MORE IMPROVEMENTS--BULLOCKYS.
The weather had fined up and remained so for months. Beautiful warm sun,
tempered by the cool breeze by day, and cold, sometimes frosty, nights.
It was ideal weather for work; and Len and I worked well, ate well,
slept well, and for the first time I started to throw off the effects of
all that worry and nerve-strain I had undergone at sea.
Those glorious days! We would be off just after daybreak, red-nosed and
shivering, clad in thick garments and heavy coats, with perhaps a frost
on the grass. Ten minutes with the axe and off came the coat. Another
ten, and the extra pair of pants followed suit, and by half-past eight
the benignant sunshine reduced one to pants and shirt. How you could
work! and when lunch-time came, eat!! It was good to be alive, life was
rosy, and every lungful of the glorious crisp bush-scented air put fresh
manhood into us.
Then the still more enchanting moonlit nights. Small print could be read
with ease by the moonlight, and with the air so still the howl of a
lonely dog three miles off came clear and distinct. From the hut we
could see mile on mile of rolling scrub, sombre and still, and in the
distance a long line of scrub-clad hills, clear cut against the
star-strewn, ink-blue sky. The spirit of the romance of pioneering took
possession of us. We were the only inhabitants of a new-found beautiful
world; we were shipwrecked on an unspoiled pre-Adamite island; we were,
well--just a couple of enthusiastic bush-lovers, with some ability to
appreciate the beauty of old mother Nature.
Len was a good mate, and time passed on winged feet. On Sundays we
tramped in for tucker and spent best part of the day at the open house
his hospitable parents kept. We had whips of vegetables from my garden,
until Braun in an unlucky hour gave Ellison permission to turn a few
cows into his paddock. Now my cabbage garden was down on the creek at a
place where several big trees had come down, the spaces between being
filled up with smaller timber. This formed a barrier that I thought no
mortal cow could ever get over. I didn't know cows.
At 8 p.m. one night three thousand beautiful cabbages and about a
quarter of an acre of other green stuff formed a patch of cultivation to
gladden the eye. At 7 a.m. next day I, newly-arisen, came to the door of
the hut just in time to see the last of a line of ten dropsical, bloated
cows see-saw over the impregnable logs out of a trampled muddy waste
that had been a garden. I rushed down. Too late by hours. Absolutely
nothing remained, save a few mangled stalks. Oh! my cabbages! that were
to have paid the storekeeper's bill, rent, rates, and left a few pounds
in hand. Gone! all gone! With murder in my heart and profanity on my
lips, I chased the horrible wretches, who, grunting with distension and,
I fondly hope, suffering pangs of indigestion, could hardly get up a
slow trot. The tangled grass tripped me up, and I could only stand
swearing impotently, and throw a few futile sticks at the brutes
waddling heavily across the creek, where they lined up on the opposite
bank, turned round and grinned--_grinned_ at me. Ever see a cow
grin? Wait till they manage to crawl into your cultivation patch, or
land a hefty kick home when you're putting the leg-rope on, and then
you'll find out. I know now why the conventional devil has horns and
hoofs. The monks of old who first pictured him kept cows. That's why.
I swore at them until my breath failed, while the light breeze gently
waved the frosted grass against my bare legs and turned my nose blue,
then scurried back to the house. Len laughed unfeelingly, told me to put
a secure fence up, and grow some more. He gave me a hand with the fence
on Sunday. We always put off play-time jobs like that till Sunday.
Terry O'Gorman had come back to his place by this time, doing a bit more
falling, and it was quite like old times again, for, of course, the
three of us camped together. Terry was great on springboard work. A
springboard is a six-inch by one-inch board four feet long, with a
horse-shoe bolted on one end point up. You cut a notch two inches deep
in a tree, insert the board, and stand on it to chop, the point of the
shoe being driven by your weight into the upper edge of the notch and
holding firm. Terry would go up three "lifts" (twelve to fifteen feet)
without nervousness. The advantage is that the higher you go the easier
it is to chop, the grain of the wood being straighter. When the tree
goes, you scuttle away as best you can. I have heard it described as
chopping with one foot in the grave and other on a bit of orange peel;
but it's not quite that bad.
