A few acres round the hut was cleared and fenced in by a light two-rail fence of timber split from logs and saplings.The man who took up this selection left it because his wife died here.
It was a small oblong hut built of split slabs,and he had roofed it with shingles which he split in spare times.There was no verandah,but I built one later on.At the end of the house was a big slab-and-bark shed,bigger than the hut itself,with a kitchen,a skillion for tools,harness,and horse-feed,and a spare bedroom partitioned off with sheets of bark and old chaff-bags.
The house itself was floored roughly,with cracks between the boards;there were cracks between the slabs all round --though he'd nailed strips of tin,from old kerosene-tins,over some of them;the partitioned-off bedroom was lined with old chaff-bags with newspapers pasted over them for wall-paper.There was no ceiling,calico or otherwise,and we could see the round pine rafters and battens,and the under ends of the shingles.But ceilings make a hut hot and harbour insects and reptiles --snakes sometimes.
There was one small glass window in the `dining-room'with three panes and a sheet of greased paper,and the rest were rough wooden shutters.There was a pretty good cow-yard and calf-pen,and --that was about all.There was no dam or tank (I made one later on);there was a water-cask,with the hoops falling off and the staves gaping,at the corner of the house,and spouting,made of lengths of bent tin,ran round under the eaves.Water from a new shingle roof is wine-red for a year or two,and water from a stringy-bark roof is like tan-water for years.In dry weather the selector had got his house water from a cask sunk in the gravel at the bottom of the deepest water-hole in the creek.
And the longer the drought lasted,the farther he had to go down the creek for his water,with a cask on a cart,and take his cows to drink,if he had any.Four,five,six,or seven miles --even ten miles to water is nothing in some places.
James hadn't found himself called upon to do more than milk old `Spot'
(the grandmother cow of our mob),pen the calf at night,make a fire in the kitchen,and sweep out the house with a bough.
He helped me unharness and water and feed the horses,and then started to get the furniture off the waggon and into the house.
James wasn't lazy --so long as one thing didn't last too long;but he was too uncomfortably practical and matter-of-fact for me.
Mary and I had some tea in the kitchen.The kitchen was permanently furnished with a table of split slabs,adzed smooth on top,and supported by four stakes driven into the ground,a three-legged stool and a block of wood,and two long stools made of half-round slabs (sapling trunks split in halves)with auger-holes bored in the round side and sticks stuck into them for legs.
The floor was of clay;the chimney of slabs and tin;the fireplace was about eight feet wide,lined with clay,and with a blackened pole across,with sooty chains and wire hooks on it for the pots.
Mary didn't seem able to eat.She sat on the three-legged stool near the fire,though it was warm weather,and kept her face turned from me.
Mary was still pretty,but not the little dumpling she had been:she was thinner now.She had big dark hazel eyes that shone a little too much when she was pleased or excited.I thought at times that there was something very German about her expression;also something aristocratic about the turn of her nose,which nipped in at the nostrils when she spoke.
There was nothing aristocratic about me.Mary was German in figure and walk.
I used sometimes to call her `Little Duchy'and `Pigeon Toes'.
She had a will of her own,as shown sometimes by the obstinate knit in her forehead between the eyes.
Mary sat still by the fire,and presently I saw her chin tremble.
`What is it,Mary?'
She turned her face farther from me.I felt tired,disappointed,and irritated --suffering from a reaction.
`Now,what is it,Mary?'I asked;`I'm sick of this sort of thing.
Haven't you got everything you wanted?You've had your own way.
What's the matter with you now?'
`You know very well,Joe.'
`But I DON'T know,'I said.I knew too well.
She said nothing.
`Look here,Mary,'I said,putting my hand on her shoulder,`don't go on like that;tell me what's the matter?'
`It's only this,'she said suddenly,`I can't stand this life here;it will kill me!'
I had a pannikin of tea in my hand,and I banged it down on the table.
`This is more than a man can stand!'I shouted.`You know very well that it was you that dragged me out here.You run me on to this!
Why weren't you content to stay in Gulgong?'
`And what sort of a place was Gulgong,Joe?'asked Mary quietly.
(I thought even then in a flash what sort of a place Gulgong was.
A wretched remnant of a town on an abandoned goldfield.
One street,each side of the dusty main road;three or four one-storey square brick cottages with hip roofs of galvanised iron that glared in the heat --four rooms and a passage --the police-station,bank-manager and schoolmaster's cottages,&c.Half-a-dozen tumble-down weather-board shanties --the three pubs.the two stores,and the post-office.The town tailing off into weather-board boxes with tin tops,and old bark huts --relics of the digging days --propped up by many rotting poles.The men,when at home,mostly asleep or droning over their pipes or hanging about the verandah posts of the pubs.saying,`'Ullo,Bill!'or `'Ullo,Jim!'--or sometimes drunk.The women,mostly hags,who blackened each other's and girls'characters with their tongues,and criticised the aristocracy's washing hung out on the line:
`And the colour of the clothes!Does that woman wash her clothes at all?or only soak 'em and hang 'em out?'--that was Gulgong.)`Well,why didn't you come to Sydney,as I wanted you to?'I asked Mary.
`You know very well,Joe,'said Mary quietly.
(I knew very well,but the knowledge only maddened me.
