We of the Never Never
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Jeanie Mrs. Aeneas Gunn >> We of the Never Never
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Knowing nothing of the wild, scared cattle of the fenceless runs
of the Never-Never, I was prepared for anything rather than the
roar of delight that greeted that example of town "common sense."
"Missus! missus!" the Maluka cried, as soon as he could speak,
"you'll need a deal of educating "; and while Mac gasped, " Oh I say!
Look here!" Dan, with tears in his eyes, chuckled: " She'll have
a drouth on by the time she runs one down " Dan always called
a thirst a drouth. "Oh Lord!" he said, picturing the scene in
his mind's eye, "'I'll catch a cow and milk it,' she says."
Then, dancing with fun, the hazel eyes looked round the company,
and as Dan rose, preparatory to turning in, we felt we were about
to hear their verdict. When it came it was characteristic of the man
in uniqueness of wording:
"She's the dead finish!" he said, wiping his eyes on his shirt sleeve.
"Reckoned she was the minute I heard her talking about slap-up dampers";
and in some indescribable way we knew he had paid the woman who was
just entering his life the highest compliment in his power. Then he
added, "Told the chaps the little 'uns were generally all right."
It is the helplessness of little women that makes them appear
"all right " in the eyes of bushmen, helplessness being foreign
to snorters.
At breakfast Dan expressed surprise because there was no milk,
and the pleasantry being well received, he considered the moment
ripe for one of his pet theories.
"She'll do for this place!" he said, wagging his head wisely.
"I've been forty years out-bush, and I've known eight or ten women
in that time, so I ought to know something about it. Anyway, the ones
that could see jokes suited best. There was Mrs. Bob out Victoria
way. She'd see a joke a mile off; sighted 'em as soon as they got
within cooee. Never knew her miss one, and never knew anybody suit
the bush like she did." And, as we packed up and set out for
the last lap of our journey he was still ambling about his theory.
"Yes," he said, "you can dodge most things out bush; but you can't
dodge jokes for long. They'll run you down sooner or later ";
adding with a chuckle, " Never heard of one running Mrs. Bob down,
though. She always tripped 'em up before they could get to her."
Then finding the missus had thrown away a "good cup of tea just
because a few flies had got into it," he became grave. "Never
heard of Mrs. Bob getting up to those tricks," he said, and doubted
whether "the missus'ld do after all," until reassured by the Maluka
that "she'll be fishing them out with the indiflerence of a Stoic
in a week or two"; and I was.
When within a few miles of the homestead, the buckboard took a
sharp turn round a patch of scrub, and before any one realised what
was happening we were in the midst of a mob of pack horses, and
face to face with the Quiet Stockman a strong, erect, young Scot,
who carried his six foot two of bone and muscle
with the lithe ease of a bushman.
"Hallo" Mac shouted, pulling up. Then, with the air of a showman
introducing some rare exhibit, added: "This is the missus, Jack."
Jack touched his hat and moved uneasily in his saddle, answering
Mac's questions in monosyllables. Then the Maluka came up, and Mac,
taking pity on the embarrassed bushman, suggested "getting along,"
and we left him sitting rigidly on his horse, trying to collect
his scattered senses.
"That was unrehearsed," Mac chuckled, as we drove on. "He's clearing
out! Reckon he didn't set out exactly hoping to meet us, though.
Tam's a lady's man in comparison," but loyal to his comrade
above his amusement, he added warmly: " You can't beat Jack by much,
though, when it comes to sticking to a pal," unconscious that he
was prophesying of the years to come, when the missus had become
one of those pals.
"There's only the Dandy left now," Mac went on, as we spun along
an ever more definite track, " and he'll be all right as soon as
he gets used to it. Never knew such a chap for finding something
decent in everybody he strikes." Naturally I hoped he would "find
something decent in me," having learned what it meant to the stockmen
to have a woman pitchforked into their daily lives, when those
lives were to be lived side by side, in camp, or in saddle, or at
the homestead.
Mac hesitated a moment, and then out flashed one of his happy
inspirations. "Don't you bother about the Dandy,"he said; "bushmen
have a sixth sense, and know a pal when they see one."
Just a bushman's pretty speech, aimed straight at the heart of a
woman, where all the pretty speeches of the bushfolk are aimed;
for it is by the heart that they judge us. "Only a pal," they will
say, towering strong and protecting; and the woman feels uplifted,
even though in the same breath they have honestly agreed with her,
after careful scrutiny, that it is not her fault that she was born
into the plain sisterhood. Bushmen will risk their lives for a
woman pal or otherwise but leave her to pick up her own handkerchief.
