A JERSEY BULL
‟HOW’S Sarah?” demanded Mr. Weston, coming into the kitchen next morning
with a bucket of milk in either hand.
“Well, she’s better,” Jean answered, turning from a pan of fried
potatoes. “She says the neuralgia has quite gone. But you can see that
she has had an awful night—the poor old soul is so white, with big
black rings under her eyes. We couldn’t dream of letting her get up.”
“And she’s really too tired to fight us about it,” said Jo, who was
compounding a stew. “She says she feels as if she could sleep all day,
and of course it’s the best thing for her. So we’ve given her some tea
and toast, and darkened her room, and we’re not going near her until
dinner-time.”
“That’s right—sleep is probably all the treatment she needs,” Mr.
Weston said. “But it’s a bit hard on you, twinses. Do you think you can
manage?”
“Well, rather!” said his daughters cheerfully. “We’re going to have no
end of a day. Mother’s not going to dream, when she comes in, that there
isn’t a staff of liveried servants!”
“So I should think,” said Father dryly. “What time did you two get up?”
“Oh—five-ish,” said Jean, with studied carelessness.
“Rather more ‘ish’ than five, I fancy. Truth now, twinses.”
“Well, it’s going to be hot, so we thought we might as well start early.
And it truly was after half-past four.”
“H’m!—not much after,” said Mr. Weston, laughing. “However, I don’t
mind, if you’ll take a rest after lunch. See here, girls; I’ve got
business in Barrabri, and I want to be at the sales, besides meeting
Mother’s train: I intended driving in after breakfast. Suppose I take
the boys with me? a holiday won’t do them any harm, and you’ll have no
dinner to get—except for yourselves. That, I know, means that you’ll
dine on scraps off a corner of the kitchen table, but I believe women
like that sort of thing!”
“Father, you are just the most scrumptious person!” ejaculated Jean.
“We won’t say we’d love to get rid of you all, but yes—well, it would
be rather gorgeous to have the day to ourselves,” Jo agreed. “We want to
make cakes, and have everything as nice as nice. Bless you! Did you say
you would like to hurry away after breakfast?”
“I didn’t say so, but of course I will,” said Mr. Weston, laughing.
“Never say I’m not a well-trained parent!”
“I’ll never say you’re not an understanding one,” Jean said. “Breakfast
will be ready whenever you and the boys are. Won’t the urchins be
delighted at a day in Barrabri!”
“We want a lot of stores, Father,” said Jo. “Luckily Sarah has them down
on the kitchen slate, or we wouldn’t know what was needed. I’ll make a
list presently.”
“Do—and put down what sort of sweets you like. I don’t believe you’ve
had any for a month.”
“No sweets until rain comes,” said Jean determinedly.
“Who says so?”
“We do.”
“Well, I haven’t said it yet,” remarked Mr. Weston, with a twinkle.
“However, we won’t discuss the point; it’s too hot. I’ll be ready in ten
minutes, if that will do, girls.”
Breakfast over, and the boys arrayed in garments suitable for a day in
Barrabri—“and what’s more important, for meeting Mother, so just you
keep clean, young Billy!” warned his sisters—the remaining housework
was swiftly accomplished, and the twins retired to the kitchen. There
was a savoury odour of hot scones when Mr. Weston put his head in half
an hour later.
“I’m off, girls,” he said. “Sure you have put everything on the list?”
“Why, I hope so,” said Jean, taking floury hands from a yellow
mixing-bowl, and endeavouring fruitlessly to rub her eye with her elbow.
“Aren’t the flies awful! The list is so long that you won’t want any
additions to it, Father. Whatever you do, bring the seventy-pound bag of
sugar; there are only a few pounds in the house, and we have to make jam
to-morrow.”
“I won’t forget,” Father nodded. “Poor little cooks, you do look hot!
Josephine, my daughter, are you trying to bake yourself?”
