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 competition. 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 passed 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 cockatoos 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 dwelling-place 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 substitute 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 circumstances, 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 sturdy fox-terrier, Brown by
name, had been given by a passing 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 sturdy-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 “cock 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,
bumping into other groups of pups, thoroughly enjoying life, and
accumulating 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 passion 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 grass 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 grass along the river, scattering matches as we went like
sparks from an engine. As soon as the rank grass 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 pass through the stations from all points of the
compass—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 cumbrous 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, brimming 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.
Almost every day we heard news of the teams from the now constant stream
of travellers; and by the time the timber was all sawn and carted to the
house to fulfil the many promises there, they were at the Katherine.
But if the teams were at the Katherine, so were the teamsters, and so
was the Pub; and when teamsters and a pub get together it generally
takes time to separate them, when that pub is the last for over a
thousand miles. One pub at the Katherine and another at Oodnadatta and
between them over a thousand miles of bush, and desert and dust, and
heat, and thirst. That, from a teamster’s point of view, is the Overland
Route from Oodnadatta to the Katherine.
A pub had little attraction for the Sanguine Scot, and provided he could
steer the other Macs safely past the one at the Katherine, there would
be no delay there with the trunks; but the year’s stores were on the
horse teams and the station, having learnt bitter experience from the
past, now sent in its own waggon for the bulk of the stores, as soon as
they were known to be at the Katherine; and so the Dandy set off at
once.
“You’ll see me within a fortnight, bar accidents” he called back, as the
waggon lurched forward towards the slip-rails; and the pub also having
little attraction for the Dandy, we decided to expect him, “bar
accidents.” For that matter, a pub had little attraction for any of the
Elsey men, the Quiet Stockman being a total abstainer, and Dan knowing
“how to behave himself,” although he owned to having “got a bit merry
once or twice.”
The Dandy out of sight, Johnny went back to his work, which happened to
be hammering the curves out of sheets of corrugated iron.
“Now we shan’t be long,” he shouted, hammering vigorously, and when I
objected to the awful din, he reminded me, with a grin, that it was “all
in the good cause.” When “smoothed out,” as Johnny phrased it, the iron
was to be used for capping the piles that the house was built upon, “to
make them little white ants stay at home.”
“We’ll smooth all your troubles out, if you give us time,” he shouted,
returning to the hammering after his explanation with even greater
energy. But by dinnertime some one had waddled into our lives who was to
smooth most of the difficulties out of it, to his own, and our complete
satisfaction.
Just as Sam announced dinner a cloud of dust creeping along the horizon
attracted our attention.
“Foot travellers!” Dan decided; but something emerged out of the dust,
as it passed through the sliprails, that looked very like a huge mould
of white jelly on horse-back.
Directly it sighted us it rolled off the horse, whether intentionally or
unintentionally we could not say, and leaving the beast to the care of
chance, unfolded two short legs from somewhere and waddled towards us—a
fat, jovial Chinese John Falstaff.
“Good day, boss! Good day, missus! Good day, all about,” he said in
cheerful salute, as he trundled towards us like a ship’s barrel in full
sail. “Me new cook, me—” and then Sam appeared and towed him into port.
“Well, I’m blest!” Dan exclaimed, staring after him. “What HAVE we
struck?”
But Johnny knew, as did most Territorians. “You’ve struck Cheon, that’s
all,” he said. “Talk of luck! He’s the jolliest old josser going.”
The “jolliest old josser” seemed difficult to repress; for already he
had eluded Sam, and, reappearing in the kitchen doorway, waddled across
the thoroughfare towards us.
“Me new cook!” he repeated, going on from where he had left off. “Me
Cheon!” and then, in queer pidgin-English, he solemnly rolled out a few
of his many qualifications:
“Me savey all about,” he chanted. “Me savey cook ’im, and gard’in’, and
milk ’im, and chuckie, and fishin’ and shootin’ wild duck.” On and on he
chanted through a varied list of accomplishments, ending up with an
application for the position of cook. “Me sit down? Eh boss?” he asked,
moon-faced and serious.
“Please yourself!” the Maluka laughed, and with a flash of white teeth
and an infectious chuckle Cheon laughed and nodded back; then, still
chuckling, he waddled away to the kitchen and took possession there,
while we went to our respective dinners, little guessing that the
truest-hearted, most faithful, most loyal old “josser” had waddled into
our lives.