Children of the Bush Part 14

"Well, yes, Harry," he said. "I'm generally dull the first day on the track. The first day is generally the worst, anywhere or anytime--except, perhaps, when you're married.... I got--well, I got thinking of the time when a woman's word could have hurt me."

Just then one of the "travellers" who were camped a bit up the creek suddenly commenced to sing. It was a song called "The Shearer's Dream,"

and I suppose the buggy of girls, or the conversation they started, reminded him of it. He started his verses and most of his lines with a howl; and there were unexpected howls all through the song, and it wailed off, just as unexpectedly, in places where there was no pathos that I could see:

Oh, I dreamt I sh.o.r.e in a shearer's shed, and it was a dream of joy, For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy-- Dressed up like a page in a pantomime, and the prettiest ever seen-- They had flaxen hair, they had coal-black hair--and every shade between.

"Every" with sudden and great energy, a long drop on to "shade," and a wail of intense sadness and regret running on into "between," the dirge reaching its wailsomest in the "tween" in every case.

The shed was cooled by electric fans that was over every "shoot"; The pens was of polished ma-ho-gany, and ev'rything else to suit; The huts was fixed with spring-mattresses, and the tucker was simply grand, And every night by the biller-bong we darnced to a German band.

"_Chorus, boys!"_

There was short, plump girls, there was tall, slim girls, and the handsomest ever seen They was four-foot-five, they was six-foot high, and hevery size between.

Our pay was the wool on the jumbucks' backs, so we sh.o.r.e till all was blue The sheep was washed afore they was sh.o.r.e (and the rams was scented too); And we all of us cried when the shed cut out, in spite of the long, hot days, For hevery hour them girls waltzed in with whisky and beer on tr-a-a-a-ys!

"_Chorus_! _you_ ----!"

They had kind grey eyes, they had coal-black eyes, and the grandest ever seen They had plump pink hands, they had slim white hands, and hevery shape be-tw-e-e-n.

There was three of them girls to every chap, and as jealous as they could be--

"Ow! you ----"

The singer's voice or memory seemed suddenly to have failed him at this point, but whether his mates. .h.i.t him on the back of the head with a tomahawk, or only choked him, I do not know. Mitch.e.l.l was inclined to think, from the sound of it, that they choked him.

THE LOST SOULS' HOTEL

Hunqerford Road, February. One hundred and thirty miles of heavy reddish sand, bordered by dry, hot scrubs. Dense cloud of hot dust.

Four wool-teams pa.s.sing through a gate in a "rabbit proof" fence which crosses the road. Clock, clock, clock of wheels and rattle and clink of chains, crack of whips and explosions of Australian language. Bales and everything else coated with dust. Stink of old axle-grease and tarpaulins. Tyres hot enough to fry chops on: bows and chains so hot that it's a wonder they do not burn through the bullock's hides. Water lukewarm in blistered kegs slung behind the wagons. Bullocks dragging along as only bullocks do. Wheels ploughing through the deep sand, and the load lurching from side to side. Half-way on a "dry-stretch" of seventeen miles. Big "tank" full of good water through the scrub to the right, but it is a private tank and a boundary-rider is shepherding it.

Mulga scrub and spa.r.s.e, spiky undergrowth.

The carriers camp for dinner and boil their billies while the bullocks droop under their yokes in the blazing heat; one or two lie down and the leaders drag and twist themselves round under a dead tree, under the impression that there is shade there. The carriers look like Red Indians, with the masks of red dust "bound" with sweat on their faces, but there is an unhealthy-looking, whitish s.p.a.ce round their eyes, caused by wiping away the blinding dust, sweat, and flies. The dry sticks burn with a pale flame and an almost invisible thin pale blue smoke. The sun's heat dancing and dazzling across every white fence-post, sandhill, or light-coloured object in the distance.

