We of the Never Never

J >> Jeanie Mrs. Aeneas Gunn >> We of the Never Never

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After wandering through several trunks and gloating over
blouses, and skirts, and house-linen, and old friends the books
were opened up, and before the Maluka became lost to the world
Cheon favoured them with a passing glance. "Big mob book," he
said indifferently, and turned his attention to the last trunk of all.

Near the top was a silver filigree candlestick moulded into the
form of a Convolvulus flower and leaf--a dainty little thing,
but it appeared ridiculous to Cheon's commonsense mind.

"Him silly fellow," he scoffed, and appealed to the Maluka
for his opinion: "him silly fellow? Eh boss?" he asked. '

The Maluka was half-buried in books. "Um," he murmured absently,
and that clinched the matter for all time. "Boss bin talk silly
fellow" Cheon said, with an approving nod toward the Maluka,
and advised packing the candlestick away again. "Plenty room
sit down longa box," he said, truthfully enough, putting it
into an enormous empty trunk and closing the lid, leaving
the candlestick a piece of lonely splendour hidden under a bushel.

But the full glory of our possessions was now to burst upon
Cheon. The trunk we were at was half filled with all sorts of
cunning devices for kitchen use, intended for the mistress's pantry
of that commodious station home of past ignorant imagination.
A mistress's pantry forsooth, in a land where houses are superfluous
and luxuries barred, and at a homestead where the mistress had
long ceased to be anything but the little missus--something to rule
or educate or take care of, according to the nature of her
subordinates.

In a flash I knew all I had once been, and quailing before the
awful proof before me, presented Cheon with the whole collection
of tin and enamel ware, and packed him off to the kitchen before
the Maluka had time to lose interest in the books.

Everything was exactly what Cheon most needed, and he accepted
everything with gleeful chuckles--everything excepting a kerosene
Primus burner for boiling a kettle. That he refused to touch.
"Him go bang," he explained, as usual explicit and picturesque
in his English.

After gathering his treasure together he waddled away to the kitchen,
and at afternoon tea we had sponge cakes, light and airy beyond
all dreams of airy lightness, no one having yet combined
the efforts of Cheon, a flour dredge, and an egg-beater,
in his dreams. And Cheon's heart being as light as his cookery,
in his glee he made a little joke at the expense of the Quarters,
summoning all there to afternoon tea with a chuckling call
of "Cognac!" chuckles that increased tenfold at the mock haste
of the Quarters. A little joke, by the way, that never lost
in freshness as the months went by.

At intervals during the days that followed Cheon surveyed his treasures,
and during these intervals the whirr of the flour dredge or
egg-beater was heard from the kitchens, and invariably the whirr
was followed by a low, distinct chuckle of appreciation.

All afternoon we worked, and by the evening the dining-room
was transformed: blue cloths and lace runners on the deal
side-table and improvised pigeon-holes; nicknacks here and there
on tables and shelves and brackets; pictures on the walls; "kent"
faces in photograph frames among the nicknacks; a folding
carpet-seated armchair in a position of honour; cretonne curtains
in the doorway between the rooms, and inside the shimmering white
net a study in colour effect--blue and white matting on the
floor, a crimson cloth on the table, and on the cloth Cheon's
"silver" swan sailing in a sea of purple, blue, and heliotrope
water-lilies. But best of all were the books row upon row of old
familiar friends; nearly two hundred of them filling the shelved
panel as they looked down upon us.

Mac was dazzled with the books. "Hadn't seen so many together
since he was a nipper"; and after we had introduced him
to our favourites, we played with our new toys like a parcel
of children, until supper time.

When supper was over we lit the lamp, and shutting doors
and windows, shut the Sanguine Scot in with us, and made believe
we were living once more within sound of the rumble of a great
city. Childish behaviour, no doubt, but to be expected from folk
who can find entertainment in the going to bed of fowls;
but when the heart is happy it forgets to grow old.

"A lighted lamp and closed doors, and the outside world is what
you will it to be," the Maluka theorised, and to disprove it Mac
drew attention to the distant booming of the bells that swung from
the neck of his grazing bullocks.

"The city clocks," we said. "We hear them distinctly at night."

But the night was full of sounds all around the homestead,
and Mac, determined to mock, joined in with the "Song of the Frogs."

"Quart pot! Qua-rt-pot!" he croaked, as they sang outside
in rumbling monotone.

