On Our Selection Part 2

To save the c.o.c.katoo fence that was round the cultivation was what was troubling Dad. Right and left we fought the fire with boughs. Hot!

It was h.e.l.lish hot! Whenever there was a lull in the wind we worked.

Like a wind-mill Dad's bough moved--and how he rushed for another when one was used up! Once we had the fire almost under control; but the wind rose again, and away went the flames higher and faster than ever.

"It's no use," said Dad at last, placing his hand on his head, and throwing down his bough. We did the same, then stood and watched the fence go. After supper we went out again and saw it still burning. Joe asked Dad if he did n't think it was a splendid sight? Dad did n't answer him--he did n't seem conversational that night.

We decided to put the fence up again. Dan had sharpened the axe with a broken file, and he and Dad were about to start when Mother asked them what was to be done about flour? She said she had shaken the bag to get enough to make scones for that morning's breakfast, and unless some was got somewhere there would be no bread for dinner.

Dad reflected, while Dan felt the edge on the axe with his thumb.

Dad said, "Won't Missus Dwyer let you have a dishful until we get some?"

"No," Mother answered; "I can't ask her until we send back what we owe them."

Dad reflected again. "The Andersons, then?" he said.

Mother shook her head and asked what good there was it sending to them when they, only that morning, had sent to her for some?

"Well, we must do the best we can at present," Dad answered, "and I'll go to the store this evening and see what is to be done."

Putting the fence up again in the hurry that Dad was in was the very devil! He felled the saplings--and such saplings!--TREES many of them were--while we, "all of a muck of sweat," dragged them into line. Dad worked like a horse himself, and expected us to do the same. "Never mind staring about you," he'd say, if he caught us looking at the sun to see if it were coming dinner-time--"there's no time to lose if we want to get the fence up and a crop in."

Dan worked nearly as hard as Dad until he dropped the b.u.t.t-end of a heavy sapling on his foot, which made him hop about on one leg and say that he was sick and tired of the dashed fence. Then he argued with Dad, and declared that it would be far better to put a wire-fence up at once, and be done with it, instead of wasting time over a thing that would only be burnt down again. "How long," he said, "will it take to get the posts? Not a week," and he hit the ground disgustedly with a piece of stick he had in his hand.

"Confound it!" Dad said, "have n't you got any sense, boy? What earthly use would a wire-fence be without any wire in it?"

Then we knocked off and went to dinner.

No one appeared in any humour to talk at the table. Mother sat silently at the end and poured out the tea while Dad, at the head, served the pumpkin and divided what cold meat there was. Mother would n't have any meat--one of us would have to go without if she had taken any.

I don't know if it was on account of Dan arguing with him, or if it was because there was no bread for dinner, that Dad was in a bad temper; anyway, he swore at Joe for coming to the table with dirty hands. Joe cried and said that he could n't wash them when Dave, as soon as he had washed his, had thrown the water out. Then Dad scowled at Dave, and Joe pa.s.sed his plate along for more pumpkin.

Dinner was almost over when Dan, still looking hungry, grinned and asked Dave if he was n't going to have some BREAD? Whereupon Dad jumped up in a tearing pa.s.sion. "D--n your insolence!" he said to Dan, "make a jest of it, would you?"

"Who's jestin'?" Dan answered and grinned again.

"Go!" said Dad, furiously, pointing to the door, "leave my roof, you thankless dog!"

Dan went that night.

It was only upon Dad promising faithfully to reduce his account within two months that the storekeeper let us have another bag of flour on credit. And what a change that bag of flour wrought! How cheerful the place became all at once! And how enthusiastically Dad spoke of the farm and the prospects of the coming season!

Four months had gone by. The fence had been up some time and ten acres of wheat put in; but there had been no rain, and not a grain had come up, or was likely to.

Nothing had been heard of Dan since his departure. Dad spoke about him to Mother. "The scamp!" he said, "to leave me just when I wanted help--after all the years I've slaved to feed him and clothe him, see what thanks I get! but, mark my word, he'll be glad to come back yet."

But Mother would never say anything against Dan.

The weather continued dry. The wheat did n't come up, and Dad became despondent again.

The storekeeper called every week and reminded Dad of his promise. "I would give it you willingly," Dad would say, "if I had it, Mr. Rice; but what can I do? You can't knock blood out of a stone."