"Of course!" Mac added, as an afterthought. "It's not often
they find a pal in a woman"; and I add to-day that when they do,
that woman is to be envied her friends.
"Eyes front!" Mac shouted suddenly, and in a moment the homestead
was in sight, and the front gate forty-five miles behind us.
"If ever you DO reach the homestead alive," the Darwin ladies
had said; and now they were three hundred miles away from us to
the north-west.
"Sam's spotted us!" Mac smiled as we skimmed on, and a slim little
Chinaman ran across between the buildings. "We'd better do
the thing in style," and whipping up the horses, he whirled them
through the open slip-rails, past the stockyards, away across
the grassy homestead enclosure, and pulled up with a rattle of hoofs
and wheels at the head of a little avenue of buildings.
The Dandy, fresh and spotless, appeared in a doorway; black boys
sprang up like a crop of mushrooms and took charge of the buck-board;
Dan rattled in with the pack-teams, and horses were jangling
hobbles and rattling harness all about us, as I found myself
standing in the shadow of a queer, unfinished building, with
the Maluka and Mac surrounded by a mob of leaping, bounding dogs,
flourishing, as best they could, another "Welcome home!"
"Well?" Mac asked, beating off dogs at every turn. "Is it
a House or a Hut ? "
"A Betwixt and Between," we decided; and then the Dandy was presented,
And the steady grey eyes apparently finding "something decent"
in the missus, with a welcoming smile and ready tact he said:
"I'm sure we're all real glad to see you." Just the tiniest
emphasis on the word "you"; but that, and the quick, bright look
that accompanied the emphasis, told, as nothing else could, that
it was "that other woman" that had not been wanted. Unconventional,
of course; but when a welcome is conventional out-bush, it is
unworthy of the name of welcome.
The Maluka, knew this well, but before he could speak, Mac had
seized a little half-grown dog--the most persistent of all the
leaping dogs--by her tightly curled-up tail, and, setting her down
at my feet, said: "And this is Tiddle'ums," adding, with another
flourishing bow, "A present from a Brither Scot," while Tiddle'ums
in no way resented the dignity. Having a tail that curled tightly
over her back like a cup handle, she expected to be lifted up by it.
Then one after the other Mac presented the station dogs: Quart-Pot,
Drover, Tuppence, Misery, Buller, and a dozen others; and as I
bowed gravely to each in turn Dan chuckled in appreciation:
"She'll do! Told you she was the dead finish."
Then the introductions over, the Maluka said: "Ann, now I suppose
she may consider herself just 'One of Us.'"
CHAPTER VI
The homestead, standing half-way up the slope that rose from the
billabong, had, after all, little of that "down-at-heels,
anything'll-do" appearance that Mac had so scathingly described.
No one could call it a "commodious station home," and it was even
patched up and shabby; but, for all that, neat and cared for. An
orderly little array of one-roomed buildings, mostly built of sawn
slabs, and ranged round a broad oblong space with a precision that
suggested the idea of a section of a street cut out from some neat
compact little village.
The cook's quarters, kitchens, men's quarters, store, meat-house,
and waggon-house, facing each other on either side of this oblong
space, formed a short avenue-the main thoroughfare of the homestead-
the centre of which was occupied by an immense wood-heap,
the favourite gossiping place of some of the old black fellows,
while across the western end of it, and looking down it,
but a little aloof from the rest of the buildings, stood the house,
or, rather, as much of it as had been rebuilt after the cyclone
of 1897. As befitted their social positions the forge and black boys'
"humpy" kept a respectful distance well round the south-eastern
corner of this thoroughfare; but, for some unknown reason,
the fowl-roosts had been erected over Sam Lee's sleeping-quarters.
That comprised this tiny homestead of a million and a quarter acres,
with the Katherine Settlement a hundred miles to the north of it,
one neighbour ninety miles to the east, another, a hundred and five
to the south, and others about two hundred to the west.
Unfortunately, Mac's description of the House had been only too
correct. With the exception of the one roughly finished room
at its eastern end, it was "mostly verandahs and promises."
After the cyclone had wrecked the building, scattering timber
and sheets of iron in all directions, everything had lain exactly
where it had fallen for some weeks, at the mercy of the wind and
weather. At the end of those weeks a travelling Chinese carpenter
arrived at the station with such excellent common-sense ideas of
what a bush homestead should be, that he had been engaged to
rebuild it.