One man takes off his boot and sock, empties half a pint of sand out of them, and pulls up his trouser-leg. His leg is sheathed to the knee in dust and sweat; he absently sc.r.a.pes it with his knife, and presently he amuses himself by moistening a strip with his forefinger and shaving it, as if he were vaguely curious to see if he is still a white man.

The Hungerford coach ploughs past in a dense cloud of dust.

The teams drag on again like a "wounded snake that dies at sundown,"

if a wounded snake that dies at sundown could revive sufficiently next morning to drag on again until another sun goes down.

Hopeless-looking swagmen are met with during the afternoon, and one carrier--he of the sanded leg--lends them tobacco; his mates contribute "bits o'" tea, flour, and sugar.

Sundown and the bullocks done up. The teamsters unyoke them and drive them on to the next water--five miles--having previously sent a mate to reconnoitre and see that boundary-rider is not round, otherwise, to make terms with him, for it is a squatter's bore. They hurry the bullocks down to the water and back in the twilight, and then, under cover of darkness, turn them into a clearing in the scrub off the road, where a sign in the gra.s.s might be seen--if you look close. But the "bullockies"

are better off than the horse-teamsters, for bad chaff is sold by the pound and corn is worth its weight in gold.

Mitch.e.l.l and I turned off the track at the rabbit-proof fence and made for the tank in the mulga. We boiled the billy and had some salt mutton and damper. We were making back for Bourke, having failed to get a cut in any of the sheds on the Hungerford track. We sat under a clump of mulga saplings, with our backs to the trunks, and got out our pipes.

Usually, when the flies were very bad on the track, we had to keep twigs or wild-turkey=tail feathers going in front of our faces the whole time to keep the mad flies out of our eyes; and, when we camped, one would keep the feather going while the other lit his pipe--then the smoke would keep them away. But the flies weren't so bad in a good shade or in a darkened hut. Mitch.e.l.l's pipe would have smoked out Old Nick; it was an ancient string-bound meerschaum, and strong enough to kill a blackfellow. I had one smoke out of it, once when I felt bad in my inside and wanted to be sick, and the result was very satisfactory.

Mitch.e.l.l looked through his old pocket-book--more by force of habit than anything else--and turned up a circular from Tattersall's. And that reminded him.

"Do you know what I'd do, Harry," he said, "if I won Tattersall's big sweep, or was to come into fifty or a hundred thousand pounds, or, better still, a million?"

"Nothing I suppose," I said, "except to get away to Sydney or some cooler place than this."

"I'll tell you what I'd do," said Mitch.e.l.l, talking round his pipe. "I'd build a Swagman's Rest right here."

"A Swagman's Rest?"

"Yes. Right here on this very G.o.d-forsaken spot. I'd build a Swagman's Rest and call it the Lost Souls' Hotel, or the Sundowners' Arms, or the Half-way House to ----, or some such name that would take the bushmen's fancy. I'd have it built on the best plans for coolness in a hot country; bricks, and plenty of wide verandas with brick floors, and balconies, and shingles, in the old Australian style. I wouldn't have a sheet of corrugated iron about the place. And I'd have old-fashioned hinged sashes with small panes and vines round 'em; they look cooler and more homely and romantic than the glaring sort that shove up.

"And I'd dig a tank or reservoir for surface water as big as a lake, and bore for artesian water--and get it, too, if I had to bore right through to England; and I'd irrigate the ground and make it grow horse-feed and fruit, and vegetables too, if I had to cart manure from Bourke. And every teamster's bullock or horse, and every shearer's hack, could burst itself free, but I'd make travelling stock pay--for it belongs to the squatters and capitalists. All carriers could camp for one night only. And I'd--no, I wouldn't have any flowers; they might remind some heart-broken, new-chum black sheep of the house where he was born, and the mother whose heart he broke--and the father whose grey hairs he brought down in sorrow to the grave--and break him up altogether."

"But what about the old-fashioned windows and the vines?" I asked.

