Joe Wilson and His Mates Part 16

I had a few days at home, and entered into the spirit of the thing. When Corny was done, James and I cross-ploughed the land, and got a stump or two, a big log, and some scrub out of the way at the upper end and added nearly an acre, and ploughed that. James was all right at most Bushwork: he'd bullock so long as the novelty lasted; he liked ploughing or fencing, or any graft he could make a show at. He didn't care for grubbing out stumps, or splitting posts and rails. We sliced the potatoes of an evening--and there was trouble between Mary and James over cutting through the 'eyes'. There was no time for the hoe--and besides it wasn't a novelty to James--so I just ran furrows and they dropped the spuds in behind me, and I turned another furrow over them, and ran the harrow over the ground. I think I hilled those spuds, too, with furrows--or a crop of Indian corn I put in later on.

It rained heavens-hard for over a week: we had regular showers all through, and it was the finest crop of potatoes ever seen in the district. I believe at first Mary used to slip down at daybreak to see if the potatoes were up; and she'd write to me about them, on the road.

I forget how many bags I got; but the few who had grown potatoes in the district sent theirs to Sydney, and spuds went up to twelve and fifteen shillings a hundredweight in that district. I made a few quid out of mine--and saved carriage too, for I could take them out on the waggon.

Then Mary began to hear (through James) of a buggy that some one had for sale cheap, or a dogcart that somebody else wanted to get rid of--and let me know about it, in an offhand way.

II. Joe Wilson's Luck.

There was good gra.s.s on the selection all the year. I'd picked up a small lot--about twenty head--of half-starved steers for next to nothing, and turned them on the run; they came on wonderfully, and my brother-in-law (Mary's sister's husband), who was running a butchery at Gulgong, gave me a good price for them. His carts ran out twenty or thirty miles, to little bits of gold-rushes that were going on at th'

Home Rule, Happy Valley, Guntaw.a.n.g, Tallaw.a.n.g, and Cooyal, and those places round there, and he was doing well.

Mary had heard of a light American waggonette, when the steers went--a tray-body arrangement, and she thought she'd do with that. 'It would be better than the buggy, Joe,' she said--'there'd be more room for the children, and, besides, I could take b.u.t.ter and eggs to Gulgong, or Cobborah, when we get a few more cows.' Then James heard of a small flock of sheep that a selector--who was about starved off his selection out Talbragar way--wanted to get rid of. James reckoned he could get them for less than half-a-crown a-head. We'd had a heavy shower of rain, that came over the ranges and didn't seem to go beyond our boundaries.

Mary said, 'It's a pity to see all that gra.s.s going to waste, Joe.

Better get those sheep and try your luck with them. Leave some money with me, and I'll send James over for them. Never mind about the buggy--we'll get that when we're on our feet.'

So James rode across to Talbragar and drove a hard bargain with that unfortunate selector, and brought the sheep home. There were about two hundred, wethers and ewes, and they were young and looked a good breed too, but so poor they could scarcely travel; they soon picked up, though. The drought was blazing all round and Out-Back, and I think that my corner of the ridges was the only place where there was any gra.s.s to speak of. We had another shower or two, and the gra.s.s held out. Chaps began to talk of 'Joe Wilson's luck'.

I would have liked to shear those sheep; but I hadn't time to get a shed or anything ready--along towards Christmas there was a bit of a boom in the carrying line. Wethers in wool were going as high as thirteen to fifteen shillings at the Homebush yards at Sydney, so I arranged to truck the sheep down from the river by rail, with another small lot that was going, and I started James off with them. He took the west road, and down Guntaw.a.n.g way a big farmer who saw James with the sheep (and who was speculating, or adding to his stock, or took a fancy to the wool) offered James as much for them as he reckoned I'd get in Sydney, after paying the carriage and the agents and the auctioneer. James put the sheep in a paddock and rode back to me. He was all there where riding was concerned. I told him to let the sheep go. James made a Greener shot-gun, and got his saddle done up, out of that job.

I took up a couple more forty-acre blocks--one in James's name, to encourage him with the fencing. There was a good slice of land in an angle between the range and the creek, farther down, which everybody thought belonged to Wall, the squatter, but Mary got an idea, and went to the local land office and found out that it was 'unoccupied Crown land', and so I took it up on pastoral lease, and got a few more sheep--I'd saved some of the best-looking ewes from the last lot.

One evening--I was going down next day for a load of fencing-wire for myself--Mary said,--

'Joe! do you know that the Matthews have got a new double buggy?'

The Matthews were a big family of c.o.c.katoos, along up the main road, and I didn't think much of them. The sons were all 'bad-eggs', though the old woman and girls were right enough.

'Well, what of that?' I said. 'They're up to their neck in debt, and camping like black-fellows in a big bark humpy. They do well to go flashing round in a double buggy.'

'But that isn't what I was going to say,' said Mary. 'They want to sell their old single buggy, James says. I'm sure you could get it for six or seven pounds; and you could have it done up.'

'I wish James to the devil!' I said. 'Can't he find anything better to do than ride round after c.o.c.k-and-bull yarns about buggies?'

'Well,' said Mary, 'it was James who got the steers and the sheep.'

Well, one word led to another, and we said things we didn't mean--but couldn't forget in a hurry. I remember I said something about Mary always dragging me back just when I was getting my head above water and struggling to make a home for her and the children; and that hurt her, and she spoke of the 'homes' she'd had since she was married. And that cut me deep.