"The roll of the tramcars," the Maluka interpreted gravely,
as the long flowing gutturals blended into each other; and Mac's
mood suddenly changing he entered into our sport, and soon put us
to shame in make-believing; spoke of "pining for a breath of fresh
air"; "hoped" to get away from the grime and dust of the city as
soon as the session was over; wondered how he would shape "at
camping out," with an irrepressible chuckle. "Often thought I'd
like to try it," he said, and invited us to help him make up a
camping party. "Be a change for us city chaps," he suggested;
and then exploding at what he called his "tomfoolery," set the
dining-net all a-quivering and shaking.

"Gone clean dilly, I believe," he declared, after thinking
that he had "better be making a move for the last train."

Then, mounting his waiting horse, he splashed through the creek
again, and disappeared into the moonlit grove of pandanus palms
beyond it.

The waggons spelled for two days at the Warlochs, and we saw
much of the "Macs." Then they decided to "push on"; for not
only were others farther "in" waiting for the waggons, but daily
the dry stages were getting longer and drier; and the shorter
his dry stages are, the better a bullock-puncher likes them.

With well-nursed bullocks, and a full complement of them--
the "Macs" had twenty-two per waggon for their dry stages--
a "thirty-five-mile dry" can be "rushed," the waggoners getting
under way by three o'clock one afternoon, travelling all night
with a spell or two for the bullocks by the way, and "punching"
them into water within twenty-four hours.

"Getting over a fifty-mile dry" is, however, a more complicated
business, and suggests a treadmill. The waggons are "pulled out"
ten miles in the late afternoon, the bullocks unyoked and brought
back to the water, spelled most of the next day, given a last
drink and travelled back to the waiting waggons by sundown;
yoked up and travelled on all that night and part of the next day;
once more unyoked at the end of the forty miles of the stage;
taken forward to the next water, and speUed and nursed up again
at this water for a day or two; travelled back again
to the waggons, and again yoked up, and finally brought forward
in the night with the loads to the water.

Fifty miles dry with loaded waggons being the limit for mortal
bullocks, the Government breaks the "seventy-five" with a "drink"
sent out in tanks on one of the telegraph station waggons.
The stage thus broken into "a thirty-five-mile dry," with another
of forty on top of that, becomes complicated to giddiness
in its backings, and fillings, and goings, and comings,
and returnings.

As each waggon carries only five tons, all things considered,
from thirty to forty pounds a ton is not a high price to pay for
the cartage of stores to "inside."

But although the "getting in" , with the stores means much
to the bush-folk," getting out again is the ultimate goal
of the waggoners.

There is time enough for the trip, but only good time, before
the roads will be closed by the dry stages growing to impossible
lengths for the bullocks to recross; and if the waggoners lose
sight of their goal, and loiter by the way, they will find
themselves "shut in" inside, with no prospect of getting out until
the next Wet opens the road for them.

The Irish Mac held records for getting over stages; but even he
had been "shut in" once, and had sat kicking his heels all
through a long Dry, wondering if the showers would come in time
to let him out for the next year's loading, or if the Wet would
break suddenly, and further shut him in with floods and bogs.
The horse teams had been "shut in" the same year, but as the Macs
explained, the teamsters had broached their cargo that year,
and had a "glorious spree" with the cases of grog--a "glorious
spree" that detained them so long on the road that by the time
they were in there was no chance of getting out, and they had more
than enough time to brace themselves for the interview that
eventually came with their employers.

"Might a bullock-puncher have the privilege of shaking hands
with a lady?" the Irish Mac asked, extending an honest, horny
hand; and the privilege, if it were one, was granted. Finally all
was ready, and the waggons, one behind the other, each with its long
swaying line of bullocks before it, slid away from the Warloch
Ponds and crept into the forest, looking hke three huge snails
with shells on their backs, Bertie's Nellie watching,
wreathed in smiles.

Nellie had brought to the homestead her bosom friend and crony,
Biddy, and the staff had increased to five. It would have
numbered six, only Maudie, discovering that the house was
infested with debbil-debbils, had resigned and "gone bush."
The debbil-debbils were supposed to haunt the Maluka's telescope,
for Maudie, on putting her eye to the sight opening, to find out
what interested the Maluka so often, had found the trees
on the distant plain leaping towards her.

"Debbil-debbil, sit down," she screamed, as, flinging the telescope
from her in a frenzy of fear, she found the distance still
and composed,

"No more touch him, missus!" she shrieked, as I stooped to pick up
the telescope. "'Spose you touch him, all about there come on quick
fellow. Me bin see him! My word him race!"