“It happens without any trying, in this weather,” Jo answered. She was
kneeling in front of the open oven, which gave back her voice with a
hollow sound. “I wish they’d taught us at school _why_ a cake suddenly
rises in the middle and explodes! It looks weird, and I’m sure it won’t
be wholesome.” Shutting the oven-door carefully, she scrambled to her
feet. “It is so simple to cook things in class, with gas-stoves and Miss
Smith—this oven seems to have the Equator in the middle and the North
Pole at one side!”
“Don’t you worry,” said Father consolingly. “It smells tremendously
good, and the scones are splendid.” He looked at his daughters, a little
wrinkle in his brow. “Don’t work too hard, twinses. Mother will be vexed
if she finds you knocked up.”
“Oh, we’re quite all right,” Jo replied. “It’s really great fun, Father,
and we’re enjoying it. And we _do_ want to have things nice for Mother.
It would be so horrid for her to come home from Melbourne to find
everything at sixes and sevens just because Sarah was sick.”
“She won’t do that,” said Father—“you have the house like a new pin.
Well, I must go: there’s plenty to do in Barrabri before Mother’s train
gets in.” He closed the door with a cheery farewell; and immediately
re-opened it.
“By Jove, I nearly forgot something! That Jersey bull I sold to Joe
Harrison is in the stock-yard, and he’ll send for him during the day.
Don’t go into the yard, for he’s a nasty-tempered beast. You can tell
Harrison’s man where he is; and give the man a cup of tea when he comes,
and something to eat, for he’ll have had a twelve-mile ride.”
“All right,” said the twins, together.
“Thanks,” said Father. He smiled at them in the way that made it feel
most uplifting to be able to do anything for him. “Now, don’t forget to
eat some lunch yourselves. We’ll be back before four o’clock.”
“We’ll have the kettle boiling; Mother will want her tea badly,” Jean
said. They went out upon the kitchen verandah to watch him get into the
buggy, where Billy and Rex were awaiting him, swishing with the whip at
the clustering flies. “Take great care of yourself!” they called. It was
always their good-bye to him.
Outside, the blazing February sun beat down on the dust-coloured
paddocks, above which a heat-haze shimmered. The road ran right and left
beyond the homestead fences, here and there a little cloud of dust
showing where a horseman rode slowly. A deeper cloud marked the passage
of a flock of starving sheep, on their way to be trucked to
Gippsland—many of them doomed to die from sheer weakness on the road
before ever they should see the train. In the fruit trees outside the
kitchen window locusts shrilled ceaselessly, and grey miners—greediest
of birds—hopped and pecked, uttering long, screaming cries. The twins
took advantage of the break in their work to refresh themselves with a
cool drink from the canvas water-bag hanging under the shade of a great
walnut-tree, Jo obligingly holding the cup for Jean, whose hands were
too encumbered by flour to do so for herself. Then they dived anew into
the hot kitchen.
It was an hour later that Jo was carrying a freshly baked cake across to
the larder—a cool room, looking south, under the walnut-tree. She
regarded her cake with a motherly eye as she went. It had baked a trifle
peculiarly as to shape; still, it bore indications of being an excellent
cake. The odour it exhaled was tempting enough to the hungry cook, and
sent her thoughts in the hopeful direction of lunch. She put her burden
carefully on a shelf, and came back across the verandah.
A low sound met her ear; a long, growling bellow, which had come at
intervals during the morning. The Jersey bull was resenting his
imprisonment in the stock-yard, and venting his ill-temper by making
unpleasant remarks and pawing up the ground in one corner. Jo stopped to
glance in the direction of the yard.
As she did so, the bull found a weak spot in the fence. He put his great
head under, and lifted; and the top rail shot into the air. It left a
gap that was far too much temptation for a wrathful Jersey. Jo uttered a
startled exclamation as the big brown beast suddenly rose in the air,
jumping lazily over the broken fence. He stood irresolutely for a
moment, and then trotted up the road, keeping close beside the fence,
and bellowing morosely as he went.
