The Summer Old Bob Died.
It was a real scorcher. A soft, sweltering summer's day. The air
quivered; the heat drove the fowls under the dray and sent the old dog
to sleep upon the floor inside the house. The iron on the skillion
cracked and sweated--so did Dad and Dave down the paddock,
grubbing--grubbing, in 130 degrees of sunshine. They were clearing a
piece of new land--a heavily-timbered box-tree flat. They had been at
it a fortnight, and if any music was in the ring of the axe or the
rattle of the pick when commencing, there was none now.
Dad wished to be cheerful and complacent. He said (putting the pick
down and dragging his flannel off to wring it): "It's a good thing to
sweat well." Dave did n't say anything. I don't know what he thought,
but he looked up at Dad--just looked up at him--while the perspiration
filled his eyes and ran down over his nose like rain off a shingle;
then he hitched up his pants and "wired in" again.
Dave was a philosopher. He worked away until the axe flew off the
handle with a ring and a bound, and might have been lost in the long
grass for ever only Dad stopped it with his shin. I fancy he did n't
mean to stop it when I think how he jumped--it was the only piece of
excitement there had been the whole of that relentlessly solemn
fortnight. Dad got vexed--he was in a hurry with the grubbing--and
said he never could get anything done without something going wrong.
Dave was n't sorry the axe came off--he knew it meant half-an-hour in
the shade fixing it on again. "Anyway," Dad went on, "we'll go to
dinner now."
On the way to the house he several times looked at the sky--that
cloudless, burning sky--and said--to no one in particular, "I wish to
God it would rain!" It sounded like an aggravated prayer. Dave did
n't speak, and I don't think Dad expected he would.
Joe was the last to sit down to dinner, and he came in steaming hot.
He had chased out of sight a cow that had poked into the cultivation.
Joe mostly went about with green bushes in his hat, to keep his head
cool, and a few gum-leaves were now sticking in his moist and matted
hair.
"I put her out, Dad!" he said, casting an eager glare at everything on
the table. "She tried to jump and got stuck on the fence, and broke it
all down. On'y I could n't get anything, I'd er broke 'er head--there
was n't a thing, on'y dead cornstalks and cow-dung about." Then he
lunged his fork desperately at a blowfly that persistently hovered
about his plate, and commenced.
Joe had a healthy appetite. He had charged his mouth with a load of
cold meat, when his jaws ceased work, and, opening his mouth as though
he were sleepy, he leaned forward and calmly returned it all to the
plate. Dad got suspicious and asked Joe what was up; but Joe only
wiped his mouth, looked sideways at his plate, and pushed it away.
All of us stopped eating then, and stared at each other. Mother said,
"Well, I--I wrapped a cloth round it so nothing could get in, and put
it in the safe--I don't know where on earth to put the meat, I'm sure;
if I put it in a bag and hang it up that thief of a dog gets it."
"Yes," Dad observed, "I believe he'd stick his nose into hell itself,
Ellen, if he thought there was a bone there--and there ought to be lots
by this time." Then he turned over the remains of that cold meat, and,
considering we had all witnessed the last kick of the slaughtered
beast, it was surprising what animation this part of him yet retained.
In vain did Dad explore for a really dead piece--there was life in all
of it.
Joe was n't satisfied. He said he knew where there was a lot of eggs,
and disappeared down the yard. Eggs were not plentiful on our
selection, because we too often had to eat the hens when there was no
meat--three or four were as many as we ever saw at one time. So on
this day, when Joe appeared with a hatful, there was excitement. He
felt himself a hero. We thought him a little saviour.
"My!" said Mother, "where did you get all those?"
"Get 'em! I've had these planted for three munce--they're a nest I
found long ago; I thought I would n't say anythink till we really
wanted 'em."
Just then one of the eggs fell out of the hat and went off "pop" on the
floor.
Dave nearly upset the table, he rose so suddenly; and covering his nose
with one hand he made for the door; then he scowled back over his
shoulder at Joe. He utterly scorned his brother Joe. All of us
deserted the table except Dad--he stuck to his place manfully; it took
a lot to shift HIM.
Joe must have had a fine nerve. "That's on'y one bad 'n'," he said,
taking the rest to the fireplace where the kettle stood. Then Dad, who
had remained calm and majestic, broke out. "Damn y', boy!" he yelled,
"take th' awful things outside--YOU tinker!" Joe took them out and
tried them all, but I forget if he found a good one.
Dad peered into the almost-empty water-cask and again muttered a short
prayer for rain. He decided to do no more grubbing that day, but to
run wire around the new land instead. The posts had been in the ground
some time, and were bored. Dave and Sarah bored them. Sarah was as
good as any man--so Dad reckoned. She could turn her hand to anything,
from sewing a shirt to sinking a post-hole. She could give Dave inches
in arm measurements, and talk about a leg! She HAD a leg--a beauty!
It was as thick at the ankle as Dad's was at the thigh, nearly.
Anyone who would know what real amusement is should try wiring posts.
What was to have been the top wire (the No. 8 stuff) Dad commenced to
put in the bottom holes, and we ran it through some twelve or fifteen
posts before he saw the mistake--then we dragged it out slowly and
savagely; Dad swearing adequately all the time.
At last everything went splendidly. We dragged the wire through panel
after panel, and at intervals Dad would examine the blistering sky for
signs of rain. Once when he looked up a red bullock was reaching for
his waistcoat, which hung on a branch of a low tree. Dad sang out.