His plans showed a wide-roofed building, built upon two-foot
piles, with two large centre rooms opening into each other and
surrounded by a deep verandah on every side; while two small
rooms, a bathroom and an office, were to nestle each under one
of the eastern corners of this deep twelve-foot verandah. Without
a doubt excellent common-sense ideas; but, unfortunately, much
larger than the supply of timber. Rough-hewn posts for the
two-foot piles and verandah supports could be had for the cutting,
and therefore did not give out; but the man used joists and uprights
with such reckless extravagance, that by the time the skeleton of
the building was up, the completion of the contract was
impossible. With philosophical indifference, however, he finished
one room completely; left a second a mere outline of uprights and
tye-beams; apparently forgot all about the bathroom and office;
covered the whole roof, including verandahs, with corrugated iron;
surveyed his work with a certain amount of stolid satisfaction;
then announcing that "wood bin finissem," applied for his cheque
and departed; and from that day nothing further has been done to
the House, which stood before us "mostly verandahs and promises."
Although Mac's description of the House had been apt, he had sadly
underrated the furniture. There were FOUR chairs, all "up" to my
weight, while two of them were up to the Maluka's. The cane was
all gone, certainly, but had been replaced with green-hide seats
(not green in colour, of course, only green in experience, never
having seen a tan-pit). In addition to the chairs, the dining-table,
the four-poster bed, the wire mattress, and the looking glass,
there was a solid deal side table, made from the side of a packing-case,
with four solid legs and a solid shelf underneath, also a remarkably
steady washstand that had no ware of any description, and a
remarkab1y unsteadv chest of four drawers, one of which refused
to open, while the other three refused to shut. Further,
the dining-table was more than "fairly" steady, three of the legs
being perfectly sound, and it therefore only threatened to fall
over when leaned upon. And lastly, although most of the plates
and all the cups were enamel ware, there was almost a complete
dinner service in china. The teapot, however, was tin, and,
as Mac said, as "big as a house."
As for the walls, not only were the "works of art" there, but
they themselves were uniquely dotted from ceiling to floor with
the muddy imprints of dogs' feet--not left there by a Pegasus
breed of winged dogs, but made by the muddy feet of the station
dogs, as the, pattered over the timber, when it lay awaiting the
carpenter, and no one had seen any necessity to remove them.
Outside the verandahs, and all around the house, was what was to
be known later as the garden, a grassy stretch of hillocky ground,
well scratched and beaten down by dogs, goats, and fowls;
fenceless itself, being part of the grassy acres which were
themselves fenced round to form the homestead enclosures. Just
inside this enclosure, forming, in fact, the south-western barrier of
it, stood the "billabong," then a spreading sheet of water; along its
banks flourished the vegetable garden; outside the enclosure,
towards the south-east, lay a grassy plain a mile across, and to the
north-west were the stock-yards and house paddock--a paddock
of five square miles, and the only fenced area on the run; while
everywhere to the northwards, and all through the paddock, were
dotted "white-ant" hills, all shapes and sizes, forming brick-red
turrets among the green scrub and timber.
"Well!" Mac said, after we had completed a survey. " I said it
wasn't a fit place for a woman, didn't I ? ''
But the Head-stockman was in one of his argumentative moods.
"Any place is a fit place for a woman," he said, "provided the woman
is fitted for the place. The right man in the right place, you know.
Square people shouldn't try to get into round holes."
"The woman's SQUARE enough!" the Maluka interrupted; and Mac added,
"And so is the HOLE," with a scornful emphasis on the word "hole."
Dan chuckled, and surveyed the queer-looking building with
new interest.
"It reminds me of a banyan tree with corrugated-iron foliage,"
he said, adding as he went into details, "In a dim light the finished
room would pass for the trunk of the tree and the uprights for the
supports of the branches."
But the Maluka thought it looked more like a section of a
mangrove swamp, piles and all.
"It looks very like a house nearly finished," I said severely;
for, because of the verandah and many promises, I was again
hopeful for something approaching that commodious station
home. "A few able-bodied men could finish the dining-room in
a couple of clays, and make a mansion of the rest of the
building in a week or so."
But the able-bodied men had a different tale to tell.
"Steady! Go slow, missus!" they cried. "It may look like a house
very nearly finished, but out-bush, wc have to catch our hares
before we cook them."
"WE begin at the very beginning of things in the Never-Never,"
the Maluka explained. "Timber grows in trees in these parts,
and has to be coaxed out with a saw."
"It's a bad habit it's got into," Dan chuckled; then pointing
vaguely towards the thickly wooded long Reach, that lay a mile
to the south of the homestead, beyond the grassy plain, he
"supposed the dining-room was down there just now, with the
rest of the House."
