Seven Little Australians Part 22

Bunty whipped up a handful and pocketed them when everyone was looking at the mountain of candles.

"Home-made! my DEAR, why, yes, of course," the old lady said.

"Why, I wouldn't dream of using a bought candle, any more than I would use bought soap."

She showed them the great bars of yellow, clean-smelling stuff, with finer, paler-coloured for toilet purposes.

Hams and sides of bacon hung thickly from the rafters. "Those are mutton hams," she said, pointing to one division. "I keep those for the stockmen."

Pip wanted to know if the stores were meant to serve them all their lives, there seemed enough of them: he was astonished to hear that every six months they were replenished.

"Twenty to thirty men, counting the boundary riders and stockmen at different parts of the place; and double that number at shearing or drafting times, not to mention daily sundowners--it's like feeding an army, my dears," she said; "and then, you see, I had to make preparations for all of you--Bunty especially."

Her little grey eyes twinkled merrily as she looked at that small youth.

"You can have them back," Bunty said, half sulkily. He produced half a dozen currants from his pocket. "I shouldn't think you'd mind, with such a lot; we only have a bottleful at home."

On which the old lady patted his head, unlocked a tin, and filled his hands with figs and dates.

"And have you to cook every day, for all those men?" Meg said, wondering what oven could be found large enough.

"Dear, no!" the old lady answered. "Dear, dear, no; each man does everything for himself in his own hut; they don't even get bread, only rations of flour to make damper for themselves. Then we give them a fixed, quant.i.ty of meat, tea, sugar, tobacco, candles, soap, and one or two other things."

"Where do you keep the wool and things?" said Pip, who had a soul above home-made soap and metal dips for candles; "I can't see any shed or anything."

Mrs. Ha.s.sal told him they were a mile away, down by the creek, where the sheep were washed and sheared at the proper season. But the heat was too much to make even Pip want to go just then, so they attached themselves to Mr. Ha.s.sal, leaving little grandma with Esther, the General, and Baby, and went over to the brick stables near.

There were three or four buggies under cover, but no horses at all, they were farther afield. Across the paddock they went, and up the hill. Half a dozen answered Mr. Ha.s.sal's strange whistle; the others were wild, unbroken things, that tossed their manes and fled away at the sight of people to the farthermost parts where the trees grew.

Pip chose one, a grey, with long, fleet-looking legs and a narrow, beautiful head; he prided himself upon knowing something about "points." Judy picked a black, with reddish, restless eyes, but Mr. Ha.s.sal refused it because it had an uncertain temper, so she had to be content with a brown with a soft, satiny nose.

Meg asked for "something very quiet" in a whisper Judy and Pip could not hear, and was given a ruggy horse that had carried Mrs. Ha.s.sal eighteen years ago. Each animal was to be at the complete disposal of the young people during their stay at Yarrahappini, but the rides would have to take place before breakfast or after tea, they were told, if they wanted any pleasure out of them; the rest of the day was unbearable on horseback. Nellie was disappointed in the sheep, exceedingly so. She had expected to find great snow-white beautiful creatures that would be tame and allow her to put ribbon on their necks and lead them about.

From the hill-top the second morning she saw paddock after paddock, each with a brown, slowly moving ma.s.s; she ran down through the sunshine with Bunty to view them more closely.

"Oh, WHAT a shame!" she exclaimed, actual tears of disappointment springing to her eyes when she saw the great fat things with their long, dirty, ragged-looking fleece.

"Wait for a time, little woman," Mr. Ha.s.sal said; "just you wait till we give them their baths."

CHAPTER XVII

Cattle-Drafting at Yarrahappini

"To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard With a running fire of stockwhip and a fiery run of hoofs."

Pip could hardly sleep one night, a month after their arrival, for thinking of the cattle drafting that was on the programme for the morrow. He had been casting about for some fresh occupation, far he was a boy to whom variety was the salt of life. At first he had been certain he could never tire of shooting rabbits. Mr. Ha.s.sal had given him the "jolliest little stunner of a gun," and, Tettawonga had gone out with him the first day; and had been very scornful about his enthusiasm when he shot two.