Jo’s voice brought her twin hurriedly out to her side.
“Good gracious!” Jean exclaimed. “The wicked old horror! Whatever can we
do?”
“We can’t let him go,” Jo said. “Mr. Harrison’s man must have him, or
Father wouldn’t get the money for him. And anyhow, he isn’t safe, Jean;
he simply mustn’t be left on the road. Why, he might meet some children.
You never know who may be on that track.”
“I don’t believe we could yard him again,” Jean said doubtfully. “Father
said yesterday that it took him all his time to handle him: his temper’s
abominable. Mother has wanted Father to sell him for ever so long,
’cause he isn’t to be trusted.”
“If only a man would come along!” Jo uttered.
They ran to the fence and looked up and down the road. No one was in
sight: the lane the bull had taken was a quiet one, and it was empty
save for his fast-retreating form. He trotted briskly, hugging the fence
and uttering his long, growling bellow. The twins looked at each other
blankly.
“He’s worth such a lot of money, too!” Jean said. “Father’s going to get
ever so much for him. It’s perfectly awful, Jo!”
Jo was thinking.
“There are men at Moncrieff’s, of course,” she said. “But he’d be out of
sight long before we could get them, and once he gets to the cross-roads
we wouldn’t be able to tell which way he went. Besides, he might jump
into any paddock; you know, Father said that no fence would stop him
except the stock-yard. And if he did any damage he might get shot. A
policeman shot a stray bull in Barrabri last month.” She wrinkled her
forehead. “Jean, I don’t see how we’re to hold up our heads if anything
happens to him—he was left in our charge!”
“Well, he’s left it now,” said Jean dolefully. “And Father would know we
couldn’t stop him. He wouldn’t be angry.”
“Why, of course he wouldn’t: he’d never say a word about it to us. And
that would make it all the worse, because we’d know how bad he felt
about it,” Jo answered. “Jean, it’s no use talking, while the old beast
gets further and further away every minute. I’m going after him!”
“After Father?”
“No, stupid, after the Jersey! I believe I can stop him, on Pilot. At
least, I’m going to try!”
“You aren’t going to do any such thing, Jo Weston!” said Jean
desperately. “You’ll get killed, and Father would be furious!”
“I won’t get killed at all,” said Jo, laughing. “And I’d never have any
peace of mind if I didn’t go, and the old beast killed some poor little
youngster by the roadside. And neither would you, and you know it!”
“Then we’ll both go,” said Jean decidedly.
“We can’t—some one must stay with Sarah and the house. And I’m the
eldest!”
“Five minutes!” said her twin, resentfully. “That’s not fair, Jo!”
“No, it isn’t, I know,” admitted Jo, hugging her penitently. “I didn’t
mean it, Jeanie darling. But you know Pilot is just a bit handier with
cattle than Punch is, and I’m used to him—I know I’d better go. Oh, we
mustn’t waste time arguing about it. You run and get Pilot, and I’ll fly
into my riding things.” And Jean, silenced, but inwardly protesting,
ran.
The ponies were in the little paddock near the house. They were
accustomed to being caught in the open; even if Pilot felt puzzled at
being bridled by the wrong twin he made no objection. By the time Jo, in
coat and breeches, came running from the house, he was ready; a
handsome, eager little black pony, dancing with impatience and with
disgust at the swarming flies. Jo swung herself into the saddle.
“Do be careful, old girl!” Jean called.
“Of course I will,” Jo answered briskly. “Put the sliprails of the yard
down, in case I bring him back, will you, Jeanie?”
She waved her hand gaily, and in another moment was galloping up the
road.
Far ahead, the Jersey bull was only a little dot upon the wayside. He
was travelling fast, and probably his temper was, as yet, none the
better for the exercise. Jo shuddered to think of what might happen if
he encountered any of the Bush children, who are, as a rule, fearless of
any animals. Little children would very certainly not think of getting
out of his way.
