Joe Wilson and His Mates [36]
patch in the scrub near the hut.
There was a wretched sapling cow-yard and calf-pen, and a cow-bail
with one sheet of bark over it for shelter. There was no dairy to be seen,
and I suppose the milk was set in one of the two skillion rooms,
or lean-to's behind the hut, -- the other was `the boys' bedroom'.
The Spicers kept a few cows and steers, and had thirty or forty sheep.
Mrs Spicer used to drive down the creek once a-week, in her rickety
old spring-cart, to Cobborah, with butter and eggs. The hut was nearly
as bare inside as it was out -- just a frame of `round-timber'
(sapling poles) covered with bark. The furniture was permanent
(unless you rooted it up), like in our kitchen: a rough slab table
on stakes driven into the ground, and seats made the same way.
Mary told me afterwards that the beds in the bag-and-bark partitioned-off room
(`mother's bedroom') were simply poles laid side by side on cross-pieces
supported by stakes driven into the ground, with straw mattresses
and some worn-out bed-clothes. Mrs Spicer had an old patchwork quilt,
in rags, and the remains of a white one, and Mary said it was pitiful
to see how these things would be spread over the beds --
to hide them as much as possible -- when she went down there.
A packing-case, with something like an old print skirt draped round it,
and a cracked looking-glass (without a frame) on top, was the dressing-table.
There were a couple of gin-cases for a wardrobe. The boys' beds
were three-bushel bags stretched between poles fastened to uprights.
The floor was the original surface, tramped hard, worn uneven
with much sweeping, and with puddles in rainy weather where the roof leaked.
Mrs Spicer used to stand old tins, dishes, and buckets
under as many of the leaks as she could. The saucepans, kettles, and boilers
were old kerosene-tins and billies. They used kerosene-tins, too,
cut longways in halves, for setting the milk in. The plates and cups
were of tin; there were two or three cups without saucers,
and a crockery plate or two -- also two mugs, cracked and without handles,
one with `For a Good Boy' and the other with `For a Good Girl' on it;
but all these were kept on the mantel-shelf for ornament and for company.
They were the only ornaments in the house, save a little wooden clock
that hadn't gone for years. Mrs Spicer had a superstition
that she had `some things packed away from the children.'
The pictures were cut from old copies of the `Illustrated Sydney News'
and pasted on to the bark. I remember this, because I remembered, long ago,
the Spencers, who were our neighbours when I was a boy,
had the walls of their bedroom covered with illustrations
of the American Civil War, cut from illustrated London papers,
and I used to `sneak' into `mother's bedroom' with Fred Spencer
whenever we got the chance, and gloat over the prints.
I gave him a blade of a pocket-knife once, for taking me in there.
I saw very little of Spicer. He was a big, dark, dark-haired
and whiskered man. I had an idea that he wasn't a selector at all,
only a `dummy' for the squatter of the Cobborah run. You see,
selectors were allowed to take up land on runs, or pastoral leases.
The squatters kept them off as much as possible, by all manner of dodges
and paltry persecution. The squatter would get as much freehold
as he could afford, `select' as much land as the law allowed one man
to take up, and then employ dummies (dummy selectors) to take up bits of land
that he fancied about his run, and hold them for him.
Spicer seemed gloomy and unsociable. He was seldom at home.
He was generally supposed to be away shearin', or fencin', or workin'
on somebody's station. It turned out that the last six months he was away
it was on the evidence of a cask of beef and a hide with the brand cut out,
found in his camp on a fencing contract up-country, and which he and his mates
couldn't account for satisfactorily, while the squatter could.
Then the family lived mostly on bread and honey, or bread and treacle,
or bread and
There was a wretched sapling cow-yard and calf-pen, and a cow-bail
with one sheet of bark over it for shelter. There was no dairy to be seen,
and I suppose the milk was set in one of the two skillion rooms,
or lean-to's behind the hut, -- the other was `the boys' bedroom'.
The Spicers kept a few cows and steers, and had thirty or forty sheep.
Mrs Spicer used to drive down the creek once a-week, in her rickety
old spring-cart, to Cobborah, with butter and eggs. The hut was nearly
as bare inside as it was out -- just a frame of `round-timber'
(sapling poles) covered with bark. The furniture was permanent
(unless you rooted it up), like in our kitchen: a rough slab table
on stakes driven into the ground, and seats made the same way.
Mary told me afterwards that the beds in the bag-and-bark partitioned-off room
(`mother's bedroom') were simply poles laid side by side on cross-pieces
supported by stakes driven into the ground, with straw mattresses
and some worn-out bed-clothes. Mrs Spicer had an old patchwork quilt,
in rags, and the remains of a white one, and Mary said it was pitiful
to see how these things would be spread over the beds --
to hide them as much as possible -- when she went down there.
A packing-case, with something like an old print skirt draped round it,
and a cracked looking-glass (without a frame) on top, was the dressing-table.
There were a couple of gin-cases for a wardrobe. The boys' beds
were three-bushel bags stretched between poles fastened to uprights.
The floor was the original surface, tramped hard, worn uneven
with much sweeping, and with puddles in rainy weather where the roof leaked.
Mrs Spicer used to stand old tins, dishes, and buckets
under as many of the leaks as she could. The saucepans, kettles, and boilers
were old kerosene-tins and billies. They used kerosene-tins, too,
cut longways in halves, for setting the milk in. The plates and cups
were of tin; there were two or three cups without saucers,
and a crockery plate or two -- also two mugs, cracked and without handles,
one with `For a Good Boy' and the other with `For a Good Girl' on it;
but all these were kept on the mantel-shelf for ornament and for company.
They were the only ornaments in the house, save a little wooden clock
that hadn't gone for years. Mrs Spicer had a superstition
that she had `some things packed away from the children.'
The pictures were cut from old copies of the `Illustrated Sydney News'
and pasted on to the bark. I remember this, because I remembered, long ago,
the Spencers, who were our neighbours when I was a boy,
had the walls of their bedroom covered with illustrations
of the American Civil War, cut from illustrated London papers,
and I used to `sneak' into `mother's bedroom' with Fred Spencer
whenever we got the chance, and gloat over the prints.
I gave him a blade of a pocket-knife once, for taking me in there.
I saw very little of Spicer. He was a big, dark, dark-haired
and whiskered man. I had an idea that he wasn't a selector at all,
only a `dummy' for the squatter of the Cobborah run. You see,
selectors were allowed to take up land on runs, or pastoral leases.
The squatters kept them off as much as possible, by all manner of dodges
and paltry persecution. The squatter would get as much freehold
as he could afford, `select' as much land as the law allowed one man
to take up, and then employ dummies (dummy selectors) to take up bits of land
that he fancied about his run, and hold them for him.
Spicer seemed gloomy and unsociable. He was seldom at home.
He was generally supposed to be away shearin', or fencin', or workin'
on somebody's station. It turned out that the last six months he was away
it was on the evidence of a cask of beef and a hide with the brand cut out,
found in his camp on a fencing contract up-country, and which he and his mates
couldn't account for satisfactorily, while the squatter could.
Then the family lived mostly on bread and honey, or bread and treacle,
or bread and