On Our Selection [0]
On Our Selection
by Steele Rudd (Arthur Hoey Davis)
PIONEERS OF AUSTRALIA!
To You "Who Gave Our Country Birth;"
to the memory of You
whose names, whose giant enterprise, whose deeds of
fortitude and daring
were never engraved on tablet or tombstone;
to You who strove through the silences of the Bush-lands
and made them ours;
to You who delved and toiled in loneliness through
the years that have faded away;
to You who have no place in the history of our Country
so far as it is yet written;
to You who have done MOST for this Land;
to You for whom few, in the march of settlement, in the turmoil
of busy city life, now appear to care;
and to you particularly,
GOOD OLD DAD,
This Book is most affectionately dedicated.
"STEELE RUDD."
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. STARTING THE SELECTION
CHAPTER II. OUR FIRST HARVEST
CHAPTER III. BEFORE WE GOT THE DEEDS
CHAPTER IV. WHEN THE WOLF WAS AT THE DOOR
CHAPTER V. THE NIGHT WE WATCHED FOR WALLABIES
CHAPTER VI. GOOD OLD BESS
CHAPTER VII. CRANKY JACK
CHAPTER VIII. A KANGAROO HUNT FROM SHINGLE HUT
CHAPTER IX. DAVE'S SNAKEBITE
CHAPTER X. DAD AND THE DONOVANS
CHAPTER XI. A SPLENDID YEAR FOR CORN
CHAPTER XII. KATE'S WEDDING
CHAPTER XIII. THE SUMMER OLD BOB DIED
CHAPTER XIV. WHEN DAN CAME HOME
CHAPTER XV. OUR CIRCUS
CHAPTER XVI. WHEN JOE WAS IN CHARGE
CHAPTER XVII. DAD'S "FORTUNE"
CHAPTER XVIII. WE EMBARK IN THE BEAR INDUSTRY
CHAPTER XIX. NELL AND NED
CHAPTER XX THE COW WE BOUGHT
CHAPTER XXI. THE PARSON AND THE SCONE
CHAPTER XXII. CALLAGHAN'S COLT
CHAPTER XXIII. THE AGRICULTURAL REPORTER
CHAPTER XXIV. A LADY AT SHINGLE HUT
CHAPTER XXV. THE MAN WITH THE BEAR-SKIN CAP
CHAPTER XXVI. CHRISTMAS
On Our Selection.
Chapter I.
Starting the Selection.
It's twenty years ago now since we settled on the Creek. Twenty years! I remember well the day we came from Stanthorpe, on Jerome's dray--eight of us, and all the things--beds, tubs, a bucket, the two cedar chairs with the pine bottoms and backs that Dad put in them, some pint-pots and old Crib. It was a scorching hot day, too--talk about thirst! At every creek we came to we drank till it stopped running.
Dad did n't travel up with us: he had gone some months before, to put up the house and dig the waterhole. It was a slabbed house, with shingled roof, and space enough for two rooms; but the partition was n't up. The floor was earth; but Dad had a mixture of sand and fresh cow-dung with which he used to keep it level. About once every month he would put it on; and everyone had to keep outside that day till it was dry. There were no locks on the doors: pegs were put in to keep them fast at night; and the slabs were not very close together, for we could easily see through them anybody coming on horseback. Joe and I used to play at counting the stars through the cracks in the roof.
The day after we arrived Dad took Mother and us out to see the paddock and the flat on the other side of the gully that he was going to clear for cultivation. There was no fence round the paddock, but he pointed out on a tree the surveyor's marks, showing the boundary of our ground. It must have been fine land, the way Dad talked about it! There was very valuable timber on it, too, so he said; and he showed us a place, among some rocks on a ridge, where he was sure gold would be found, but we were n't to say anything about it. Joe and I went back that evening and turned over every stone on the ridge, but we did n't find any gold.
No mistake, it was a real wilderness--nothing but trees, "goannas," dead timber, and bears; and the nearest house--Dwyer's--was three miles away. I often wonder how the women stood it the first few years; and I can remember how Mother, when she was alone, used to sit on a log, where the lane is now, and cry for hours. Lonely! It WAS lonely.
Dad soon talked about clearing a couple of acres and putting in corn--all of us did, in fact--till the work commenced. It was a delightful