She dug her heel into Pilot, giving him his head: and the black pony,
glad to be out again, after long days in the paddock, answered promptly.
His long stride soon lessened the distance separating them from the blur
of dust ahead. From the house, Jean watched them anxiously, until a bend
in the road hid them from sight. Then she turned with a little sigh, and
hurried back to the neglected kitchen, resolving to have all the work
done before Jo’s return. But it was certainly hard to be the one to stay
at home.
It was near a little clump of trees that Jo first came up with the
Jersey. The shade had tempted him to pause; he stood under a wattle, his
angry head low, until the sound of galloping hoofs startled him. Quite
well he knew that hoofs would come; but he had not the smallest
intention of waiting for them. As Pilot and his rider came into view he
went off again, this time at a heavy gallop.
“Bother the old thing!” said Jo, pulling up. “We’ll let him run a bit,
Pilot: he’ll stop much sooner then.”
She waited until the bull dropped once more into a jog-trot. Then she
cantered on, keeping this time on the opposite side of the road, in the
somewhat vain hope of inducing the fugitive to think she was merely out
for a ride, with no intention whatever of interfering with his
excursions. But the bull knew the pony, and he was not easy to deceive;
he quickened his pace whenever the hoofs came nearer, and so the miles
steadily increased between them and the Emu Plains homestead, now far
out of sight. Jo set her teeth at last.
“Well, this may go on all day,” she said. “We’ve simply got to head him,
Pilot. Come on, boy!”
Pilot was very willing. He was galloping before the bull realized it.
There was a minute of uncertainty, and then the pony forged steadily
ahead, still keeping on the far side of the road—not turning until they
were a hundred yards in the lead. Then Jo swung round suddenly, pulling
up across the bull’s path. The Jersey came on steadily. She swung her
light stock-whip free, with a sharp crack, and, shouting, rode to meet
him.
The bull was in much too evil a frame of mind to care for a girl on a
small black pony. He bellowed defiance, keeping close to the fence, and
scattering the dust as he came. The stock-whip spoke again, the lash
falling across his face; but it was not the heavy thong to which he was
accustomed, and, while it made him angrier, it did not turn him in the
least. He put his head down and charged, making a savage thrust with his
cruel little horns at the pony, missing Jo’s leg by a hair’s breadth.
Pilot danced aside; and then they were once more in the rear, and the
broad, brown back, with the switching, angry tail, seemed to fill the
road in front of them.
“Well, you are an old pig!” said Jo, in heartfelt accents, to the bull.
“Come on. Pilot!” They galloped in pursuit again.
An hour later, they were still pursuing. Four times they had managed to
head the bull, and each time he had beaten them, becoming, with each
victory, more and more unmanageable. Only a man on a good horse could
have turned him now, for all his wicked fury was aroused, and from being
merely bad-tempered he was actively vicious. Twice, Pilot’s quickness
alone had saved Jo from disaster. Now, she was very tired, and her arm
felt almost useless, so cruelly did it ache from trying to use the
stock-whip. Tears were not usual with the twins; but Jo was not far off
them.
“We’ll never get him back, Pilot!” she said miserably.
They rounded a bend in the road, and ahead a little cottage came into
view. At sight of it Jo caught her breath. Out in the road before it,
two little blue figures were playing happily in the dusty grass.
No one else was in sight: before her loomed only the bull, bearing
steadily down on the children. Jo forgot her weariness; forgot
everything but those little, helpless figures. Next moment Pilot was
going at racing pace—up the road, past the galloping bull, on and on,
his rider shouting as she bent forward on his neck. “Run! Get inside the
fence!”
They were very little children; too young to understand or to be afraid.
They looked up at the flying pony with wide, interested eyes, never
thinking of moving; unheeding Jo’s wild cries to run within the shelter
of the garden fence so near to them. The sound of the racing hoofs and
the wild cries brought a man to the cottage door—and in a moment he
also was shouting, running wildly; knowing himself too far off to be of
any use.
