But
the homemaking instinct is strong in a woman, and the musterers went out
west without the missus. The Dandy being back at the Bitter Springs
superintending the carting of new posts for the stockyard there, the
missus was left in the care of Johnny and Cheon.
"Now we shan't be long," said Johnny, and Cheon, believing him, expressed
great admiration for Johnny, and superintended the scrubbing of the
walls, while I sat and sewed, yard after yard of oversewing, as never
woman sewed before.
The walls were erected on what is known as the drop-slab-panel
system - upright panels formed of three-foot slabs cut from the outside
slice of tree trunks, and dropped horizontally, one above the other,
between grooved posts - a simple arrangement, quickly run up and artistic
in appearance - outside, a horizontally fluted surface, formed by the
natural curves of the timber, and inside, flat, smooth walls. As in
every third panel there was a door or a window, and as the horizontal
slabs stopped within two feet of the ceiling, the building was
exceedingly airy, and open on all sides.
Cheon, convinced that the system was all Johnny's was delighted with his
ingenuity. But as he insisted on the walls being scrubbed as soon as
they were up, and before the doors and windows were in, Johnny had one or
two good duckings, and narrowly escaped many more; for lubras' methods of
scrubbing are as full of surprises as all their methods.
First soap is rubbed on the dry boards, then vigorously scrubbed into a
lather with wet brushes, and after that the lather is sluiced off with
artificial waterspouts whizzed up the walls from full buckets. It was
while the sluicing was in progress that Johnny had to be careful; for
many buckets missed their mark, and the waterspouts shot out through the
doorways and window frames.
Wearing a mackintosh, I did what I could to prevent surprises, but
without much success. Johnny fortunately took it all as a matter of
course. "It's all in the good cause," he chuckled, shaking himself like
a water-spaniel after a particularly bad misadventure; and described the
"performance" with great zest to the Maluka when he returned. The sight
of the clean walls filled the Maluka also with zeal for the cause, and in
the week that followed walls sprouted with corner shelves and brackets -
three wooden kerosene cases became a handy series of pigeonholes for
magazines and papers. One panel in the diningroom was completely filled
with bookshelves, one above the other for our coming books. Great sheets
of bark, stripped by the blacks from the Ti Tree forest, were packed a
foot deep above the rafters to break the heat reflected from the iron
roof, while beneath it the calico ceiling was tacked up. And all the
time Johnny hammered and whistled and planed, finishing the bathroom and
"getting on" with the office.
The Quiet Stockman coming in, was pressed into the service, and grew
quite enthusiastic, suggesting substitutes for necessities, until I
suggested cutting off the tail of every horse on the run, to get enough
horsehair for a mattress.
"Believe the boss'ud do it himself if she asked him," he said in the
Quarters; and in his consternation suggested bangtailing the cattle
during the musters.
"Just the thing," Dan decided; and we soon saw, with his assistance, a
vision of our future mattress walkin' about the run on the ends of cows'
tails.
"Looks like it's going to be a dead-heat," Johnny said, still hammering,
when the Dandy brought in word that the Macs were within twelve miles of
the homestead. And when I announced next day that the dining-net was
finished and ready for hanging, he also became wildly enthusiastic.
"Told you from the beginning we shouldn't be long," he said, flourishing
a hammer and brimming over with suggestions for the hanging of the net.
"Rope'll never hold it," he declared; "fencing wire's the thing," so
fencing wire was used, and after a hard morning's work pulling and
straining the wire and securing it to uprights, the net was in its place,
the calico roof smooth and flat against the ceiling, and its curtains
hanging to the floor, with strong, straight saplings run through the
folded hem to weigh it down. Cheon was brimming over with admiration for
it
"My word, boss! Missus plenty savey," he said. (Cheon invariably
discussed the missus in her presence.) "Chinaman woman no more savey
likee that," and bustling away, dinner was soon served inside the net.
Myriads of flies, balked in their desire, settled down on the outside,
and while we enjoyed our dinner in peace and comfort, Cheon hovered
about, like a huge bloated buzz fly himself, chuckling around the outside
among the swarms of balked flies, or coming inside to see if "any fly sit
down inside."
"My word, boss! Hear him sing-out sing-out. Missus plenty savey," he
reiterated, and then calling a Chinese friend from the kitchen, stood
over him, until he also declared that "missus BLENTY savey," with good
emphasis on the BLENTY.
The net was up by midday, and at ten o'clock at night the slow, dull
clang of a bullock-bell crept out of the forest. Cheon was the first to
hear it. "Bullocky come on," he called, waddling to the house and waking
us from our first sleep; and as the deep-throated bell boomed out again
the Maluka said drowsily: "The homestead's only won by a head. Mac's
at the Warlochs."
At "fowl-sing-out" we were up, and found Bertie's Nellie behind the black
boys' humpy shyly peeping round a corner. With childlike impetuosity she
had scampered along the four miles from the Warlochs, only to be overcome
with unaccountable shyness.
