeped in through the kitchen window.
She had moved away from the fire and sat near the table. She bent overJim and held him up close to her and rocked herself to and fro.
I went to bed and slept till the next afternoon. I woke just in timeto hear the tail-end of a conversation between Jim and Brighten'ssister-in-law. He was asking her out to our place and she promising tocome.
'And now,' says Jim, 'I want to go home to "muffer" in "The Same Ol'Fling".'
'What?'
Jim repeated.
'Oh! "The Same Old Thing",--the waggon.'
The rest of the afternoon I poked round the gullies with old Brighten,looking at some 'indications' (of the existence of gold) he had found.It was no use trying to 'pump' him concerning his sister-in-law;Brighten was an 'old hand', and had learned in the old Bush-ranging andcattle-stealing days to know nothing about other people's business. And,by the way, I noticed then that the more you talk and listen to a badcharacter, the more you lose your dislike for him.
I never saw such a change in a woman as in Brighten's sister-in-lawthat evening. She was bright and jolly, and seemed at least ten yearsyounger. She bustled round and helped her sister to get tea ready. Sherooted out some old china that Mrs Brighten had stowed away somewhere,and set the table as I seldom saw it set out there. She propped Jim upwith pillows, and laughed and played with him l
ike a great girl. Shedescribed Sydney and Sydney life as I'd never heard it described before;and she knew as much about the Bush and old digging days as I did. Shekept old Brighten and me listening and laughing till nearly midnight.And she seemed quick to understand everything when I talked. If shewanted to explain anything that we hadn't seen, she wouldn't say that itwas 'like a--like a'--and hesitate (you know what I mean); she'd hit theright thing on the head at once. A squatter with a very round, flamingred face and a white cork hat had gone by in the afternoon: she saidit was 'like a mushroom on the rising moon.' She gave me a lot of goodhints about children.
But she was quiet again next morning. I harnessed up, and she dressedJim and gave him his breakfast, and made a comfortable place for himon the load with the 'possum rug and a spare pillow. She got up on thewheel to do it herself. Then was the awkward time. I'd half start tospeak to her, and then turn away and go fixing up round the horses, andthen make another false start to say good-bye. At last she took Jim upin her arms and kissed him, and lifted him on the wheel; but he put hisarms tight round her neck, and kissed her--a thing Jim seldom didwith anybody, except his mother, for he wasn't what you'd call anaffectionate child,--he'd never more than offer his cheek to me, in hisold-fashioned way. I'd got up the other side of the load to take himfrom her.
'Here, take him,' she said.
I saw his mouth twitching as I lifted him. Jim seldom cried nowadays--nomatter how much he was hurt. I gained some time fixing Jim comfortable.
'You'd better make a start,' she said. 'You want to get home early withthat boy.'
I got down and went round to where she stood. I held out my hand andtried to speak, but my voice went like an ungreased waggon wheel, and Igave it up, and only squeezed her hand.
'That's all right,' she said; then tears came into her eyes, and shesuddenly put her hand on my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek. 'You beoff--you're only a boy yourself. Take care of that boy; be kind to yourwife, and take care of yourself.'
'Will you come to see us?'
'Some day,' she said.
I started the horses, and looked round once more. She was looking up atJim, who was waving his hand to her from the top of the load. And I sawthat haggard, hungry, hopeless look come into her eyes in spite of thetears.
I smoothed over that story and shortened it a lot, when I told it toMary--I didn't want to upset her. But, some time after I brought Jimhome from Gulgong, and while I was at home with the team for a few days,nothing would suit Mary but she must go over to Brighten's shanty andsee Brighten's sister-in-law. So James drove her over one morning in thespring-cart: it was a long way, and they stayed at Brighten's overnightand didn't get back till late the next afternoon. I'd got the place in apig-muck, as Mary said, 'doing for' myself, and I was having a snoozeon the sofa when they got back. The first thing I remember was some onestroking my head and kissing me, and I heard Mary saying, 'My poor boy!My poor old boy!'
I sat up with a jerk. I thought that Jim had gone off again. But itseems that Mary was only referring to me. Then she started to pull greyhairs out of my head and put 'em in an empty match-box--to see how manyshe'd get. She used to do this when she felt a bit soft. I don'tknow what she said to Brighten's sister-in-law or what Brighten'ssister-in-law said to her, but Mary was extra gentle for the next fewdays.
'Water Them Geraniums'.