With fast-ebbing hopes I looked in dismay at the distant forest
undulating along the skyline, and the Maluka said sympathetically,
"It's only too true, little un'."
But Dan disapproved of spoken sympathy under trying circumstances.
"It keeps 'em from toeing the line" he believed; and fearing
I was on the point of showing the white feather he broke in with:
"We'll have to keep her toeing the line, Boss," and then pointed
out that "things might be worse." "In some countries there are
no trees to cut down," he said.
"That's the style," he added, when I began to laugh in spite
of my disappointment, "We'll soon get you educated up to it."
But already the Sanguine Scot had found the bright side of the
situation, and reminded us that we were in the Land of Plenty of
Time. "There's time enough for everything in the Never-Never,"
he said. "She'll have many a pleasant ride along the Reach
choosing trees for timber. Catching the hare's often the best
part of the fun."
Mac's cheery optimism always carried all before it. Pleasant
rides through shady forest-ways seemed a fair recompense for a
little delay; and my spirits went up with a bound, to be dashed
down again the next moment by Dan.
"We haven't got to the beginning of things yet," he interrupted,
following up the line of thought the Maluka had at first suggested.
"Before any trees are cut down, we'll have to dig a saw-pit and
find a pit-sawyer." Dan was not a pessimist; he only liked to dig
down to the very root of things, besides objecting to sugar-coated
pills as being a hindrance to education.
But the Dandy had joined the group, and being practical, suggested
"trying to get hold of little Johnny," declaring that " he would
make things hum in no time."
Mac happened to know that Johnny was "inside" somewhere on a job,
and it was arranged that Dan should go in to the Katherine at once
for nails and "things," and to see if the telegraph people could
find out Johnny's whereabouts down the line, and send him along.
But preparations for a week's journey take time, outbush, owing
to that necessity of beginning at the beginning of things.
Fresh horses were mustered, a mob of bullocks rounded up for a
killer, swags and pack-bags packed; and just as all was in readiness
for the start, the Quiet Stockman came in, bringing a small mob
of colts with him.
"I'm leaving," he announced in the Quarters; then, feeling some
explanation was necessary, added, "I WAS thinking of it before
this happened." Strictly speaking, this may be true, although he
omitted to say that he had abandoned the idea for some little time.
No one was surprised, and no one thought of asking what had happened,
for Jack had always steered clear of women, as he termed it.
Not that he feared or disliked them, but because he considered
that they had nothing in common with men. "They're such terrors
for asking questions," he said once, when pressed for an opinion,
adding as an afterthought, "They never seem to learn much either,"
in his own quiet way, summing up the average woman's conversation
with a shy bushman: a long string of purposeless questions,
followed by inane remarks on the answers.
"I'm leaving!" Jack had said, and later met the Maluka unshaken
in his resolve. There was that in the Maluka, however, that Jack
had not calculated on a something that drew all men to him, and
made Dan speak of him in after-years as the "best boss ever I
struck"; and although the interview only lasted a few minutes,
and the Maluka spoke only of the work of the station, yet in
those few minutes the Quiet Stockman changed his mind, and the notice
was never given.
"I'm staying on," was all he said on returning to the Quarters;
and quick decisions being unusual with Jack, every one felt
interested.
"Going to give her a chance?" Dan asked with a grin, and Jack
looked uncomfortable.
"I've only seen the boss," he said.
Dan nodded with approval. "You've got some sense left, then,"
he said, "if you know a good boss when you see one."
Jack agreed in monosyllables; but when Dan settled down to argue
out the advantages of having a woman about the place, he looked
doubtful; but having nothing to say on the subject, said nothing;
and when Dan left for the Katherine next morning he was still unconvinced.
Dan set out for the north track soon after sun-up, assuring us
that he'd get hold of Johnny somehow; and before sun-down a
traveller crossed the Creek below the billabong at the south track,
and turned into the homestead enclosure.
We were vaguely chatting on all and sundry matters, as we sat
under the verandah that faced the billabong, when the traveller
came into sight.
"Horse traveller!" Mac said, lazily shading his eyes, and then
sprang to his feet with a yell. "Talk of luck!" he shouted.
"You'll do, missus! Here's Johnny himself."
It was Johnny, sure enough; but Johnny had a cheque in his
pocket, and was yearning to see the "chaps at the Katherine";
and, after a good look through the House and store, decided
that he really would have to go in to the Settlement for--
tools and "things."
