FullReads

“Is that you, Peter?”

“Yes, boss. The fences is all right.”

“Been near Ross’s?”

“No. He’s burnt out by this time.”

Wall walked to and fro for a few minutes longer. Then he suddenly stopped and called, “Peter!”

“Ay, ay!” from the direction of the huts.

“Turn out the men!” and Wall went into a shed and came out with his saddle on his arm.

The fire rushed down the blind gully. Showers of sparks fell on the bush fence, it caught twice, and they put it out, but the third time it blazed and roared and a fire-engine could not have stopped it.

“The wheat must go,” said Ross. “We’ve done our best,” and he threw down the blackened bough and leaned against a tree, and covered his eyes with a grimy hand.

The wheat was patchy in that corner–there were many old stumps of trees, and there were bare strips where the plough had gone on each side of them. Mary saw a chance, and climbed the fence.

“Come on, Bob,” she cried, “we might save it ye. Mr Ross, pull out the fence along there,” and she indicated a point beyond the fire. They tramped down and tore up the wheat where it ran between the stumps–the fire was hissing and crackling round and through it, and just as it ran past them in one place there was a shout, a clatter of horses’ hoofs on the stones, and Mary saw her father riding up the track with a dozen men behind him. She gave a shriek and ran straight down, through the middle of the wheat, towards the hut.

Wall and his men jumped to the ground, wrenched green boughs from the saplings, and, after twenty minutes’ hard fighting, the crop was saved–save for a patchy acre or so. When it was all over Ross sat down on a log and rested his head on his hands, and his shoulders shook. Presently he felt a hand on his shoulder, looked up, and saw Wall.

“Shake hands, Ross,” he said.

And it was Christmas Day.

But in after years they used to nearly chaff the life out of Mary. “You were in a great hurry to put on the breeches, weren’t you, Mary?” “Bob’s best Sunday-go-meetin’s, too, wasn’t they, Mary?” “Rather tight fit, wasn’t they, Mary?” “Couldn’t get ’em on now, could you, Mary?”

“But,” reflected old Peter apart to some cronies, “it ain’t every young chap as gits an idea of the shape of his wife afore he marries her–is it? An’ that’s sayin’ somethin”‘

And old Peter was set down as being an innercent sort of ole cove.

[The end]

————————————–

Some definitions and Australian slangs:

anabranch: A bend in a river that has been cut through by the stream. The main current now runs straight, the anabranch diverges and then rejoins. See billabong.

Barcoo-rot. “Persistent ulceration of the skin, chiefly on the hands, and often originating in abrasions”. (Morris, Australian English). Barcoo is a river in Queensland.

billabong. Based on an aboriginal word. Sometimes used for an anabranch, but more often used for one that, in dry season or droughts especially, is cut off at either or both ends from the main stream. It is often just a muddy pool, and may indeed dry up completely.

blackfellow: condescending for Australian Aboriginal

blackleg: someone who is employed to cross a union picket line to break a workers’ strike. As Molly Ivins said, she was brought up on the three great commandments: do not lie; do not steal; never cross a picket line. Also scab.

blanky or — : Fill in your own favourite word. Usually however used for “bloody”–see crimson/gory.

blooming: actually used in speech instead of “bloody” (see crimson).

bluey: swag. Explanation in Lawson’s “The romance of the Swag” here.

bob: one shilling

bullocky: Bullock driver. A man who drove teams of bullocks yoked to wagons carrying e.g. wool bales or provisions. Proverbially rough and foul mouthed.

bummer: A cadger or bludger. Someone who begs for food. Interesting Americanism already. Also, tramp. (Different meaning today)