We of the Never-Never Part 11

Dan was for having two Easters, and "getting even with it that way"; but Sam unexpectedly solved the problem for us.

"What was the difficulty?" he asked, and listened to the explanation attentively. "Bunday!" he exclaimed at the finish, showing he had fully grasped the situation. Of course he knew all about Bunday! Wasn't it so many weeks after the Chinaman's New Year festival? And in a jargon of pidgin-English he swept aside all moon discussions, and fixed the date of "Bunday" for the twenty-eighth of March, "which," as Dan wisely remarked, "proved that somebody was right," but whether the Maluka or the Dandy, or the moon, he forgot to specify. "The old heathen to beat us all too," he added, "just when it had got us all dodged." Dan took all the credit of the suggestion to himself. Then he looked philosophically on the toughness of the problem: "Anyway," he said, "the missus must have learnt a bit about beginning at the beginning of things. Just think what she'd have missed if any one had known when Easter was right off!"

"What she'd have missed indeed. Exactly what the townsman misses, as long as he remains in a land where everything can be known right off."

But a new idea had come to Dan. "Of course," he said, "as far as that goes, if Johnny does turn up she ought to learn a thing or two, while he's moving the dining-room up the house"; and he decided to welcome Johnny on his return.

He had not long to wait, for in a day or two Johnny rode into the homestead, followed by a black boy carrying a cross-cut saw. This time he hailed us with a cheery:

"NOW we shan't be long."

CHAPTER X

It had taken over six weeks to "get hold of little Johnny "; but as the Dandy had prophesied, once he started, he "made things hum in no time."

"Now we shan't be long," he said, flourishing a tape measure; and the Dandy was kept busy for half a day, "wrestling with the calculating."

That finished, the store was turned inside out and a couple of "boys"

sent in for "things needed," and after them more "boys" for more things; and then other "boys" for other things, until travellers must have thought the camp blacks had entered into a walking compet.i.tion. When everything necessary was ordered, "all hands" were put on to sharpen saws and tools, and the homestead shrieked and groaned all day with harsh, discordant raspings. Then a camp was pitched in the forest, a mile or so from the homestead; a sawpit dug, a platform erected, and before a week had pa.s.sed an invitation was issued, for the missus to "come and see a tree felled." "Laying thee foundation-stone," the Maluka called it.

Johnny of course welcomed us with a jovial "Now we shan't be long," and shouldering a tomahawk, led the way out of the camp into the timber.

House-hunting in town does not compare favourably with timber-hunting for a house, in a luxuriant tropical forest. Sheltered from the sun and heat we wandered about in the feathery undergrowth, while the Maluka tested the height of the giant timber above us with shots from his bull-dog revolver bringing down twigs and showers of leaves from the topmost branches, and sending flocks of white c.o.c.katoos up into the air with squawks of amazement.

Tree after tree was chosen and marked with the tomahawk, each one appearing taller and straighter and more beautiful than any of its fellows until, finding ourselves back at the camp, Johnny went for his axe and left us to look at the beauty around us.

"Seems a pity to spoil all this, just to make four walls to shut the missus in from anything worth looking at," Dan murmured as Johnny reappeared. "They won't make anything as good as this up at the house."

Johnny the unpoetical hesitated, perplexed. Philosophy was not in his line. "'Tisn't too bad," he said, suddenly aware of the beauty of the scene, and then the tradesman came to the surface. "I reckon MY job'll be a bit more on the plumb, though," he chuckled, and, delighted with his little joke, shouldered his axe and walked towards one of the marked trees, while Dan speculated aloud on the chances a man had of "getting off alive" if a tree fell on him.

"Trees don't fall on a man that knows how to handle timber," the unsuspecting Johnny said briskly; and as Dan feared that "fever was her only chance then," he spat on his hands, and, sending the axe home into the bole of the tree with a clean, swinging stroke, laid the foundation-stone--the foundation-stone of a tiny home in the wilderness, that was destined to be the dwellingplace of great joy, and happiness, and sorrow.

The Sanguine Scot had prophesied rightly. There being "time enough for everything in the Never-Never," there was time for "many pleasant rides along the Reach, choosing trees for timber."

But the rides were the least part of the pleasure. For the time being, the silent Reach forest had become the hub of our little universe. All was life and bustle and movement there. Every day fresh trees were felled and chopping contests entered into by Johnny and the Dandy; and as the trees fell in quick succession, black boys and lubras armed with tomahawks, swarmed over them, to lop away the branches, before the trunks were dragged by the horses to the mouth of the sawpit. Every one was happy and light-hearted, and the work went merrily forward, until a great pile of tree-trunks lay ready for the sawpit.

