FullReads

On this occasion Carey had stacked his wheat outside until after the New Year. Spring-carts, and men and girls on horseback came in from miles round. “Sperm” candles had been cut up and thrown on the floor during the afternoon, and rubbed over by feet cased tightly in ‘lastic-sides; and hoops were hung horizontally from the tie-beams, with candles stuck round them. There were fresh-faced girls, and sweet, freckled-faced girls, and jolly girls, and shy girls–all sorts of girls except sulky, “toney” girls–and lanky chaps, most of them sawney, and weird, whiskered agriculturists, who watched the dancers with old, old time-worn smiles, or stood, or sat on their heels yarning, with their pipes, outside, where two boilers were slung over a log-fire to boil water for tea; and there were leathery women, with complexions like dried apples, who gossiped–for the first time in months perhaps–and watched the young people, and thought at times, no doubt, of other days–of other days when they were girls. (And not so far distant either, in some cases, for women dry quickly in the bush.)

And there were one or two old soldiers and their wives, whose eyes glistened when Jim Bullock played “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”

Jim Bullock was there with his concertina. He sat on a stool in front of a bench, on which was a beer-keg, piles of teacups and saucers, several big tin teapots, and plates of sandwiches, sponge-cakes, and tarts. Jim sat in his shirt-sleeves, with his flat-brimmed, wire-bound, “hard-hitter” hat on, slanting over his weaker eye. He held one leg loosely and the other rigid, with the concertina on his knee, and swanked away at the instrument by the hour, staring straight in front of him with the expression of a cod-fish, and never moving a muscle except the muscles of his great hairy arms and big chapped and sun-blotched hands; while chaps in tight “larstins” (elastic-side boots), slop suits of black, bound with braid, and with coats too short in the neck and arms, and trousers bell-mouthed at the bottoms, and some with paper collars, narrow red ribbon ties, or scarfs through walnut shells, held their partners rigidly, and went round the room with their eyes–most of them–cocked at the rafters in semi-idiotic ecstasy.

But there was tall, graceful, pink-and-white Bertha Buckolt, blue-eyed and blue-black-haired, and little Mary Carey with the kind, grey eyes and red-gold hair; there was Mary’s wild brother Jim, with curly black hair and blue eyes and dimples of innocence; and there was Harry Dale, the drover, Jim’s shearing and droving mate, a tall, good-looking, brown-eyed and brown-haired young fellow, a “better-class” bushman and the best dancer in the district. Uncle Abel usurped the position of M.C., and roared “Now then! take yer partners!” and bawled instructions and interrupted and tangled up the dancers, until they got used to taking no notice of his bull voice. Mary Carey was too shy–because she loved him, and secretly and fondly hoped and doubted that he cared for her–to be seen dancing more than once with Harry Dale, so he shared Bertha Buckolt, the best girl dancer there, with Jim Carey, who danced with his sister when Harry was dancing with Bertha Buckolt, and who seemed, for some reason best known to himself, to be perfectly satisfied with the arrangement. Poor little Mary began to fret presently, and feel a little jealous of Bertha, her old schoolmate. She was little and couldn’t dance like Bertha, and she couldn’t help noticing how well Bertha looked to-night, and what a well-matched pair she and Harry made; and so, when twelve o’clock came and they all went outside to watch the Old Year out and the New Year in–with a big bonfire on the distant ridge where the grass fires had reached a stretch of dry scrub–and to join hands all round and sing “Auld Lang Syne,” little Mary was not to be found, for she was sitting on a log round behind the cow-yard, crying softly to herself.