The bull was very close as Jo flung herself from Pilot’s back, leaving
him, with a little dry sob, to shift for himself. She caught a child in
each hand and raced for the garden gate, as the bull, bellowing, put
down his head and charged.
It was so near a thing that the father, running madly down the path,
held his breath in despair; so near that Jo felt the bull’s hot breath
as she flung herself at the gate. Had it been latched, all had been over
with them; but the children had left it unfastened—it gave as they
touched it, and in a second they were through. Jo freed one hand to bang
it behind them. She heard the latch click—heard the thud of the bull’s
shoulder as he came heavily upon the stout gate-post. Then her foot
caught, and all three went down in a heap.
The man who came, racing, picked her up even before he looked at the
badly frightened children. His breath came and went in gasps—even as
Jo’s did.
“Well!” he said, and stopped at that.
“I’m sorry,” Jo said apologetically. “Father would be awfully annoyed if
he knew that horrid old Jersey had given anyone a fright!”
“It’s thanks to you I’ve got my two kids,” said the man, gasping.
“There, that’ll do, Jimmy—you’re not hurt, lad. I—I never saw anything
like it. Sure you’re all right, Miss Weston?”
“I’m all right, I think,” Jo said. Suddenly she felt queer, and sat down
on the grass. “I’ll just sit here a moment. How did you know my name?”
“Bless you, I know the pony,” he said, looking at Pilot, standing
quietly by the road. The bull was already a hundred yards away, trotting
steadily. “I’ll go and catch him.” He went out and secured Pilot,
putting his bridle over a post, in the shade of a grevillea tree.
“You’re sure he’s all right?” Jo questioned anxiously.
“Right as rain.” The man’s ruddy face was still queerly white. “If I’m
not mistaken that’s the bull I was going to take to Harrison’s this very
day. Was you bringing him yourself?”
“I?” said Jo. “Good gracious, no! I didn’t even know that Mr. Harrison
lived in this direction. The bull was left in our charge, and he got
out. I was trying to get him back.”
“You!—you mite of a thing!” said the man, staring. “Well, he’s brought
himself not far from Harrison’s, and saved me a nice, hot ride—but it’s
you that’ve had the worst of it. Just you come in, and my missus’ll make
you a cup of tea while I take after the old brute. I’ll have him in his
new paddock inside of half an hour. Sure you’re all right?” he queried,
anxiously.
“I’m all right, thanks,” Jo said, getting up stiffly.
“You’ll be better when you’ve had a cup of tea. I’ll give the pony a
feed while you’re resting, and you can ride back comfortable when he’s
had it. Come along, now.” He swung a child aloft on each shoulder. “My
missus’ll have something to say to you when she hears about this!—the
very pluckiest——”
His voice stopped uncertainly, and Jo, suddenly aware that she was very
tired, followed him up the garden path.
The wife proved to be not excitable—which was, perhaps, as well for Jo.
Her motherly eyes took in the girl’s strained face at a glance—she had
quietly established her on an old sofa in the kitchen before her husband
had finished the story. Even then, she said little. She caught the
babies to her for a moment: then, putting them aside, brought water and
bathed Jo’s face and hands, and presently had a cup of tea beside
her—the universal medicine of the Bush. As she put it down she stooped
suddenly, and kissed the girl’s hand.
“There ain’t no sayin’ ‘thank you’ for what you’ve done for us,” she
said.
When her husband came back, within an hour, he brought with him a man
who greeted Jo as an old friend. She had drunk five cups of tea, and was
feeling rested, and both babies were sitting on top of her. Jo adored
babies.
“Why, Dr. Lawrence!” she said.
The Barrabri doctor patted her on the head.
“Tim Conlan’s been telling me all about you, young lady,” said he. “Nice
hot day you’ve chosen to chase a bad-tempered bull twelve miles! How are
you, Mrs. Conlan? and the youngsters? You all look very fit. Look here,
twin—which are you? I never know!”
“Jo,” said that lady meekly.