"Ba'al good, gun do. Plenty fellow rabbit longa scrub, budgery way north, budgery way south; budgery way eblywhere. Ba'al good barbed wire fence do, ba'al good poison do. Bah!"

But Pip was not to be discouraged, and really thought he had done great good to the Yarrahappini estate by shooting those two soft, fleet brown things. He took them home and displayed them proudly to the girls, cleaned his perfectly clean gun, and sallied forth the next day.

Tettawonga took his pipe from between his lips when he saw him again and laughed, a loud cackling laugh, that made Pip flush with anger.

"Kimbriki and kimbriki, too! Rabbit he catti, curri-curri now. Boy come long with cawbawn gun, rabbit jerund drekaly, go burri, gra.s.s grow, sheep get fat-ha, ha, he, he!"

"To-morrow and to-morrow too! Rabbit, he go away quickly now. Boy come along with big gun, rabbit he afraid directly, go under the ground."

Pip understood his mixed English enough to know he was making fun of him, and told him wrathfully to "shut up for a Dutch idiot."

Then he shouldered the gun he was so immeasurably proud of and went off the other side of the barbed-wire fence, where was the happy hunting-ground of the little rodent that would not allow Mr. Ha.s.sal to grow rich.

He shot five that day, four the next, seven the next, but after a time he voted it slow, and went after gill birds, with more enjoyment but less certainty of a bag.

Every day was filled to the brim with enjoyment, and but for the intense heat that first month at Yarrahappini would have been one of absolute content and happiness.

And now there was the cattle-drafting!

Breakfast was very early the morning of the great event; by half-past five it was almost over, and Pip, in a fever of restlessness, was telling Mr. Ha.s.sal he was sure they would be late and miss it.

Judy had pleaded hard to be allowed to go, but everyone said it was out of the question--indeed, it was doubted if it were wise to allow Pip to face the danger that is inseparable with the drafting of the wilder kind of cattle that had been driven from great distances.

But he had forcibly carried the day, and dressed himself up in so business-like a way that Mr. Ha.s.sel had not the heart to refuse him.

He came down to breakfast in a Crimean shirt and a pair of old, serge trousers fastened round the waist with a leathern belt, in which an unsheathed bowie knife, freshly sharpened, was jauntily stuck. No persuasions would induce him either to wear a coat or sheathe the knife.

The grey was brought round to the veranda steps, with Mr. Ha.s.sal's own splendid horse. Mr. Gillet was there on a well-groomed roan; he had three stock-whips, two quite sixteen feet long, the third shorter one, which he presented to Pip.

The boy's face glowed. "Hurrah, Fizz!" he said; standing up in his saddle and brandishing it round his head. "What 'ud you give to change places?"

He dug his heels into the animal's sides and went helter-skelter at a wild gallop down the hill.

It was a mile and a half to the cattle yards, and here was the strongest excitement.

Pip could not think where all the men had sprung from. There were some twenty or thirty of them, stockmen, shearers "on the wallaby," as their parlance expressed lack of employment, two Aboriginals, exclusive of Tettawonga, who was smoking and looking on with sleepy enjoyment, and several other of the station hands.

In the first yard there were five hundred cattle that had been driven there the night before, and that just now presented the appearance of a sea of wildly lashing tails and horns. Such horns!--great, branching, terrific-looking things that they gored and fought each other madly with, seeing they could not get to the common enemy outside.

Just for the first moment or two Pip felt a little disinclined to quit the stronghold of his horse's back. The thunder of hoofs and horns, the wild charges made by the desperate animals against the fence, made him expect to see it come crashing down every minute.

But everybody else had gone to "c.o.c.katoo"--to sit on the top rail of the enclosure and look down at the maddened creatures, so at length he fastened his bridle to a tree and proceeded gingerly to follow their example.