After many assurances, I was allowed to pick it up, Maudie
crouching in a shuddering heap the while behind the office,
to guard against surprises. Next morning she applied for leave
of absence and "went bush." Jimmy's Nellie, however, was not so
easily scared, and after careful investigation treated herself
to a pleasant half hour with the telescope.

"Tree all day walk about," she said, explaining the mystery
to the staff; and the looking-glass speedily lost in favour.
The telescope proved full of delights. But although it was
a great sight to see a piccaninny "come on big-fellow," nothing
could compare with the joy of looking through the reversed end
of the glass, into a world where great men became "little fellow,"
unless it were the marvel of watching dim, distant specks as they
took on the forms of birds, beasts, or men.

The waggons gone, and with them Nellie's shyness, she quietly
ousted Rosy from her position at the head of the staff. "Me
sit down first time," she said; and happy, smiling Rosy,
retiring, obeyed orders as willingly as she had given them.
With Nellie and Rosy at the head of affairs, house-cleaning passed
unnoticed, and although, after the arrival of unlimited changes
of everything, washing-day threatened to become a serious business,
they coped with that difficulty by continuing to live in a cycle
of washing days--every alternate day only, though, so as to leave
time for gardening.

The gardening staff, which consisted of a king, an heir-apparent,
and a royal councillor, had been engaged to wheel barrow-loads
of rich loamy soil from the billabong to the garden beds; but as
its members preferred gossiping in the shade to work of any kind,
the gardening took time and supervision.

"That'll do, Gadgerrie?" was the invariable question after each load,
as the staff prepared to sit down for a gossip; and "Gadgerrie"
had to start every one afresh, after deciding whose turn it was
to ride back to the billabong in the barrow.

Six loads in a morning was a fair record, for " Gadgerrie" was
not often disinclined for a gossip on court matters, but although
nothing was done while we were out-bush, the garden was
gradually growing.

Two of the beds against the verandah were gaily flourishing,
others "coming on," and outside the broad pathway a narrow bed
had been made all round the garden for an hibiscus hedge; while
outside this bed again, one at each corner of the garden, stood four
posts--the Maluka's promise of a dog-proof, goat-proof, fowl-proof
fence. So far Tiddle'ums had acted as fence, when we
were in, at the homestead, scattering fowls, goats, and dairy cows
in all directions if they dared come over a line she had drawn in her
mind's eye. When Tiddle'ums was out-bush with us, Bett-Bett acted
as fence.

Johnny, generally repairing the homestead now, admired the garden
and declared everything would be "A1 in no time."

"Wouldn't know the old place," he said, a day or two later,
surveying his own work with pride. Then he left us, and for the
first time I was sorry the house was finished. Johnny was one
of the men who had not "learnt sense" but the world would be
a better place if there were more Johnnies in it.

Just as we were preparing to go out-bush for reports, Dan came
in with a mob of cattle for branding and the news that a yard on
the northern boundary was gone from the face of the earth.

"Clean gone since last Dry," he reported; "burnt or washed away,
or both."

Rather than let his cattle go, he had travelled in nearly thirty
miles with the mob in hand, but "reckoned" it wasn't "good enough."
"The time I've had with them staggering bobs," he said, when we
pitied the poor, weary, footsore little calves: "could 'av brought
in a mob of snails quicker. 'Tisn't good enough."

The Maluka also considered it not "good enough," and decided
to run up a rough branding wing at once on to the holding yard at
the Springs; and while Dan saw to the branding of the mob the
Maluka looked out his plans.

"Did you get much hair for the mattress?" I asked, all in good
faith, when Dan came down from the yards to the house to discuss
the plans, and Dan stood still, honestly vexed with himself.

"Well, I'm blest!" he said, "if I didn't forget all about it,"
and then tried to console me by saying I wouldn't need a mattress
till the mustering was over. "Can't carry it round with you,
you know," he said, "and it won't be needed anywhere else."
Then he surveyed the house with his philosophical eye.

"Wouldn't know the old place," Johnny had said, and Dan "reckoned"
it was "all right as houses go." Adding with a chuckle, "Well,
she's wrestled with luck for more'n four months to get it,
but the question is, what's she going to use it for now she's
got it ? ''

CHAPTER XIV

For over four months we had wrestled with luck for a house,
only to find we had very little use for it for the time being,
that is, until next Wet. It couldn't be carried out-bush
from camp to camp, and finding us at a loss for an answer,
Dan suggested one himself.

