"See Anything?" He Asked, Soon After Sun-Up, Waving His Hands Towards The
Northern Slip-Rails, As We Stood At The Head Of The Thoroughfare Speeding
Our Parting Guests; And Then He Drew Attention To The Faintest Greenish
Tinge Throughout The Homestead Enclosure - Such A Clean-Washed-Looking
Enclosure Now.
"That's going to be grass soon," he said, and, the sun coming out with
renewed vigour after another shower, by midday he had gathered a handful
of tiny blades half an inch in length with a chuckling "What did I tell
you?"
By the next midday, grass, inches tall, was rippling all around the
homestead in the now prevalent northwest breeze, and Dan was preparing
for a trip out-bush to see where the showers had fallen, and Mac and Tam
coming in as he went out, Mac greeted us with a jocular: "The flats get
greener every year about the Elsey."
"Indeed!" we said, and Mac, overcome with confusion, spluttered an
apology: "Oh, I say! Look here! I didn't mean to hit off at the missus,
you know!" and then catching the twinkle in Tam's eyes, stopped short,
and with a characteristic shrug "reckoned he was making a fair mess of
things."
Mac would never be other than our impetuous brither Scot, distinct from
all other men, for the bush never robs her children of their
individuality. In some mysterious way she clean-cuts out the personality
of each of them, and keeps it sharply clean-cut; and just as Mac stood
apart from all men, so Tam also stood apart, the quiet self-reliant man,
though, we had seen among the horses, for that was the real man; and as
Mac built castles, and made calculations, Tam put his shoulder to the
drudgery, and before Mac quite knew what had happened, he was hauling
logs and laying foundations for a brumby trap in the south-east country,
while Bertie's Nellie found herself obliged to divide her attention
between the homestead and the brumby camp.
As Mac hauled and drudged, the melons paid their first dividend;
half-past eleven four weeks drew near; "Just-So Stories" did all they
could, and Dan coming in found the Quiet Stockman away back in the days
of old, deep in a simply written volume of Scottish history.
Dan had great news of the showers, but had to find other audience than
Jack, for he was away in a world all his own, and, bent over the little
volume, was standing shoulder to shoulder with his Scottish fathers,
fighting with them for his nation. All evening he followed where they
led, enduring and suffering, and mourning with them and rejoicing over
their final victory with a ringing "You can't beat the Scots," as the
little volume, coming to with a bang, roused the Quarters at midnight.
"You can't beat the Scots, missus!" he repeated, coming over in the
morning for "more of that sort," all unconscious how true he was to type,
as he stood there, flushed with the victories of his forefathers, a
strong, young Scot, with a newly conquered world of his own at his feet.
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