"Oh!" said Mitch.e.l.l, "I forgot them. On second thought, I think I would have some flowers; and maybe a bit of ivy-green. The new chum might be trying to work out his own salvation, and the sight of the roses and ivy would show him that he hadn't struck such a G.o.d-forgotten country after all, and help strengthen the hope for something better that's in the heart of every vagabond till he dies."

Puff, puff, puff, slowly and reflectively.

"Until he dies," repeated Mitch.e.l.l. "And, maybe," he said, rousing himself, "I'd have a little room fixed up like a corner of a swell restaurant, with silver and napkins on the table, and I'd fix up a waiter, so that when a broken-down University wreck came along he might feel, for an hour or so, something like the man he used to be. But I suppose," Mitch.e.l.l reflected, "he wouldn't feel completely his old self without a lady friend sitting opposite to him. I might fix up a black gin for him, but I suppose he'd draw the colour line. But that's nonsense.

"All teamsters and travellers could camp there for one night only. I'd have shower-baths; but I wouldn't force any man to have a bath against his will. They could sit down to a table and have a feed off a table-cloth, and sleep in sheets, and feel like they did before their old mothers died, or before they ran away from home."

"Who? The mothers?" I asked.

"Yes, in some cases," said Mitch.e.l.l. "And I'd have a nice, cool little summer-house down near the artificial lake, out of earshot of the house, where the bullock-drivers could sit with their pipes after tea, and tell yarns, and talk in their own language. And I'd have boats on the lake, too, in case an old Oxford or Cambridge man, or an old sailor came along--it might put years on to his life to have a pull at the oars. You remember that old sailor we saw in charge of the engine back there at the government tank? You saw how he had the engine?--clean and bright as a new pin--everything spick-and-span and shipshape, and his hut fixed up like a ship's cabin. I believe he thinks he's at sea half his time, and shoving her through it, instead of pumping muddy water out of a hole in the baking scrubs for starving stock. Or maybe he reckons he's keeping her afloat."

"And would you have fish in this lake of yours?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," said Mitch.e.l.l, "and any ratty old shepherd or sundowner, that's gone mad of heat and loneliness--like the old codger we met back yonder--he could sit by the lagoon in the cool of the evening and fish to his heart's content with a string and a bent pin, and dream he's playing truant from school and fishing in the brook near his native village in England about fifty years ago. It would seem more real than fishing in the dust as some mad old bushmen do."

"But you'd draw the line somewhere?" I asked.

"No," said Mitch.e.l.l, "not even at poets. I'd try to cure them, too, with good wholesome food and plenty of physical exercise. The Lost Souls'

Hotel would be a refuge for men who'd been jail-birds once as well as men who were gentlemen once, and for physical wrecks and ruined drunkards as well as healthy honest shearers. I'd sit down and talk to the boozer or felon just as if I thought he was as good a man as me--and he might be, for that matter--G.o.d knows.

"The sick man would be kept till he recovered, or died; and the boozer, suffering from a recovery, I'd keep him till he was on his legs again."

"Then you'd have to have a doctor," I said.

"Yes," said Mitch.e.l.l, "I'd fix that up all right. I wouldn't bother much about a respectable medical pract.i.tioner from the city. I'd get a medical wreck who had a brilliant career before him once in England and got into disgrace, and cleared out to the colonies--a man who knows what the d.t.'s is--a man who's been through it all and knows it all."

"Then you'd want a manager, or a clerk or secretary," I suggested.

"I suppose I would," said Mitch.e.l.l. "I've got no head for figures. I suppose I'd have to advertise for him. If an applicant came with the highest testimonials of character, and especially if one was signed by a parson, I'd tell him to call again next week; and if a young man could prove that he came of a good Christian family, and went to church regularly, and sang in the choir, and taught Sunday-school, I'd tell him that he needn't come again, that the vacancy was filled, for I couldn't trust, him. The man who's been extra religious and honest and hard-working in his young days is most likely to go wrong afterwards.