Joe Wilson and His Mates [29]
turn about, as three of the same sex will do
all over the world. I had my old cattle-dog, and of course a pup on the load
-- I always had a pup that I gave away, or sold and didn't get paid for,
or had `touched' (stolen) as soon as it was old enough. James had
his three spidery, sneaking, thieving, cold-blooded kangaroo-dogs with him.
I was taking out three months' provisions in the way of ration-sugar,
tea, flour, and potatoes, &c.
I started early, and Mary caught up to me at Ryan's Crossing on Sandy Creek,
where we boiled the billy and had some dinner.
Mary bustled about the camp and admired the scenery and talked too much,
for her, and was extra cheerful, and kept her face turned from me
as much as possible. I soon saw what was the matter.
She'd been crying to herself coming along the road. I thought it was all
on account of leaving little Jim behind for the first time. She told me
that she couldn't make up her mind till the last moment to leave him,
and that, a mile or two along the road, she'd have turned back for him,
only that she knew her sister would laugh at her. She was always
terribly anxious about the children.
We cheered each other up, and Mary drove with me the rest of the way
to the creek, along the lonely branch track, across native-apple-tree flats.
It was a dreary, hopeless track. There was no horizon,
nothing but the rough ashen trunks of the gnarled and stunted trees
in all directions, little or no undergrowth, and the ground,
save for the coarse, brownish tufts of dead grass, as bare as the road,
for it was a dry season: there had been no rain for months,
and I wondered what I should do with the cattle if there wasn't more grass
on the creek.
In this sort of country a stranger might travel for miles
without seeming to have moved, for all the difference there is in the scenery.
The new tracks were `blazed' -- that is, slices of bark cut off
from both sides of trees, within sight of each other, in a line,
to mark the track until the horses and wheel-marks made it plain.
A smart Bushman, with a sharp tomahawk, can blaze a track as he rides.
But a Bushman a little used to the country soon picks out
differences amongst the trees, half unconsciously as it were,
and so finds his way about.
Mary and I didn't talk much along this track -- we couldn't have
heard each other very well, anyway, for the `clock-clock' of the waggon
and the rattle of the cart over the hard lumpy ground.
And I suppose we both began to feel pretty dismal as the shadows lengthened.
I'd noticed lately that Mary and I had got out of the habit of talking
to each other -- noticed it in a vague sort of way that irritated me
(as vague things will irritate one) when I thought of it. But then I thought,
`It won't last long -- I'll make life brighter for her by-and-by.'
As we went along -- and the track seemed endless -- I got brooding, of course,
back into the past. And I feel now, when it's too late, that Mary
must have been thinking that way too. I thought of my early boyhood,
of the hard life of `grubbin'' and `milkin'' and `fencin'' and `ploughin''
and `ring-barkin'', &c., and all for nothing. The few months
at the little bark-school, with a teacher who couldn't spell.
The cursed ambition or craving that tortured my soul as a boy --
ambition or craving for -- I didn't know what for! For something
better and brighter, anyhow. And I made the life harder by reading at night.
It all passed before me as I followed on in the waggon,
behind Mary in the spring-cart. I thought of these old things
more than I thought of her. She had tried to help me to better things.
And I tried too -- I had the energy of half-a-dozen men when I saw a road
clear before me, but shied at the first check. Then I brooded,
or dreamed of making a home -- that one might call a home -- for Mary --
some day. Ah, well! ----
And what was Mary thinking about, along the lonely, changeless miles?
I never thought of that. Of her kind, careless, gentleman father, perhaps.
Of her girlhood.
all over the world. I had my old cattle-dog, and of course a pup on the load
-- I always had a pup that I gave away, or sold and didn't get paid for,
or had `touched' (stolen) as soon as it was old enough. James had
his three spidery, sneaking, thieving, cold-blooded kangaroo-dogs with him.
I was taking out three months' provisions in the way of ration-sugar,
tea, flour, and potatoes, &c.
I started early, and Mary caught up to me at Ryan's Crossing on Sandy Creek,
where we boiled the billy and had some dinner.
Mary bustled about the camp and admired the scenery and talked too much,
for her, and was extra cheerful, and kept her face turned from me
as much as possible. I soon saw what was the matter.
She'd been crying to herself coming along the road. I thought it was all
on account of leaving little Jim behind for the first time. She told me
that she couldn't make up her mind till the last moment to leave him,
and that, a mile or two along the road, she'd have turned back for him,
only that she knew her sister would laugh at her. She was always
terribly anxious about the children.
We cheered each other up, and Mary drove with me the rest of the way
to the creek, along the lonely branch track, across native-apple-tree flats.
It was a dreary, hopeless track. There was no horizon,
nothing but the rough ashen trunks of the gnarled and stunted trees
in all directions, little or no undergrowth, and the ground,
save for the coarse, brownish tufts of dead grass, as bare as the road,
for it was a dry season: there had been no rain for months,
and I wondered what I should do with the cattle if there wasn't more grass
on the creek.
In this sort of country a stranger might travel for miles
without seeming to have moved, for all the difference there is in the scenery.
The new tracks were `blazed' -- that is, slices of bark cut off
from both sides of trees, within sight of each other, in a line,
to mark the track until the horses and wheel-marks made it plain.
A smart Bushman, with a sharp tomahawk, can blaze a track as he rides.
But a Bushman a little used to the country soon picks out
differences amongst the trees, half unconsciously as it were,
and so finds his way about.
Mary and I didn't talk much along this track -- we couldn't have
heard each other very well, anyway, for the `clock-clock' of the waggon
and the rattle of the cart over the hard lumpy ground.
And I suppose we both began to feel pretty dismal as the shadows lengthened.
I'd noticed lately that Mary and I had got out of the habit of talking
to each other -- noticed it in a vague sort of way that irritated me
(as vague things will irritate one) when I thought of it. But then I thought,
`It won't last long -- I'll make life brighter for her by-and-by.'
As we went along -- and the track seemed endless -- I got brooding, of course,
back into the past. And I feel now, when it's too late, that Mary
must have been thinking that way too. I thought of my early boyhood,
of the hard life of `grubbin'' and `milkin'' and `fencin'' and `ploughin''
and `ring-barkin'', &c., and all for nothing. The few months
at the little bark-school, with a teacher who couldn't spell.
The cursed ambition or craving that tortured my soul as a boy --
ambition or craving for -- I didn't know what for! For something
better and brighter, anyhow. And I made the life harder by reading at night.
It all passed before me as I followed on in the waggon,
behind Mary in the spring-cart. I thought of these old things
more than I thought of her. She had tried to help me to better things.
And I tried too -- I had the energy of half-a-dozen men when I saw a road
clear before me, but shied at the first check. Then I brooded,
or dreamed of making a home -- that one might call a home -- for Mary --
some day. Ah, well! ----
And what was Mary thinking about, along the lonely, changeless miles?
I never thought of that. Of her kind, careless, gentleman father, perhaps.
Of her girlhood.