"Of course!" he said, as he eyed the furnishings with interest,
"it 'ud come in handy to pack the chain away in while the dog
was out enjoying itself "; and we left it at that. It came in
handy to pack the chain away in while the dog was enjoying itself,
for within twenty-four hours we were camped at the Bitter Springs,
and two weeks passed before the homestead saw us again.

After our experience of "getting hold of Johnny," Dan called it
foolishness to wait for an expert, and the Dandy being away for
the remainder of the stores, and the Quiet Stockman having his
hands full to overflowing, the Maluka and Dan with that
adaptability peculiar to bushmen, set to work themselves at the
yard, with fifteen or twenty boys as apprentices.

As most of the boys had their lubras with them, it was an immense
camp, but exceedingly pretty. One small tent "fly" for a
dressing-room for the missus, and the remainder of the accommodation--
open-air and shady bough gundies; tiny, fresh, cool, green
shade-houses here, there, and everywhere for the blacks; one set
apart from the camp for a larder, and an immense one--all green
waving boughs--for the missus to rest in during the heat of the day.
"The Cottage," Dan called it.

Of course, Sool'em and Brown were with us, Little Tiddle'ums
being in at the homestead on the sick list with a broken leg;
and in addition to Sool'em and Brown an innumerable band of nigger
dogs, Billy Muck being the adoring possessor of fourteen, including
pups, which fanned out behind him as he moved hither and thither
like the tail of a comet.

Our camp being a stationary one, was, by comparison with our ordinary
camps, a campe-de-luxe; for, apart from the tent-fly, in it were
books, pillows, and a canvas lounge, as well as some of the
flesh-pots of Egypt, in the shape of eggs, cakes, and vegetables
sent out every few days by Cheon, to say nothing of scrub
turkeys, fish, and such things.

Dan had no objection to the eggs, cakes, or vegetables, but
the pillows and canvas lounge tried him sorely. "Thought the chain
was to be left behind in the kennel," he said, and decided that
the "next worst thing to being chained up was "for a dog to have
to drag a chain round when it was out for a run. Look at me!"
he said, "never been chained up all me life, just because I never
had enough permanent property to make a chain--never more than I
could carry in one hand: a bluey, a change of duds, a mosquito net,
and a box of Cockle's pills."

We suggested that Cockle's pills were hardly permanent property,
but Dan showed that they were, with him.

"More permanent than you'd think," he said. "When I've got
'em in me swag, I never need 'em, and when I've Ieft 'em
somewhere else I can't get 'em: so you see the same box does for
always."

Yard-building lacking in interest, lubras and piccaninnies provided
entertainment, until Dan failing to see that "niggers could teach
her anything," decided on a course of camp cookery.

Roast scrub turkey was the first lesson cooked in the most correct
style: a forked stick, with the fork uppermost, was driven into
the ground near the glowing heap of wood ashes; then a long
sapling was leant through the fork, with one end well over the
coals; a doubled string, with the turkey hanging from it, looped
over this end; the turkey turned round and round until the string
was twisted to its utmost, and finally string and turkey were left
to themselves, to wind and unwind slowly, an occasional
winding-up being all that was necessary.

The turkey was served at supper, and with it an enormous boiled
cabbage--one of Cheon's successes. Dan was in clover, boiled
cabbage being considered nectar fit for the gods, and after supper
he put the remnants of the feast away for his breakfast." Cold
cabbage goes all right," he said, as he stowed it carefully away--
"particularly for breakfast."

Then the daily damper was to be made, and I took the dish without
a misgiving. I felt at home there, for bushmen have long since
discarded the old-fashioned damper, and use soda and cream-of-tartar
in the mixture. But ours was an immense camp, and I had reckoned
without any thought. An immense camp requires an immense damper;
and, the dish containing pounds and pounds of flour,
when the mixture was ready for kneading the kneading was beyond
a woman's hands--a fact that provided much amusement to the bushmen.

"Hit him again, little 'un," the Maluka cried encouragingly, as I
punched and pummelled at the unwieldy mass.

"Give it to him, missus," Dan chuckled. "That's the style!
Now you've got him down."

Kneeling in front of the dish, I pounded obediently at the mixture;
and as they alternately cheered and advised and I wrestled
with circumstances, digging my fists vigorously into the spongy,
doughy depths of the damper, a traveller rode right into the camp.

Good evening, mates," he said, dismounting. "Saw your fires,
and thought I'd camp near for company." Then discovering that
one of the "mates" was a woman, backed a few steps, dazed and
open-mouthed--a woman, dough to the elbows, pounding blithely
at a huge damper, being an unusual sight in a night camp
in the heart of one of the cattle runs in the Never-Never.

