Chapter III.
Before We Got The Deeds
Our selection adjoined a sheep-run on the Darling Downs, and boasted offew and scant improvements, though things had gradually got a littlebetter than when we started. A verandahless four-roomed slab-hut nowstanding out from a forest of box-trees, a stock-yard, and six acresunder barley were the only evidence of settlement. A few horses--notours--sometimes grazed about; and occasionally a mob of cattle--alsonot ours--cows with young calves, steers, and an old bull or two, wouldstroll around, chew the best legs of any trousers that might be hangingon the log reserved as a clothes-line, then leave in the night and beseen no more for months--some of them never.
And yet we were always out of meat!
Dad was up the country earning a few pounds--the corn drove him up whenit did n't bring what he expected. All we got out of it was a bag offlour--I do n't know what the storekeeper got. Before he left we putin the barley. Somehow, Dad did n't believe in sowing any more crops,he seemed to lose heart; but Mother talked it over with him, and whenreminded that he would soon be entitled to the deeds he brightened upagain and worked. How he worked!
We had no plough, so old Anderson turned over the six acres for us, andDad gave him a pound an acre--at least he was to send him the first sixpounds got up country. Dad sowed the seed; then he, Dan and Dave yokedthemselves to a large dry bramble each and harrowed it in. From theway they sweated it must have been hard work. Sometimes they would sitdown in the middle of the paddock and "spell" but Dad would saysomething about getting the deeds and they'd start again.
A cockatoo-fence was round the barley; and wire-posts, a long distanceapart, round the grass-paddock. We were to get the wire to put in whenDad sent the money; and apply for the deeds when he came back. Thingswould be different then, according to Dad, and the farm would be workedproperly. We would break up fifty acres, build a barn, buy a reaper,ploughs, cornsheller, get cows and good horses, and start two or threeploughs. Meanwhile, if we (Dan, Dave and I) minded the barley he wassure there'd be something got out of it.
Dad had been away about six weeks. Travellers were passing by everyday, and there was n't one that did n't want a little of something orother. Mother used to ask them if they had met Dad? None ever diduntil an old grey man came along and said he knew Dad well--he hadcamped with him one night and shared a damper. Mother was very pleasedand brought him in. We had a kangaroo-rat (stewed) for dinner that day.The girls did n't want to lay it on the table at first, but Mother saidhe would n't know what it was. The traveller was very hungry and likedit, and when passing his plate the second time for more, said it wasn't often he got any poultry.
He tramped on again, and the girls were very glad he did n't know itwas a rat. But Dave was n't so sure that he did n't know a rat from arooster, and reckoned he had n't met Dad at all.
The seventh week Dad came back. He arrived at night, and the lot of ushad to get up to find the hammer to knock the peg out of the door andlet him in. He brought home three pounds--not enough to get the wirewith, but he also brought a horse and saddle. He did n't say if hebought them. It was a bay mare, a grand animal for a journey--so Dadsaid--and only wanted condition. Emelina, he called her. No mistake,she was a quiet mare! We put her where there was good feed, but shewas n't one that fattened on grass. Birds took kindly to her--crowsmostly--and she could n't go anywhere but a flock of them accompaniedher. Even when Dad used to ride her (Dan or Dave never rode her) theyused to follow, and would fly on ahead to wait in a tree and "caw" whenhe was passing beneath.
One morning when Dan was digging potatoes for dinner--splendid potatoesthey were, too, Dad said; he had only once tasted sweeter ones, butthey were grown in a cemetery--he found the kangaroos had been in thebarley. We knew what THAT meant, and that night made fires round it,thinking to frighten them off, but did n't--mobs of them were in atdaybreak. Dad swore from the house at them, but they took no notice;and when he ran down, they just hopped over the fence and sat lookingat him. Poor Dad! I do n't know if he was knocked up or if he did n'tknow any more, but he stopped swearing and sat on a stump looking at apatch of barley they had destroyed, and shaking his head. Perhaps hewas thinking if he only had a dog! We did have one until he got abait. Old Crib! He was lying under the table at supper-time when hetook the first fit, and what a fright we got! He must have rearedbefore stiffening out, because he capsized the table into Mother's lap,and everything on it smashed except the tin-plates and the pints. Thelamp fell on Dad, too, and the melted fat scalded his arm. Dad draggedCrib out and cut off his tail and ears, but he might as well have takenoff his head.
