Joe Wilson and His Mates

  II. Joe Wilson's Luck.

  There was good grass on the selection all the year. I'd picked upa small lot--about twenty head--of half-starved steers for next tonothing, and turned them on the run; they came on wonderfully, and mybrother-in-law (Mary's sister's husband), who was running a butcheryat Gulgong, gave me a good price for them. His carts ran out twenty orthirty miles, to little bits of gold-rushes that were going on at th'Home Rule, Happy Valley, Guntawang, Tallawang, and Cooyal, and thoseplaces round there, and he was doing well.

  Mary had heard of a light American waggonette, when the steers went--atray-body arrangement, and she thought she'd do with that. 'It wouldbe better than the buggy, Joe,' she said--'there'd be more room forthe children, and, besides, I could take butter and eggs to Gulgong,or Cobborah, when we get a few more cows.' Then James heard of a smallflock of sheep that a selector--who was about starved off his selectionout Talbragar way--wanted to get rid of. James reckoned he could getthem for less than half-a-crown a-head. We'd had a heavy shower of rain,that came over the ranges and didn't seem to go beyond our boundaries.Mary said, 'It's a pity to see all that grass going to waste, Joe.Better get those sheep and try your luck with them. Leave some moneywith me, and I'll send James over for them. Never mind about thebuggy--we'll get that when we're on our feet.'

  So James rode across to Talbragar and drove a hard bargain with thatunfortunate selector, and brought the sheep home. There were about twohundred, wethers and ewes, and they were young and looked a good breedtoo, but so poor they could scarcely travel; they soon picked up,though. The drought was blazing all round and Out-Back, and I think thatmy corner of the ridges was the only place where there was any grass tospeak of. We had another shower or two, and the grass held out. Chapsbegan to talk of 'Joe Wilson's luck'.

  I would have liked to shear those sheep; but I hadn't time to get a shedor anything ready--along towards Christmas there was a bit of a boomin the carrying line. Wethers in wool were going as high as thirteento fifteen shillings at the Homebush yards at Sydney, so I arranged totruck the sheep down from the river by rail, with another small lot thatwas going, and I started James off with them. He took the west road, anddown Guntawang way a big farmer who saw James with the sheep (and whowas speculating, or adding to his stock, or took a fancy to the wool)offered James as much for them as he reckoned I'd get in Sydney, afterpaying the carriage and the agents and the auctioneer. James put thesheep in a paddock and rode back to me. He was all there where ridingwas concerned. I told him to let the sheep go. James made a Greenershot-gun, and got his saddle done up, out of that job.

  I took up a couple more forty-acre blocks--one in James's name, toencourage him with the fencing. There was a good slice of land in anangle between the range and the creek, farther down, which everybodythought belonged to Wall, the squatter, but Mary got an idea, and wentto the local land office and found out that it was 'unoccupied Crownland', and so I took it up on pastoral lease, and got a few moresheep--I'd saved some of the best-looking ewes from the last lot.

  One evening--I was going down next day for a load of fencing-wire formyself--Mary said,--

  'Joe! do you know that the Matthews have got a new double buggy?'

  The Matthews were a big family of cockatoos, along up the main road, andI didn't think much of them. The sons were all 'bad-eggs', though theold woman and girls were right enough.

  'Well, what of that?' I said. 'They're up to their neck in debt, andcamping like black-fellows in a big bark humpy. They do well to goflashing round in a double buggy.'

  'But that isn't what I was going to say,' said Mary. 'They want to selltheir old single buggy, James says. I'm sure you could get it for six orseven pounds; and you could have it done up.'

  'I wish James to the devil!' I said. 'Can't he find anything better todo than ride round after cock-and-bull yarns about buggies?'

  'Well,' said Mary, 'it was James who got the steers and the sheep.'

