Before We Got The Deeds Our selection adjoined a sheep-run on the Darling Downs, and boasted of few and scant improvements, though things had gradually got a little better than when we started. A verandahless four-roomed slab-hut now standing out from a forest of box-trees, a stock-yard, and six acres under barley were the only evidence of settlement. A few horses--not ours--sometimes grazed about; and occasionally a mob of cattle--also not ours--cows with young calves, steers, and an old bull or two, would stroll around, chew the best legs of any trousers that might be hanging on the log reserved as a clothes-line, then leave in the night and be seen no more for months--some of them never.
And yet we were always out of meat!
Dad was up the country earning a few pounds--the corn drove him up when it did n't bring what he expected. All we got out of it was a bag of flour--I do n't know what the storekeeper got. Before he left we put in the barley. Somehow, Dad did n't believe in sowing any more crops, he seemed to lose heart; but Mother talked it over with him, and when reminded that he would soon be entitled to the deeds he brightened up again and worked. How he worked!
We had no plough, so old Anderson turned over the six acres for us, and Dad gave him a pound an acre--at least he was to send him the first six pounds got up country. Dad sowed the seed; then he, Dan and Dave yoked themselves to a large dry bramble each and harrowed it in. From the way they sweated it must have been hard work. Sometimes they would sit down in the middle of the paddock and "spell" but Dad would say something about getting the deeds and they'd start again.
A cockatoo-fence was round the barley; and wire-posts, a long distance apart, round the grass-paddock. We were to get the wire to put in when Dad sent the money; and apply for the deeds when he came back. Things would be different then, according to Dad, and the farm would be worked properly. We would break up fifty acres, build a barn, buy a reaper, ploughs, cornsheller, get cows and good horses, and start two or three ploughs. Meanwhile, if we (Dan, Dave and I) minded the barley he was sure there'd be something got out of it.
Dad had been away about six weeks. Travellers were passing by every day, and there was n't one that did n't want a little of something or other.
Mother used to ask them if they had met Dad? None ever did until an old grey man came along and said he knew Dad well--he had camped with him one night and shared a damper. Mother was very pleased and brought him in.
We had a kangaroo-rat (stewed) for dinner that day. The girls did n't want to lay it on the table at first, but Mother said he would n't know what it was. The traveller was very hungry and liked it, and when passing his plate the second time for more, said it was n't often he got any poultry.
He tramped on again, and the girls were very glad he did n't know it was a rat. But Dave was n't so sure that he did n't know a rat from a rooster, and reckoned he had n't met Dad at all.
The seventh week Dad came back. He arrived at night, and the lot of us had to get up to find the hammer to knock the peg out of the door and let him in. He brought home three pounds--not enough to get the wire with, but he also brought a horse and saddle. He did n't say if he bought them.
It was a bay mare, a grand animal for a journey--so Dad said--and only wanted condition. Emelina, he called her. No mistake, she was a quiet mare! We put her where there was good feed, but she was n't one that fattened on grass. Birds took kindly to her--crows mostly--and she could n't go anywhere but a flock of them accompanied her. Even when Dad used to ride her (Dan or Dave never rode her) they used to follow, and would fly on ahead to wait in a tree and "caw" when he was passing beneath.
One morning when Dan was digging potatoes for dinner--splendid potatoes they were, too, Dad said; he had only once tasted sweeter ones, but they were grown in a cemetery--he found the kangaroos had been in the barley.
We knew what THAT meant, and that night made fires round it, thinking to frighten them off, but did n't--mobs of them were in at daybreak. Dad swore from the house at them, but they took no notice; and when he ran down, they just hopped over the fence and sat looking at him. Poor Dad!