Then a new need arose: Johnny wanted several yards of strong string, and a "sup" of ink, to make guiding lines on the timber for his saw; but as only sewing cotton was forthcoming, and the Maluka refused to part with one drop of his precious ink, we were obliged to go down to the beginning of things once more: two or three lubras were set to work to convert the sewing-cotton into tough, strong string, while others prepared a subst.i.tute for the ink from burnt water-lily roots.

The sawing of the tree-trunks lasted for nearly three weeks, and the Dandy, being the under-man in the pit, had anything but a merry time.

Down in the pit, away from the air, he worked; pulling and pushing, pushing and pulling, hour after hour, in a blinding stream of sawdust.

When we offered him sympathy and a gossamer veil, he accepted the veil gratefully, but waved the sympathy aside, saying it was "all in the good cause." Nothing was ever a hardship to the Dandy, excepting dirt.

Johnny being a past-master in his trade, stood on the platform in the upper air, guiding the saw along the marked lines; and as he instructed us all in the fine art of pit-sawing, Dan decided that the building of a house, under some circ.u.mstances, could be an education in itself.

"Thought she might manage to learn a thing or two out of it," he said.

"The building of it is right enough. It all depends what she uses it for when Johnny's done with it."

As the pliant saw coaxed beams, and slabs, and flooring boards out of the forest trees I grew to like beginning at the beginning of things, and realised there was an underlying truth in Dan's whimsical reiteration, that "the missus was in luck when she struck this place"; for beams and slabs and flooring boards wrested from Nature amid merrymaking and philosophical discourses are not as other beams and slabs and flooring boards. They are old friends and fellow-adventurers, with many a good tale to tell, recalling comical situations in their reminiscences with a vividness that baffles description.

Perhaps those who live in homes with the beginning of things left behind in forests they have never seen, may think chattering planks a poor compensation for unpapered, rough-boarded walls and unglazed window frames. Let them try it before they judge; remembering always, that before a house can be built of old friends and memories the friends must be made and the memories lived through.

But other things beside the sawing of timber were in progress, Things were also "humming" in the dog world. A st.u.r.dy fox-terrier, Brown by name, had been given by a pa.s.sing traveller to the Maluka, given almost of necessity for Brown--as is the way with fox-terriers at times--quietly changed masters, and lying down at the Maluka's feet, had refused to leave him. The station dogs resented his presence there, and persecuted him as an interloper; and being a peace-loving dog, Brown bore it patiently for two days, hoping, no doubt, the persecution would wear itself out. On the third day, however, he quietly changed his tactics--for sometimes the only road to peace is through fighting--and, accepting their challenge, took on the station dogs one by one in single combat.

Only a full-sized particularly st.u.r.dy-looking fox-terrier against expert cattle dogs; and yet no dog could stand against him. One by one he closed with them, and one by one they went before him; and at the end of a week he was "c.o.c.k of the walk," and lay down to enjoy his well-earned peace. His death-stroke was a flashing lunge, from a grip of a foreleg to a sharp, grinding grip of the enemy's tongue. How he managed it was a puzzle, but sooner or later he got his grip in, to let go at the piercing yell of defeat that invariably followed. But Brown was a gentleman, not a bully, and after each fight buried the hatchet, appearing to shake hands with his late adversary. No doubt if he had had a tail he would have wagged it, but Brown had been born with a large, perfectly round, black spot, at the root of his tail, and his then owner, having an eye for the picturesque, had removed his white tail entirely, even to its last joint, to allow of no break in the spot; and when the spirit moved Brown to wag a tail, a violent stirring of hairs in the centre of this spot betrayed his desire to the world. It goes without saying that Brown did not fight the canine women-folk; for, as some one has said, man is the only animal that strikes his women-folk.

Most of the battles were fought in the station thoroughfare, all of them taking on the form of a general melee. As soon as Brown closed with an enemy, the rest of the dogs each sought an especial adversary, hoping to wipe out some past defeat; while the pups, having no past to wipe out, diverted themselves by skirmishing about on the outskirts of the scrimmage, nipping joyously at any hind quarters that came handy, b.u.mping into other groups of pups, thoroughly enjoying life, and acc.u.mulating material for future fights among themselves.

Altogether we had a lively week. To interfere in the fights only prolonged them; and, to add to the general hubbub, the servant question had opened up again. Jimmy's Nellie, who had been simmering for some time, suddenly rebelled, and refused to consider herself among the rejected.

We said there was no vacancy on the staff for her, and she immediately set herself to create one, by pounding and punching at the staff in private. Finding this of no avail, she threatened to "sing" Maudie dead, also in private, unless she resigned. Maudie proving unexpectedly tough and defiant, Nellie gave up all hope of creating a vacancy, and changing front, adopted a stone-walling policy. Every morning, quietly and doggedly, she put herself on the staff, and every morning was as quietly and doggedly dismissed from office.

