Chapter V.
The Night We Watched For Wallabies.
It had been a bleak July day, and as night came on a bitter westerlyhowled through the trees. Cold! was n't it cold! The pigs in the sty,hungry and half-fed (we wanted for ourselves the few pumpkins that hadsurvived the drought) fought savagely with each other for shelter, andsquealed all the time like--well, like pigs. The cows and calves leftthe place to seek shelter away in the mountains; while the draughthorses, their hair standing up like barbed-wire, leaned sadly over thefence and gazed up at the green lucerne. Joe went about shivering inan old coat of Dad's with only one sleeve to it--a calf had fancied theother one day that Dad hung it on a post as a mark to go by whileploughing.
"My! it'll be a stinger to-night," Dad remarked to Mrs. Brown--who sat,cold-looking, on the sofa--as he staggered inside with an immense logfor the fire. A log! Nearer a whole tree! But wood was nothing inDad's eyes.
Mrs. Brown had been at our place five or six days. Old Brown calledoccasionally to see her, so we knew they could n't have quarrelled.Sometimes she did a little house-work, but more often she did n't. Wetalked it over together, but could n't make it out. Joe asked Mother,but she had no idea--so she said. We were full up, as Dave put it, ofMrs. Brown, and wished her out of the place. She had taken to orderingus about, as though she had something to do with us.
After supper we sat round the fire--as near to it as we could withoutburning ourselves--Mrs. Brown and all, and listened to the windwhistling outside. Ah, it was pleasant beside the fire listening tothe wind! When Dad had warmed himself back and front he turned to usand said:
"Now, boys, we must go directly and light some fires and keep thosewallabies back."
That was a shock to us, and we looked at him to see if he were reallyin earnest. He was, and as serious as a judge.
"TO-NIGHT!" Dave answered, surprisedly--"why to-night any more thanlast night or the night before? Thought you had decided to let themrip?"
"Yes, but we might as well keep them off a bit longer."
"But there's no wheat there for them to get now. So what's the good ofwatching them? There's no sense in THAT."
Dad was immovable.
"Anyway"--whined Joe--"I'M not going--not a night like this--not when Iain't got boots."
That vexed Dad. "Hold your tongue, sir!" he said--"you'll do as you'retold."
But Dave had n't finished. "I've been following that harrow sincesunrise this morning," he said, "and now you want me to go chasingwallabies about in the dark, a night like this, and for nothing elsebut to keep them from eating the ground. It's always the way here, themore one does the more he's wanted to do," and he commenced to cry.Mrs. Brown had something to say. SHE agreed with Dad and thought weought to go, as the wheat might spring up again.
"Pshah!" Dave blurted out between his sobs, while we thought of tellingher to shut her mouth.
Slowly and reluctantly we left that roaring fireside to accompany Dadthat bitter night. It WAS a night!--dark as pitch, silent, forlorn andforbidding, and colder than the busiest morgue. And just to keepwallabies from eating nothing! They HAD eaten all the wheat--everyblade of it--and the grass as well. What they would start onnext--ourselves or the cart-harness--was n't quite clear.
We stumbled along in the dark one behind the other, with our handsstuffed into our trousers. Dad was in the lead, and poor Joe,bare-shinned and bootless, in the rear. Now and again he tramped on aBathurst-burr, and, in sitting down to extract the prickle, wouldreceive a cluster of them elsewhere. When he escaped the burr it wasonly to knock his shin against a log or leave a toe-nail or twoclinging to a stone. Joe howled, but the wind howled louder, and blewand blew.
Dave, in pausing to wait on Joe, would mutter:
"To HELL with everything! Whatever he wants bringing us out a nightlike this, I'm DAMNED if I know!"
Dad could n't see very well in the dark, and on this night could n'tsee at all, so he walked up against one of the old draught horses thathad fallen asleep gazing at the lucerne. And what a fright they bothgot! The old horse took it worse than Dad--who only tumbled down--forhe plunged as though the devil had grabbed him, and fell over thefence, twisting every leg he had in the wires. How the brutestruggled! We stood and listened to him. After kicking panels of thefence down and smashing every wire in it, he got loose and made off,taking most of it with him.
"That's one wallaby on the wheat, anyway," Dave muttered, and wegiggled. WE understood Dave; but Dad did n't open his mouth.
We lost no time lighting the fires. Then we walked through the "wheat"and wallabies! May Satan reprove me if I exaggerate their number byone solitary pair of ears--but from the row and scatter they made therewere a MILLION.
Dad told Joe, at last, he could go to sleep if he liked, at the fire.Joe went to sleep--HOW, I don't know. Then Dad sat beside him, and forlong intervals would stare silently into the darkness. Sometimes astring of the vermin would hop past close to the fire, and another timea curlew would come near and screech its ghostly wail, but he nevernoticed them. Yet he seemed to be listening.
We mooched around from fire to fire, hour after hour, and when wewearied of heaving fire-sticks at the enemy we sat on our heels andcursed the wind, and the winter, and the night-birds alternately. Itwas a lonely, wretched occupation.
Now and again Dad would leave his fire to ask us if we could hear anoise. We could n't, except that of wallabies and mopokes. Then hewould go back and listen again. He was restless, and, somehow, hisheart was n't in the wallabies at all. Dave could n't make him out.
The night wore on. By-and-by there was a sharp rattle of wires, then arustling noise, and Sal appeared in the glare of the fire. "DAD!" shesaid. That was all. Without a word, Dad bounced up and went back tothe house with her.
"Something's up!" Dave said, and, half-anxious, half-afraid, we gazedinto the fire and thought and thought. Then we stared, nervously, intothe night, and listened for Dad's return, but heard only the wind andthe mopoke.
At dawn he appeared again, with a broad smile on his face, and told usthat mother had got another baby--a fine little chap. Then we knew whyMrs. Brown had been staying at our place.