  Well, one word led to another, and we said things we didn't mean--butcouldn't forget in a hurry. I remember I said something about Maryalways dragging me back just when I was getting my head above water andstruggling to make a home for her and the children; and that hurt her,and she spoke of the 'homes' she'd had since she was married. And thatcut me deep.

  It was about the worst quarrel we had. When she began to cry I got myhat and went out and walked up and down by the creek. I hated anythingthat looked like injustice--I was so sensitive about it that it mademe unjust sometimes. I tried to think I was right, but I couldn't--itwouldn't have made me feel any better if I could have thought so. I gotthinking of Mary's first year on the selection and the life she'd hadsince we were married.

  When I went in she'd cried herself to sleep. I bent over and, 'Mary,' Iwhispered.

  She seemed to wake up.

  'Joe--Joe!' she said.

  'What is it Mary?' I said.

  'I'm pretty well sure that old Spot's calf isn't in the pen. Make Jamesgo at once!'

  Old Spot's last calf was two years old now; so Mary was talking in hersleep, and dreaming she was back in her first year.

  We both laughed when I told her about it afterwards; but I didn't feellike laughing just then.

  Later on in the night she called out in her sleep,--

  'Joe--Joe! Put that buggy in the shed, or the sun will blister thevarnish!'

  I wish I could say that that was the last time I ever spoke unkindly toMary.

  Next morning I got up early and fried the bacon and made the tea, andtook Mary's breakfast in to her--like I used to do, sometimes, when wewere first married. She didn't say anything--just pulled my head downand kissed me.

  When I was ready to start Mary said,--

  'You'd better take the spring-cart in behind the dray and get the tyrescut and set. They're ready to drop off, and James has been wedging themup till he's tired of it. The last time I was out with the childrenI had to knock one of them back with a stone: there'll be an accidentyet.'

  So I lashed the shafts of the cart under the tail of the waggon, andmean and ridiculous enough the cart looked, going along that way. Itsuggested a man stooping along handcuffed, with his arms held out anddown in front of him.

  It was dull weather, and the scrubs looked extra dreary and endless--andI got thinking of old things. Everything was going all right with me,but that didn't keep me from brooding sometimes--trying to hatch outstones, like an old hen we had at home. I think, taking it all round, Iused to be happier when I was mostly hard-up--and more generous. When Ihad ten pounds I was more likely to listen to a chap who said, 'Lend mea pound-note, Joe,' than when I had fifty; THEN I fought shy of carelesschaps--and lost mates that I wanted afterwards--and got the name ofbeing mean. When I got a good cheque I'd be as miserable as a miser overthe first ten pounds I spent; but when I got down to the last I'd buythings for the house. And now that I was getting on, I hated to spenda pound on anything. But then, the farther I got away from poverty thegreater the fear I had of it--and, besides, there was always before usall the thought of the terrible drought, with blazing runs as bare anddusty as the road, and dead stock rotting every yard, all along thebarren creeks.

  I had a long yarn with Mary's sister and her husband that night inGulgong, and it brightened me up. I had a fancy that that sort of abrother-in-law made a better mate than a nearer one; Tom Tarrant hadone, and he said it was sympathy. But while we were yarning I couldn'thelp thinking of Mary, out there in the hut on the Creek, with no one totalk to but the children, or James, who was sulky at home, or BlackMary or Black Jimmy (our black boy's father and mother), who weren'toversentimental. Or maybe a selector's wife (the nearest was fivemiles away), who could talk only of two or three things--'lambin'' and'shearin'' and 'cookin' for the men', and what she said to her old man,and what he said to her--and her own ailments--over and over again.

  It's a wonder it didn't drive Mary mad!--I know I could never listen tothat woman more than an hour. Mary's sister said,--

  'Now if Mary had
a comfortable buggy, she could drive in with thechildren oftener. Then she wouldn't feel the loneliness so much.'

  I said 'Good night' then and turned in. There was no getting away fromthat buggy. Whenever Mary's sister started hinting about a buggy, Ireckoned it was a put-up job between them.