Doggedness being an unusual trait in a black fellow, the homestead became interested. "Never say die, little 'un," the Maluka laughed each morning; but Dan was inclined to bet on Nellie.

"She's got nothing else to do, and can concentrate all her thoughts on it," he said, "and besides, it means more for her."

It meant a good deal to me, too, for I particularly objected to Jimmy's Nellie partly because she was an inveterate smoker and a profuse spitter upon floors; partly because--well to be quite honest--because a good application of carbolic soap would have done no harm; and partly because she appeared to have a pa.s.sion for exceedingly scanty garments, her favourite costume being a skirt made from the upper half of a fifty-pound calico flour bag. Her blouses had, apparently, been all mislaid. Nellie, unconscious of my real objections, daily and doggedly put herself on the staff, and was daily and doggedly dismissed. But as she generally managed to do the very thing that most needed doing, before I could find her to dismiss, Dan was offering ten to one on Nellie by Easter time.

"Another moon'll see her on the staff," he prophesied, as we prepared to go out-bush for Easter.

The Easter moon had come in dry and cool, and at its full the Wet lifted, as our traveller had foretold. Only a bushman's personal observation, remember, this lifting of the Wet with the full of the Easter moon, not a scientific statement; but by an insight peculiarly their own, bushmen come at more facts than most men.

Sam did his best with Bunday, serving hot rolls with mysterious markings on them for breakfast, and by midday he had the homestead to himself, the Maluka and I being camped at Bitter Springs and every one else being elsewhere. Our business was yard-inspection, with Goggle-Eye as general factotum. We, of course, had ridden out, but Goggle-Eye had preferred to walk. "Me all day knock up longa horse," he explained striding comfortably along beside us.

Several exciting hours were spent with boxes of wax matches, burning the rank gra.s.s back from the yard at the springs (at Goggle-Eye's suggestion the missus had been pressed into the service); and then we rode through the rank gra.s.s along the river, scattering matches as we went like sparks from an engine. As soon as the rank gra.s.s seeds it must be burnt off, before the soil loses its moisture, to ensure a second shorter spring, and everywhere we went now clouds of dense smoke rose behind us.

That walk about with the Maluka and "Gadgerrie" lived like a red-letter day in old Goggle-Eye's memory; for did he not himself strike a dozen full boxes of matches?

Dan was away beyond the northern boundary, going through the cattle, judging the probable duration of "outside waters" for that year, burning off too as he rode. The Quiet Stockman was away beyond the southern boundary, rounding up wanderers and stragglers among the horses, and the station was face to face with the year's work, making preparations for the year's mustering and branding--for with the lifting of the Wet everything in the Never-Never begins to move.

"After the Wet" rivers go down, the north-west monsoon giving place to the south-east Trades; bogs dry up everywhere, opening all roads; travellers pa.s.s through the stations from all points of the compa.s.s--cattle buyers, drovers, station-owners, telegraph people--all bent on business, and all glad to get moving after the long compulsory inaction of the Wet; and lastly that great yearly c.u.mbrous event takes place: the starting of the "waggons," with their year's stores for Inside.

The first batch of travellers had little news for us. They had heard that the teams were loading up, and couldn't say for certain, and, finding them unsatisfactory, we looked forward to the coming of the "Fizzer," our mailman, who was almost due.

Eight mails a year was our allowance, with an extra one now and then through the courtesy of travellers. Eight mails a year against eight hundred for the townsfolk. Was it any wonder that we all found we had business at the homestead when the Fizzer was due there?

When he came this trip he was, as usual, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with news: personal items, public gossip, and the news that the horse teams had got most of their loading on, and that the Macs were getting their bullocks under way. Two horse waggons and a dray for far "inside," and three bullock waggons for the nearer distances, comprised the "waggons" that year. The teamsters were Englishmen; but the bullock-punchers were three "Macs"--an Irishman, a Highlander, and the Sanguine Scot.

Six waggons, and about six months' hard travelling, in and out, to provide a year's stores for three cattle stations and two telegraph stations. It is not surprising that the freight per ton was what it was--twenty-two pounds per ton for the Elsey, and upwards of forty pounds for "inside." It is this freight that makes the grocery bill such a big item on stations out-bush, where several tons of stores are considered by no means a large order.

Close on the heels of the Fizzer came other travellers, with the news that the horse teams had got going and the Macs had "pulled out" to the Four Mile. "Your trunks'll be along in no time now, missus," one of them said. "They've got 'em all aboard."

The Dandy did some rapid calculations: "Ten miles a day on good roads,"

he said: "one hundred and seventy miles. Tens into that seventeen days.

Give 'em a week over for unforeseen emergencies, and call it four weeks."

It sounded quite cheerful and near at hand, but a belated thunderstorm or two, and consequent bogs, nearly doubled the four weeks.