We ran short of tea, and Dad thought to buy more with the money Anderson owed him for some fencing he had done; but when he asked for it, Anderson was very sorry he had n't got it just then, but promised to let him have it as soon as he could sell his chaff. When Mother heard Anderson could n't pay, she DID cry, and said there was n't a bit of sugar in the house, nor enough cotton to mend the children's bits of clothes.

We could n't very well go without tea, so Dad showed Mother how to make a new kind. He roasted a slice of bread on the fire till it was like a black coal, then poured the boiling water over it and let it "draw"

well. Dad said it had a capital flavour--HE liked it.

Dave's only pair of pants were pretty well worn off him; Joe had n't a decent coat for Sunday; Dad himself wore a pair of boots with soles tied on with wire; and Mother fell sick. Dad did all he could--waited on her, and talked hopefully of the fortune which would come to us some day; but once, when talking to Dave, he broke down, and said he did n't, in the name of the Almighty G.o.d, know what he would do! Dave could n't say anything--he moped about, too, and home somehow did n't seem like home at all.

When Mother was sick and Dad's time was mostly taken up nursing her; when there was nothing, scarcely, in the house; when, in fact, the wolf was at the very door;--Dan came home with a pocket full of money and swag full of greasy clothes. How Dad shook him by the hand and welcomed him back! And how Dan talked of "tallies", "belly-wool", and "ringers" and implored Dad, over and over again, to go shearing, or rolling up, or branding--ANYTHING rather than work and starve on the selection.

That's fifteen years ago, and Dad is still on the farm.

Chapter V.

The Night We Watched For Wallabies.

It had been a bleak July day, and as night came on a bitter westerly howled through the trees. Cold! was n't it cold! The pigs in the sty, hungry and half-fed (we wanted for ourselves the few pumpkins that had survived the drought) fought savagely with each other for shelter, and squealed all the time like--well, like pigs. The cows and calves left the place to seek shelter away in the mountains; while the draught horses, their hair standing up like barbed-wire, leaned sadly over the fence and gazed up at the green lucerne. Joe went about shivering in an old coat of Dad's with only one sleeve to it--a calf had fancied the other one day that Dad hung it on a post as a mark to go by while ploughing.

"My! it'll be a stinger to-night," Dad remarked to Mrs. Brown--who sat, cold-looking, on the sofa--as he staggered inside with an immense log for the fire. A log! Nearer a whole tree! But wood was nothing in Dad's eyes.

Mrs. Brown had been at our place five or six days. Old Brown called occasionally to see her, so we knew they could n't have quarrelled.

Sometimes she did a little house-work, but more often she did n't. We talked it over together, but could n't make it out. Joe asked Mother, but she had no idea--so she said. We were full up, as Dave put it, of Mrs. Brown, and wished her out of the place. She had taken to ordering us about, as though she had something to do with us.

After supper we sat round the fire--as near to it as we could without burning ourselves--Mrs. Brown and all, and listened to the wind whistling outside. Ah, it was pleasant beside the fire listening to the wind! When Dad had warmed himself back and front he turned to us and said:

"Now, boys, we must go directly and light some fires and keep those wallabies back."

That was a shock to us, and we looked at him to see if he were really in earnest. He was, and as serious as a judge.

"TO-NIGHT!" Dave answered, surprisedly--"why to-night any more than last night or the night before? Thought you had decided to let them rip?"

"Yes, but we might as well keep them off a bit longer."

"But there's no wheat there for them to get now. So what's the good of watching them? There's no sense in THAT."

Dad was immovable.

"Anyway"--whined Joe--"I'M not going--not a night like this--not when I ain't got boots."

That vexed Dad. "Hold your tongue, sir!" he said--"you'll do as you're told."

But Dave had n't finished. "I've been following that harrow since sunrise this morning," he said, "and now you want me to go chasing wallabies about in the dark, a night like this, and for nothing else but to keep them from eating the ground. It's always the way here, the more one does the more he's wanted to do," and he commenced to cry.

Mrs. Brown had something to say. SHE agreed with Dad and thought we ought to go, as the wheat might spring up again.

"Pshah!" Dave blurted out between his sobs, while we thought of telling her to shut her mouth.