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 floor, 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-pie-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.
He took Sam in hand, and the triumph slipped away from beneath the stolid
face, and a certain amount of discrimination crept into his obedience
from henceforth.
Then the Sanguine Scot said that he would "tackle the lubras for her,"
and in half an hour everywhere was swept and garnished, and the lubras
were meek and submissive.
"You'll need to rule them with a rod of iron," Mac said, secretly pleased
with his success. But there was one drawback to his methods, for next
day, with the exception of Nellie, there were no lubras to rule with or
without a rod of iron.
Jimmy, the water-carrier and general director of the woodheap gossip,
explained that they had gone off with the camp lubras for a day's
recreation; "Him knock up longa all about work," he said, with an
apologetic smile. Jimmy was either apologetic or condescending.
Nellie rounded them up when they returned, and the Maluka suggested, as a
way out of the difficulty, that I should try to make myself more
attractive than the camp lubras, which Mac said "shouldn't be difficult,"
and then coughed, doubtful of the compliment.
I went down to the Creek at once to carry out the Maluka's suggestion,
and succeeded so well that I was soon the centre of a delighted dusky
group, squatting on its haunches, and deep in fascinations of teaching an
outsider its language. The uncouth mispronunciations tickled the old men
beyond description, and they kept me gurgling at difficult gutturals,
until, convulsed at the contortion of everyday words and phrases, they
echoed Dan's opinion in queer pidgin-English that the "missus needed a
deal of education." Jimmy gradually became loftily condescending, and as
for old Nellie, she had never enjoyed anything quite so much.
Undoubtedly I made myself attractive to the blackfellow mind; for,
besides having proved an unexpected entertainment, I had made every one
feel mightily superior to the missus. That power of inspiring others with
a sense of superiority is an excellent trait to possess when dealing with
a black fellow, for there were more than enough helpers next day, and the
work was done quickly and well, so as to leave plenty of time for
merry-making.
