Joe Wilson and His Mates [109]
horse in a long rickety dray, with a stout sapling
for a whip, and about twenty yards of clothes-line reins.
The floor of the dray covered part of an acre, and one wheel was always
ahead of the other -- or behind, according to which shaft was pulled.
She wore, to all appearances, the same short frock, faded shawl,
men's 'lastic sides, and white hood that she had on when the world was made.
She still stopped just twenty minutes at old Mrs Leatherly's on the way in
for a yarn and a cup of tea -- as she had always done, on the same days
and at the same time within the memory of the hoariest local liar.
However, she had a new clothes-line bent on to the old horse's front end --
and we fancy that was the reason she didn't recognise us at first.
She had never looked younger than a hard hundred within the memory of man.
Her shrivelled face was the colour of leather, and crossed and recrossed
with lines till there wasn't room for any more. But her eyes were bright yet,
and twinkled 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 all the things
that God curses Australian settlers with. She had had two husbands,
and it could be said of neither that he had ever done an honest day's work,
or any good for himself or any one else. She had reared something under
fifteen children, her own and others; and there was scarcely one of them
that had not given her trouble. Her sons had brought disgrace on her old head
over and over again, but she held up that same old head through it all,
and looked her narrow, ignorant world in the face -- and `lived it down'.
She had worked like a slave for fifty years; yet she had more
energy and endurance than many modern city women in 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 --
we grow maudlin over our sorrows (and beer), and ask whether life
is worth living or not.
I sought in the farming town relief from the general and particular
sameness of things, but there was none. The railway station
was about the only new building in town. The old signs even
were as badly in need of retouching as of old. I picked up
a copy of the local `Advertiser', which newspaper had been started
in the early days by a brilliant drunkard, who drank himself to death
just as the fathers of our nation were beginning to get educated up
to his style. He might have made Australian journalism very different
from what it is. There was nothing new in the `Advertiser' -- there had been
nothing new since the last time the drunkard had been sober enough
to hold a pen. There was the same old `enjoyable trip' to Drybone
(whereof the editor was the hero), and something about an on-the-whole
very enjoyable evening in some place that was tastefully decorated,
and where the visitors did justice to the good things provided,
and the small hours, and dancing, and our host and hostess,
and respected fellow-townsmen; also divers young ladies sang very nicely,
and a young Mr Somebody favoured the company with a comic song.
There was the same trespassing on the valuable space by the old subscriber,
who said that `he had said before and would say again',
and he proceeded to say the same things which he said in the same paper
when we first heard our father reading it to our mother.
Farther on the old subscriber proceeded to `maintain',
and recalled attention to the fact that it was just exactly as he had said.
After which he made a few abstract, incoherent remarks
about the `surrounding district', and concluded by stating
that he `must now conclude', and thanking the editor for trespassing on
the aforesaid valuable space.
There was the usual leader on the Government; and an agitation
was still carried on, by means of horribly-constructed correspondence
to both papers, for a bridge over Dry-Hole Creek at Dustbin --
a place where no sane man ever had occasion to go.
I took up the
for a whip, and about twenty yards of clothes-line reins.
The floor of the dray covered part of an acre, and one wheel was always
ahead of the other -- or behind, according to which shaft was pulled.
She wore, to all appearances, the same short frock, faded shawl,
men's 'lastic sides, and white hood that she had on when the world was made.
She still stopped just twenty minutes at old Mrs Leatherly's on the way in
for a yarn and a cup of tea -- as she had always done, on the same days
and at the same time within the memory of the hoariest local liar.
However, she had a new clothes-line bent on to the old horse's front end --
and we fancy that was the reason she didn't recognise us at first.
She had never looked younger than a hard hundred within the memory of man.
Her shrivelled face was the colour of leather, and crossed and recrossed
with lines till there wasn't room for any more. But her eyes were bright yet,
and twinkled 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 all the things
that God curses Australian settlers with. She had had two husbands,
and it could be said of neither that he had ever done an honest day's work,
or any good for himself or any one else. She had reared something under
fifteen children, her own and others; and there was scarcely one of them
that had not given her trouble. Her sons had brought disgrace on her old head
over and over again, but she held up that same old head through it all,
and looked her narrow, ignorant world in the face -- and `lived it down'.
She had worked like a slave for fifty years; yet she had more
energy and endurance than many modern city women in 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 --
we grow maudlin over our sorrows (and beer), and ask whether life
is worth living or not.
I sought in the farming town relief from the general and particular
sameness of things, but there was none. The railway station
was about the only new building in town. The old signs even
were as badly in need of retouching as of old. I picked up
a copy of the local `Advertiser', which newspaper had been started
in the early days by a brilliant drunkard, who drank himself to death
just as the fathers of our nation were beginning to get educated up
to his style. He might have made Australian journalism very different
from what it is. There was nothing new in the `Advertiser' -- there had been
nothing new since the last time the drunkard had been sober enough
to hold a pen. There was the same old `enjoyable trip' to Drybone
(whereof the editor was the hero), and something about an on-the-whole
very enjoyable evening in some place that was tastefully decorated,
and where the visitors did justice to the good things provided,
and the small hours, and dancing, and our host and hostess,
and respected fellow-townsmen; also divers young ladies sang very nicely,
and a young Mr Somebody favoured the company with a comic song.
There was the same trespassing on the valuable space by the old subscriber,
who said that `he had said before and would say again',
and he proceeded to say the same things which he said in the same paper
when we first heard our father reading it to our mother.
Farther on the old subscriber proceeded to `maintain',
and recalled attention to the fact that it was just exactly as he had said.
After which he made a few abstract, incoherent remarks
about the `surrounding district', and concluded by stating
that he `must now conclude', and thanking the editor for trespassing on
the aforesaid valuable space.
There was the usual leader on the Government; and an agitation
was still carried on, by means of horribly-constructed correspondence
to both papers, for a bridge over Dry-Hole Creek at Dustbin --
a place where no sane man ever had occasion to go.
I took up the