The bullock poked out his tongue and reached higher. Then Dad told Joe
to run. Joe ran--so did the bullock, but faster, and with the
waistcoat that once was a part of Mother's shawl half-way down his
throat. Had the shreds and ribbons that dangled to it been a little
longer, he might have trodden on them and pulled it back, but he did
n't. Joe deemed it his duty to follow that red bullock till it dropped
the waistcoat, so he hammered along full split behind. Dad and Dave
stood watching until pursued and pursuer vanished down the gully; then
Dad said something about Joe being a fool, and they pulled at the wire
again. They were nearing a corner post, and Dad was hauling the wire
through the last panel, when there came the devil's own noise of
galloping hoofs. Fifty or more cattle came careering along straight
for the fence, bellowing and kicking up their heels in the air, as
cattle do sometimes after a shower of rain. Joe was behind
them--considerably--still at full speed and yelping like a dog. Joe
loved excitement.
For weeks those cattle had been accustomed to go in and out between the
posts; and they did n't seem to have any thoughts of wire as they
bounded along. Dave stood with gaping mouth. Dad groaned, and the
wire's-end he was holding in his hand flew up with a whiz and took a
scrap of his ear away. The cattle got mixed up in the wires. Some
toppled over; some were caught by the legs; some by the horns. They
dragged the wire twenty and thirty yards away, twisted it round logs,
and left a lot of the posts pointing to sunset.
Oh, Dad's language then! He swung his arms about and foamed at the
mouth. Dave edged away from him.
Joe came up waving triumphantly a chewed piece of the waistcoat.
"D-d-did it g-give them a buster, Dad?" he said, the sweat running over
his face as though a spring had broken out on top of his head. Dad
jumped a log and tried to unbuckle his strap and reach for Joe at the
same time, but Joe fled.
That threw a painful pall over everything. Dad declared he was sick
and tired of the whole thing, and would n't do another hand's-turn.
Dave meditated and walked along the fence, plucking off scraps of skin
and hair that here and there clung to the bent and battered wire.
We had just finished supper when old Bob Wren, a bachelor who farmed
about two miles from us, arrived. He used to come over every
mail-night and bring his newspaper with him. Bob could n't read a
word, so he always got Dad to spell over the paper to him. WE did n't
take a newspaper.
Bob said there were clouds gathering behind Flat Top when he came in,
and Dad went out and looked, and for the fiftieth time that day prayed
in his own way for rain. Then he took the paper, and we gathered at
the table to listen. "Hello," he commenced, "this is M'Doolan's paper
you've got, Bob."
Bob rather thought it was n't.
"Yes, yes, man, it IS," Dad put in; "see, it's addressed to him."
Bob leaned over and LOOKED at the address, and said: "No, no, that's
mine; it always comes like that." Dad laughed. We all laughed. He
opened it, anyway. He had n't read for five minutes when the light
flickered nearly out. Sarah reckoned the oil was about done, and
poured water in the lamp to raise the kerosene to the wick, but that
did n't last long, and, as there was no fat in the house, Dad squatted
on the floor and read by the firelight.
He plodded through the paper tediously from end to end, reading the
murders and robberies a second time. The clouds that old Bob said were
gathering when he came in were now developing to a storm, for the wind
began to rise, and the giant iron-bark tree that grew close behind the
house swayed and creaked weirdly, and threw out those strange sobs and
moans that on wild nights bring terror to the hearts of bush children.
A glimmer of lightning appeared through the cracks in the slabs. Old
Bob said he would go before it came on, and started into the inky
darkness.
"It's coming!" Dad said, as he shut the door and put the peg in after
seeing old Bob out. And it came--in no time. A fierce wind struck the
house. Then a vivid flash of lightning lit up every crack and hole,
and a clap of thunder followed that nearly shook the place down.
Dad ran to the back door and put his shoulder against it; Dave stood to
the front one; and Sarah sat on the sofa with her arms around Mother,
telling her not to be afraid. The wind blew furiously--its one aim
seemed the shifting of the house. Gust after gust struck the walls and
left them quivering. The children screamed. Dad called and shouted,
but no one could catch a word he said. Then there was one tremendous
crack--we understood it--the iron-bark tree had gone over. At last,
the shingled roof commenced to give. Several times the ends rose (and
our hair too) and fell back into place again with a clap. Then it went
clean away in one piece, with a rip like splitting a ribbon, and there
we stood, affrighted and shelterless, inside the walls. Then the wind
went down and it rained--rained on us all night.
Next morning Joe had been to the new fence for the axe for Dad, and was
off again as fast as he could run, when he remembered something and
called out, "Dad, old B-B-Bob's just over there, lyin' down in the
gully."
Dad started up. "It's 'im all right--I w-w-would n'ter noticed, only
Prince s-s-smelt him."
"Quick and show me where!" Dad said.
Joe showed him.
"My God!" and Dad stood and stared. Old Bob it was--dead. Dead as
Moses.
"Poor old Bob!" Dad said. "Poor-old-fellow!" Joe asked what could
have killed him? "Poor-old-Bob!"
Dave brought the dray, and we took him to the house--or what remained
of it.
Dad could n't make out the cause of death--perhaps it was lightning.
He held a POST-MORTEM, and, after thinking hard for a long while, told
Mother he was certain, anyway, that old Bob would never get up again.
It was a change to have a dead man about the place, and we were very
pleased to be first to tell anyone who did n't know the news about old
Bob.
We planted him on his own selection beneath a gum-tree, where for years
and years a family of jackasses nightly roosted, Dad remarking: "As
there MIGHT be a chance of his hearin', it'll be company for the poor
old cove."