"I'll be back in a week, missus," he said next morning, as he
gathered his reins together before mounting, "and then we shan't
be long. Three days in and three out, you know, bar accidents,
and a day's spell at the Katherine," he explained glibly.
But the "chaps at the Katherine" proved too entertaining for Johnny,
and a fortnight passed before we saw him again.
CHAPTER VII
The Quiet Stockman was a Scotchman, and, like many Scotchmen,
a strange contradiction of shy reserve and quiet, dignified
self-assurance. Having made up his mind on women in general, he
saw no reason for changing it; and as he went about his work,
thoroughly and systematically avoided me. There was no slinking
round corners though; Jack couldn't slink. He had always looked
the whole world in the face with his honest blue eyes, and could
never do otherwise. lHe only took care that our paths did not
cross more often than was absolutely necessary; but when they did,
his Scotch dignity asserted itself, and he said what had to be said
with quiet self-possession, although he invariably moved away
as soon as possible.
"It's just Jack's way," the Sanguine Scot said, anxious that his
fellow Scot should not be misunderstood. "He'll be all there if
ever you need him. He only draws the line at conversations."
But when I mounted the stockyard fence one morning, to see
the breaking-in of the colts, he looked as though he "drew the
line" at that too.
Fortunately for Jack's peace of mind, horse-breaking was not
the only novelty at the homestead. Only a couple of changes of
everything, in a tropical climate, meant an unbroken cycle of
washing-days, while, apart from that, Sam Lee was full of
surprises, and the lubras' methods of house-cleaning were novel
in the extreme.
Sam was bland, amiable, and inscrutable, and obedient to irritation;
and the lubras were apt, and merry, and open-hearted, and wayward
beyond comprehension. Sam did exactly as he was told, and the lubras
did exactly as they thought fit, and the results were equally
disconcerting.
Sam was asked for a glass of milk, and the lubras were told to
scrub the floor. Sam brought the milk immediately, and the lubras,
after scrubbing two or three isolated patches on the fioor, went
off on some frolic of their own.
At afternoon tea there was no milk served. "There was none,"
Sam explained blandly. "The missus had drunk it all. Missus bin
finissem milk all about," he said When the lubras were brought
back, THEY said THEY had "knocked up longa scrub," and finished
the floor under protest.
The Maluka offered assistance; but I thought I ought to manage
them myself, and set the lubras to clean and strip some feathers
for a pillow--the Maluka had been busy with a shot-gun--and suggested
to Sam that he might spend some of his spare time shooting birds.
Mac had been right when he said the place was stiff with birds.
A deep fringe of birds was constantly moving in and about and
around the billabong; and the perpetual clatter of the plovers
and waders formed an undercurrent to the life at the homestead.
The lubras worked steadily for a quarter of an hour at the feathers;
then a dog-fight demanding all their attention, the feathers were
left to the mercy of the winds, and were never gathered together.
At sundown Sam fired into a colony of martins that Mac considered
the luck of the homestead. Right into their midst he fired, as they
slept in long, graceful garlands one beside the other along
the branches of a gum-tree, each with its head snugly tucked away
out of sight.
"Missus want feather!" Sam said, with his unfathomable smile,
when Mac flared out at him, and again the missus appeared
the culprit.
The Maluka advised making the orders a little clearer, and Sam
was told to use more discretion in his obedience, and, smiling
and apologetic, promised to obey.
The lubras also promised to be more painstaking, reserving only
the right to rest if they should "knock up longa work."
The Maluka, Mac and the Dandy, looked on in amusement while
the missus wrestled with the servant question; and even
the Quiet Stockman grinned sympathetically at times, unconsciously
becoming interested in a woman who was too occupied to ask
questions.
For five days I "wrestled"; and the only comfort I had was in
Bertie's Nellie, a gentle-faced old lubra almost sweet-faced.
She undoubtedly did her best, and, showing signs of friendship,
was invaluable in "rounding up" the other lubras when they showed
signs of "knocking up."
On the morning of the sixth day Sam surpassed himself in obedience.
I had hinted that breakfast should be a little earlier, adding
timidly that he might use a little more ingenuity in the breakfast
menu, and at the first grey streak of dawn breakfast was announced,
and, dressing hurriedly, we sat down to what Sam called "Pump-pce-King
pie with raisins and mince." The expression on Sam's face was
celestial. No other word could describe it. There was also an
underlying expression of triumph which made me suspicious of his
apparent ingenuousness, and as the lubras had done little else
but make faces at themselves in the looking-glass for two days
(I was beginning to hate that looking-glass), I appealed to the Maluka
for assistance.
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