Joe Wilson and His Mates [2]
with a woman than an innocent young man dares go
in three weeks. Above all, the married man is more decided with women;
he takes them and things for granted. In short he is --
well, he is a married man. And, when he knows all this,
how much better or happier is he for it? Mark Twain says
that he lost all the beauty of the river when he saw it with a pilot's eye, --
and there you have it.
But it's all new to a young chap, provided he hasn't been a young blackguard.
It's all wonderful, new, and strange to him. He's a different man.
He finds that he never knew anything about women. He sees none of woman's
little ways and tricks in his girl. He is in heaven one day
and down near the other place the next; and that's the sort of thing
that makes life interesting. He takes his new world for granted.
And, when she says she'll be his wife ----!
Make the most of your courting days, you young chaps, for they've got
a lot of influence on your married life afterwards -- a lot more
than you'd think. Make the best of them, for they'll never come any more,
unless we do our courting over again in another world. If we do,
I'll make the most of mine.
But, looking back, I didn't do so badly after all. I never told you
about the days I courted Mary. The more I look back the more I come to think
that I made the most of them, and if I had no more to regret
in married life than I have in my courting days, I wouldn't walk to and fro
in the room, or up and down the yard in the dark sometimes,
or lie awake some nights thinking. . . . Ah well!
I was between twenty-one and thirty then: birthdays had never been
any use to me, and I'd left off counting them. You don't take much stock
in birthdays in the Bush. I'd knocked about the country for a few years,
shearing and fencing and droving a little, and wasting my life without getting
anything for it. I drank now and then, and made a fool of myself.
I was reckoned `wild'; but I only drank because I felt less sensitive,
and the world seemed a lot saner and better and kinder
when I had a few drinks: I loved my fellow-man then and felt nearer to him.
It's better to be thought `wild' than to be considered eccentric or ratty.
Now, my old mate, Jack Barnes, drank -- as far as I could see --
first because he'd inherited the gambling habit from his father along with
his father's luck: he'd the habit of being cheated and losing very bad,
and when he lost he drank. Till drink got a hold on him.
Jack was sentimental too, but in a different way. I was sentimental
about other people -- more fool I! -- whereas Jack was sentimental
about himself. Before he was married, and when he was recovering
from a spree, he'd write rhymes about `Only a boy, drunk by the roadside',
and that sort of thing; and he'd call 'em poetry, and talk about
signing them and sending them to the `Town and Country Journal'.
But he generally tore them up when he got better. The Bush is breeding
a race of poets, and I don't know what the country will come to in the end.
Well. It was after Jack and I had been out shearing at Beenaway shed
in the Big Scrubs. Jack was living in the little farming town of Solong,
and I was hanging round. Black, the squatter, wanted some fencing done
and a new stable built, or buggy and harness-house, at his place at Haviland,
a few miles out of Solong. Jack and I were good Bush carpenters,
so we took the job to keep us going till something else turned up.
`Better than doing nothing,' said Jack.
`There's a nice little girl in service at Black's,' he said.
`She's more like an adopted daughter, in fact, than a servant.
She's a real good little girl, and good-looking into the bargain.
I hear that young Black is sweet on her, but they say she won't have
anything to do with him. I know a lot of chaps that have tried for her,
but they've never had any luck. She's a regular little dumpling,
and I like dumplings. They call her 'Possum. You ought to try a bear
up in that direction, Joe.'
I was always shy with women -- except
in three weeks. Above all, the married man is more decided with women;
he takes them and things for granted. In short he is --
well, he is a married man. And, when he knows all this,
how much better or happier is he for it? Mark Twain says
that he lost all the beauty of the river when he saw it with a pilot's eye, --
and there you have it.
But it's all new to a young chap, provided he hasn't been a young blackguard.
It's all wonderful, new, and strange to him. He's a different man.
He finds that he never knew anything about women. He sees none of woman's
little ways and tricks in his girl. He is in heaven one day
and down near the other place the next; and that's the sort of thing
that makes life interesting. He takes his new world for granted.
And, when she says she'll be his wife ----!
Make the most of your courting days, you young chaps, for they've got
a lot of influence on your married life afterwards -- a lot more
than you'd think. Make the best of them, for they'll never come any more,
unless we do our courting over again in another world. If we do,
I'll make the most of mine.
But, looking back, I didn't do so badly after all. I never told you
about the days I courted Mary. The more I look back the more I come to think
that I made the most of them, and if I had no more to regret
in married life than I have in my courting days, I wouldn't walk to and fro
in the room, or up and down the yard in the dark sometimes,
or lie awake some nights thinking. . . . Ah well!
I was between twenty-one and thirty then: birthdays had never been
any use to me, and I'd left off counting them. You don't take much stock
in birthdays in the Bush. I'd knocked about the country for a few years,
shearing and fencing and droving a little, and wasting my life without getting
anything for it. I drank now and then, and made a fool of myself.
I was reckoned `wild'; but I only drank because I felt less sensitive,
and the world seemed a lot saner and better and kinder
when I had a few drinks: I loved my fellow-man then and felt nearer to him.
It's better to be thought `wild' than to be considered eccentric or ratty.
Now, my old mate, Jack Barnes, drank -- as far as I could see --
first because he'd inherited the gambling habit from his father along with
his father's luck: he'd the habit of being cheated and losing very bad,
and when he lost he drank. Till drink got a hold on him.
Jack was sentimental too, but in a different way. I was sentimental
about other people -- more fool I! -- whereas Jack was sentimental
about himself. Before he was married, and when he was recovering
from a spree, he'd write rhymes about `Only a boy, drunk by the roadside',
and that sort of thing; and he'd call 'em poetry, and talk about
signing them and sending them to the `Town and Country Journal'.
But he generally tore them up when he got better. The Bush is breeding
a race of poets, and I don't know what the country will come to in the end.
Well. It was after Jack and I had been out shearing at Beenaway shed
in the Big Scrubs. Jack was living in the little farming town of Solong,
and I was hanging round. Black, the squatter, wanted some fencing done
and a new stable built, or buggy and harness-house, at his place at Haviland,
a few miles out of Solong. Jack and I were good Bush carpenters,
so we took the job to keep us going till something else turned up.
`Better than doing nothing,' said Jack.
`There's a nice little girl in service at Black's,' he said.
`She's more like an adopted daughter, in fact, than a servant.
She's a real good little girl, and good-looking into the bargain.
I hear that young Black is sweet on her, but they say she won't have
anything to do with him. I know a lot of chaps that have tried for her,
but they've never had any luck. She's a regular little dumpling,
and I like dumplings. They call her 'Possum. You ought to try a bear
up in that direction, Joe.'
I was always shy with women -- except