"We're conducting a cooking class," the Maluka explained,
amused at the man's consternation.

The traveller grinned a sickly grin, and "begging pardon, ma'am,
for intruding," said something about seeing to his camp, and backed
to a more comfortable distance; and the damper-making proceeded.

"There's a billy just thinking of boiling here you can have, mate,
seeing it's late," Dan called, when he heard the man rattling
tinware, as he prepared to go Ior water; and once more "begging
pardon, ma'am, for intruding," the traveller came into our camp
circle, and busied himself with the making of tea.

The tea made to his satisfaction, he asked diffidently if there
was a "bit of meat to spare," as his was a bit off"; and Dan went
to the larder with a hospitable "stacks!"

"How would boiled cabbage and roast turkey go?" Dan called, finding
himself confronted with the great slabs of cabbage; and the traveller,
thinking it was supposed to be a joke, favoured us with another
nervous grin and a terse "Thanks!" Then Dan reappeared, laden,
and the man's eyes glistened as he forgot his first surprise in
his second. "Real cabbage!" he cried. "Gosh! ain't tasted cabbage
for five years"; and the Maluka telling him to "sit right down then
and begin, just where you are"--beside our camp fire--with a less
nervous begging your pardon, ma'am," he dropped down on one knee,
and began.

"Don't be shy of the turkey," the Maluka said presently, noticing
that he had only taken a tiny piece, and the man looked sheepishly up.
"'Tain't exactly that I'm shy of it," he said, "but I'm scared
to fill up any space that might hold cabbage. That is," he added,
again apologetic, "if it's not wanted, ma'am."

It wasn't wanted; and as the man found room for it, the Maluka
and Dan offered further suggestions for the construction of the
damper and its conveyance to the fire.

The conveyance required judgment and watchful diplomacy, as
the damper preferred to dip in a rolling valley between my
extended arms, or hang over them like a tablecloth, rather than
keep its desired form. But with patience, and the loan of one
of Dan's huge palms, it finally fell with an unctuous, dusty
"whouf" into the opened-out bed of ashes.

By the time it was hidden away, buried in the heart of the fire,
a woman's presence in a camp had proved less disturbing than
might be imagined, and we learned that our traveller had "come
from Beyanst," with a backward nod towards the Queensland
border, and was going west; and by the time the cabbage and tea
were finished he had become quite talkative.

"Ain't seen cabbage, ma'am, for more'n five years," he said,
leaning back on to a fallen tree trunk, with a satisfied sigh
(cabbage and tea being inflating), adding when I sympathised,
"nor a woman neither, for that matter."

Neither a cabbage nor a woman for five years! Think of it,
townsfolk! Neither a cabbage nor a woman--with the cabbage
placed first. I wonder which will be longest remembered.

"Came on this, though, in me last camp, east there," he went
on, producing a hairpin, with another nod eastwards. "Wondered
how it got there. "Your'n, I s'pose"; then, sheepish once more,
he returned it to his pocket, saying he "s'posed he might as
well keep it for luck."

It being a new experience to one of the plain sisterhood to feel
a man was cherishing one of her hairpins, if only "for luck," I
warmed towards the "man from Beyanst," and grew hopeful of
rivalling even that cabbage in his memory. "You didn't expect
to find hairpins, and a woman, in a camp in the back blocks,"
I said, feeling he was a character, and longing for him to open up.
But he was even more of a character than I guessed.

"Back blocks!" he said in scorn. "There ain't no back blocks
left. Can't travel a hundred miles nowadays without running into
somebody! You don't know what back blocks is, begging your
pardon, ma'am."

But Dan did; and the camp chat that night was worth travelling
several hundred miles to hear: tales dug out of the beginning
of things; tales of drought, and flood, and privation;
cattle-duffing yarns, and long tales of the droving days; two years'
reminiscences of getting through with a mob--reminiscences that
finally brought ourselves and the mob to Oodnadatta.

"That's the place if you want to see drunks, ma'am," the traveller
said, forgetting in his warmth his "begging your pardon, ma'am,"
just when it would have been most opportune, seeing I had little
hankering to see "drunks."

"It's the desert does it, missus, after the overland trip," Dan
explained. "It 'ud give anybody a 'drouth.' Got a bit merry meself
there once and had to clear out to camp," he went on. "Felt it
getting a bit too warm for me to stand. You see, it was when
the news came through that the old Queen was dead, and being
something historical that had happened, the chaps felt it ought
to be celebrated properly."

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