It was about the worst quarrel we had. When she began to cry I got my hat and went out and walked up and down by the creek. I hated anything that looked like injustice--I was so sensitive about it that it made me unjust sometimes. I tried to think I was right, but I couldn't--it wouldn't have made me feel any better if I could have thought so. I got thinking of Mary's first year on the selection and the life she'd had since we were married.

When I went in she'd cried herself to sleep. I bent over and, 'Mary,' I whispered.

She seemed to wake up.

'Joe--Joe!' she said.

'What is it Mary?' I said.

'I'm pretty well sure that old Spot's calf isn't in the pen. Make James go at once!'

Old Spot's last calf was two years old now; so Mary was talking in her sleep, and dreaming she was back in her first year.

We both laughed when I told her about it afterwards; but I didn't feel like laughing just then.

Later on in the night she called out in her sleep,--

'Joe--Joe! Put that buggy in the shed, or the sun will blister the varnish!'

I wish I could say that that was the last time I ever spoke unkindly to Mary.

Next morning I got up early and fried the bacon and made the tea, and took Mary's breakfast in to her--like I used to do, sometimes, when we were first married. She didn't say anything--just pulled my head down and kissed me.

When I was ready to start Mary said,--

'You'd better take the spring-cart in behind the dray and get the tyres cut and set. They're ready to drop off, and James has been wedging them up till he's tired of it. The last time I was out with the children I had to knock one of them back with a stone: there'll be an accident yet.'

So I lashed the shafts of the cart under the tail of the waggon, and mean and ridiculous enough the cart looked, going along that way. It suggested a man stooping along handcuffed, with his arms held out and down in front of him.

It was dull weather, and the scrubs looked extra dreary and endless--and I got thinking of old things. Everything was going all right with me, but that didn't keep me from brooding sometimes--trying to hatch out stones, like an old hen we had at home. I think, taking it all round, I used to be happier when I was mostly hard-up--and more generous. When I had ten pounds I was more likely to listen to a chap who said, 'Lend me a pound-note, Joe,' than when I had fifty; THEN I fought shy of careless chaps--and lost mates that I wanted afterwards--and got the name of being mean. When I got a good cheque I'd be as miserable as a miser over the first ten pounds I spent; but when I got down to the last I'd buy things for the house. And now that I was getting on, I hated to spend a pound on anything. But then, the farther I got away from poverty the greater the fear I had of it--and, besides, there was always before us all the thought of the terrible drought, with blazing runs as bare and dusty as the road, and dead stock rotting every yard, all along the barren creeks.

I had a long yarn with Mary's sister and her husband that night in Gulgong, and it brightened me up. I had a fancy that that sort of a brother-in-law made a better mate than a nearer one; Tom Tarrant had one, and he said it was sympathy. But while we were yarning I couldn't help thinking of Mary, out there in the hut on the Creek, with no one to talk to but the children, or James, who was sulky at home, or Black Mary or Black Jimmy (our black boy's father and mother), who weren't oversentimental. Or maybe a selector's wife (the nearest was five miles away), who could talk only of two or three things--'lambin" and 'shearin" and 'cookin' for the men', and what she said to her old man, and what he said to her--and her own ailments--over and over again.

It's a wonder it didn't drive Mary mad!--I know I could never listen to that woman more than an hour. Mary's sister said,--

'Now if Mary had a comfortable buggy, she could drive in with the children oftener. Then she wouldn't feel the loneliness so much.'

I said 'Good night' then and turned in. There was no getting away from that buggy. Whenever Mary's sister started hinting about a buggy, I reckoned it was a put-up job between them.

III. The Ghost of Mary's Sacrifice.

When I got to Gudgeegong I stopped at Galletly's coach-shop to leave the cart. The Galletlys were good fellows: there were two brothers--one was a saddler and harness-maker. Big brown-bearded men--the biggest men in the district, 'twas said.

Their old man had died lately and left them some money; they had men, and only worked in their shops when they felt inclined, or there was a special work to do; they were both first-cla.s.s tradesmen. I went into the painter's shop to have a look at a double buggy that Galletly had built for a man who couldn't pay cash for it when it was finished--and Galletly wouldn't trust him.

There it stood, behind a calico screen that the coach-painters used to keep out the dust when they were varnishing. It was a first-cla.s.s piece of work--pole, shafts, cushions, whip, lamps, and all complete. If you only wanted to drive one horse you could take out the pole and put in the shafts, and there you were. There was a tilt over the front seat; if you only wanted the buggy to carry two, you could fold down the back seat, and there you had a handsome, roomy, single buggy. It would go near fifty pounds.

While I was looking at it, Bill Galletly came in, and slapped me on the back.

'Now, there's a chance for you, Joe!' he said. 'I saw you rubbing your head round that buggy the last time you were in. You wouldn't get a better one in the colonies, and you won't see another like it in the district again in a hurry--for it doesn't pay to build 'em. Now you're a full-blown squatter, and it's time you took little Mary for a fly round in her own buggy now and then, instead of having her stuck out there in the scrub, or jolting through the dust in a cart like some old Mother Flourbag.'

He called her 'little Mary' because the Galletly family had known her when she was a girl.

I rubbed my head and looked at the buggy again. It was a great temptation.