“I’ve only your word for it,” said the doctor, laughing. “Anyhow, Conlan
and I have agreed that you’re not going to ride back in this heat. He
was going to drive you; but he ran across me, and I’m going past your
place in the car. You come home with me, and Conlan will bring your pony
over in a day or two. Will that do?”
“Oh, that’s giving Mr. Conlan an awful lot of trouble,” Jo protested.
Whereat Tim Conlan uttered a kind of smothered snort, and Dr. Lawrence
laughed.
“I think Mr. Conlan will be annoyed if you talk to him about trouble,”
he said. “Well, that’s settled. Feel well enough to start now?”
“Oh, yes,” said Jo, giving in. “I would like to get back before Mother
and Father get home—Mother’s coming back from Town to-day. And poor old
Jean will be awfully anxious. She wanted to come after the bull too, but
there was no one to look after Sarah—she’s sick.”
“I thought it was curious to see one of you without the other,” said the
doctor. “Be thankful you haven’t got twins, Mrs. Conlan, that you can’t
tell apart!”
“I’m thankful I’ve got any children at all this day!” said Mrs. Conlan,
with a smothered sob.
The doctor’s swift little car made short work of the miles to Emu
Plains, where they found a distraught Jean, on the point of setting out
on Punch, in search of her twin.
“I simply couldn’t stand it!” she said. “How did I know if that old
beast of a bull hadn’t killed you? I had awful visions of you lying on
the road, hurt, in all the heat—I just couldn’t face Father and Mother
when I didn’t know where you were. And Sarah’s well enough to be up, so
I was coming.”
“Poor old Jean!” said Jo. “I guess you had all the worst of it.”
The doctor stayed to tea, partly that he might give Mrs. Weston a word
of warning.
“She’s had rather a shock,” he said, when Jo was out of the room. “Of
course, she thinks she’s all right, being fifteen, and Jo into the
bargain, but I’d advise you to take care of her for a few days, and make
her lie down a bit, and go to bed early. No need whatever to fuss, but
just keep your eye on her. She’s had a heavy strain, finishing with a
sudden call on every ounce of physical and mental strength she
possessed. Conlan said it was almost a miracle that they escaped—only
extraordinary quickness did it.”
So Jo found herself gently taken care of, for a few days, which
embarrassed her greatly. She rather wondered that she felt listless and
heavy-eyed; and her sleep was broken by bad dreams, in which she was
perpetually snatching babies from the jaws of unpleasant prehistoric
animals, rather like Chinese dragons. Always after one of these dreams
it seemed that Mother was beside her, soothing her with a gentle voice.
Mother had taken to sleeping on the verandah near them, declaring it was
too hot in the house. Jo found herself very glad of her nearness. And
after a few days the dreams went away, and she was a mere twin again,
much to her relief.
Tim Conlan had brought Pilot back, and had found speech difficult when
he talked to Jo’s parents.
“I never saw the man who’d ’ve done it,” he said. “Not in me life. The
brute wasn’t twenty yards away, and he was fair wicked: them little kids
of mine wouldn’t ’ve had the ghost of a show. All he wanted was
something to kill, and he’d ’ve done them in but for that little slip of
a girl.” He was silent a moment, his rugged face working. Like Jo, he
had had bad dreams since.
“Well, I don’t suppose I’ll ever be able to pay her back,” he said.
“There’s no payment for that sort of thing. But if I can do her, or any
of her people, a good turn, any time in me life—well, me missus an’ me
would walk barefoot fifty mile to do it, an’ glad of the chance.”
“There’s no question of payment, as you say,” Mr. Weston answered.
“We’re thankful it was our girl who saved them. Remember, the bull was
mine—I’d never have forgiven myself if he’d hurt them. I’ve been
wishing to goodness I’d shot the brute instead of selling him.”
“Oh, well, that’s simple waste,” said Tim Conlan, amazed. “You gotter
remember he’s a real good Jersey!”