About a month after we commenced falling I actually got a "divvy" out of
my place. A local bullocky had an order for "some small Kauri pine," and
some on my block were the handiest, so I got L5 for about 12,000 super
feet (worth over L200 in Sydney, I suppose), and I thought myself lucky
to get that.
Pardy, the bullocky, was a big, rough, dark-complexioned bloke, with a
shambling walk, a rough tongue and a heavy hand. He absolutely didn't
care a damn for anybody or anything. The only way we could get the
timber out was across a steep gully with a little muddy ditch at the
bottom. It was hard work for the bullocks to come up dragging the empty
jinker, but going down! Pardy would snig his log to the brow,
then--whish! The whip sent skin and hair flying, and the poor brutes
took the descent at a canter, the log behind skidding from side to side,
while Pardy would stand on the brink cracking that awful whip, yelling,
"Go it! you ---- sons of ----! Head over turkey; I thot she wud," as
they brought up all standing in the little creek, bullocks in an untidy
mob, log broadside on, and the polers down. How on earth he didn't kill
half his team every time, I don't know. The place is known as "Pardy's
jump-up" to this day.
All sorts and conditions of bullockys! There was Pardy, sweating and
swearing, and knocking his cattle to pieces, without enough breath left
at night to cool his tea with, and yet not doing nearly as much as his
rival Robin Hood, who, with a team of young steers and cunning old
"stags" only, would haul a 20 per cent. bigger load to the railway an
hour quicker than Pardy; never raising his voice; just talking quietly
to his beasts, and never more than flicking the whip at them. He had
their confidence! A striking example of what kindness and patience will
do.
Jack Bayton was another one. He had a team of magnificent animals that
could pull the guts out of any other on the road. He could haul some
astonishing loads, but used to let the brutes just dodge along, while he
admonished them with loving profanity. "Baldy! Baldy!! You ----! I'll
teach y' ter go pokin' inter the scrub!" (Baldy was after shade and a
spell.) Flick! would come the whip without force enough to kill a fly,
and Baldy lazily resumed the track. Or perhaps Spot would stop and reach
for a bunch of Commonwealth weed. "Ha! you Spot! ---- you, ye blanky ol'
----! I'll ---- well teach yer about wastin' time eatin' weeds." Spot
looks back with a sleepy eye, shoves out, gets his weed, and walks on
calmly chewing. A fat lot he cares about Jack, who affectionately
apostrophises him. "Luk a' that now! Jevver see sich an ol' ----!
Cunnin' as a ---- ---- rat, so he is." Jack thought the world of his
team, and cripes! they could pull when they let themselves out. It was a
treat to see his plodding team swaying up a long hill, without a pause,
with 2500 of bulloak, perhaps, aboard. Very few would do it.
Tom Faringdon was another type again. Big, black, hairy as Esau, a
bloodshot eye, bristly beard and a frightful temper. Doesn't take long
for that sort of man to upset a team. Let his waggon get stuck, and then
watch the circus. What ho! A frightful stream of language. Still stuck.
Then the whip, till the fall was sticky with blood; then frantic rushes
fore and aft alongside the team, digging into their ribs with the butt
of the whip. His voice would be nearly gone by this time, and, with his
Mephistophelian face and glaring eyes, he looked a perfect fiend. Next
he uses the whip handle--smash! smash! smash! along the unfortunate
shivering line, who, lowing with fright, don't know what to do. The
handle breaks across a bullock's back. A frantic howl; down goes his
hat, and he dances it madly into the mud, while his hands (like old "Dad
Rudd's" when the horses went down the well) are raised, but not in
prayer, to Heaven. Then, extremes meeting, he gets so mad that he
becomes calm, and so finally gets the team clear--to repeat the whole
process another half-dozen times before he reaches the station yard.
Well, good or bad, your slow, plodding bullocky is the true pioneer.
Always first in the field, following the fresh cut tracks after timber
in country that perhaps years after will be thrown open for
selection--and his old tracks made the future main roads of the
district. He has a rough, lonely life. Works hard, lives hard, ay! and
sometimes has to die hard too. Collectively, a brave, hardy and useful
member of the mighty Brotherhood of Labour.
Len and I went on chopping, the days passing pleasantly, the work
interesting. Occasionally we attended a dance at the school house on
Saturday nights (of which more hereafter), which was the only break. We
had about thirty-five acres down, and then came----