Dad stood with his back to the fire while Mother was putting a stitchin his trousers. "There's nothing for it but to watch them at night,"he was saying, when old Anderson appeared and asked "if I could havethose few pounds." Dad asked Mother if she had any money in the house?Of course she had n't. Then he told Anderson he would let him have itwhen he got the deeds. Anderson left, and Dad sat on the edge of thesofa and seemed to be counting the grains on a corn-cob that he liftedfrom the floor, while Mother sat looking at a kangaroo-tail on thetable and did n't notice the cat drag it off. At last Dad said, "Ah,well!--it won't be long now, Ellen, before we have the deeds!"
We took it in turns to watch the barley. Dan and the two girls watchedthe first half of the night, and Dad, Dave and I the second. Dadalways slept in his clothes, and he used to think some nights that theothers came in before time. It was terrible going out, half awake, totramp round that paddock from fire to fire, from hour to hour, shoutingand yelling. And how we used to long for daybreak! Whenever we satdown quietly together for a few minutes we would hear the dull THUD!THUD! THUD!--the kangaroo's footstep.
At last we each carried a kerosene tin, slung like a kettle-drum, andbelted it with a waddy--Dad's idea. He himself manipulated an old bellthat he had found on a bullock's grave, and made a splendid noise withit.
It was a hard struggle, but we succeeded in saving the bulk of thebarley, and cut it down with a scythe and three reaping-hooks. Thegirls helped to bind it, and Jimmy Mulcahy carted it in return forthree days' binding Dad put in for him. The stack was n't builttwenty-four hours when a score of somebody's crawling cattle ate theirway up to their tails in it. We took the hint and put a sapling fenceround it.
Again Dad decided to go up country for a while. He caught Emelinaafter breakfast, rolled up a blanket, told us to watch the stack, andstarted. The crows followed.
We were having dinner. Dave said, "Listen!" We listened, and itseemed as though all the crows and other feathered demons of the widebush were engaged in a mighty scrimmage. "Dad's back!" Dan said, andrushed out in the lead of a stampede.
Emelina was back, anyway, with the swag on, but Dad was n't. We caughther, and Dave pointed to white spots all over the saddle, andsaid--"Hanged if they have n't been ridin' her!"--meaning the crows.
Mother got anxious, and sent Dan to see what had happened. Dan foundDad, with his shirt off, at a pub on the main road, wanting to fightthe publican for a hundred pounds, but could n't persuade him to comehome. Two men brought him home that night on a sheep-hurdle, and hegave up the idea of going away.
After all, the barley turned out well--there was a good price thatyear, and we were able to run two wires round the paddock.
One day a bulky Government letter came. Dad looked surprised andpleased, and how his hand trembled as he broke the seal! "THE DEEDS!"he said, and all of us gathered round to look at them. Dave thoughtthey were like the inside of a bear-skin covered with writing.
Dad said he would ride to town at once, and went for Emelina.
"Could n't y' find her, Dad?" Dan said, seeing him return without themare.
Dad cleared his throat, but did n't answer. Mother asked him.
"Yes, I FOUND her," he said slowly, "DEAD."
The crows had got her at last.
He wrapped the deeds in a piece of rag and walked.
Th
ere was nothing, scarcely, that he did n't send out from town, andJimmy Mulcahy and old Anderson many and many times after that borrowedour dray.
Now Dad regularly curses the deeds every mail-day, and wishes to Heavenhe had never got them.