Long on the road that by the time they were
in there was no chance of getting out, and they had more than enough time
to brace themselves for the interview that eventually came with their
employers.
"Might a bullock-puncher have the privilege of shaking hands with a
lady?" the Irish Mac asked, extending an honest, horny hand; and the
privilege, if it were one, was granted. Finally all was ready, and the
waggons, one behind the other, each with its long swaying line of
bullocks before it, slid away from the Warloch Ponds and crept into the
forest, looking like three huge snails with shells on their backs,
Bertie's Nellie watching, wreathed in smiles.
Nellie had brought to the homestead her bosom friend and crony, Biddy,
and the staff had increased to five. It would have numbered six, only
Maudie, discovering that the house was infested with debbil-debbils, had
resigned and "gone bush." The debbil-debbils were supposed to haunt the
Maluka's telescope, for Maudie, on putting her eye to the sight opening,
to find out what interested the Maluka so often, had found the trees on
the distant plain leaping towards her.
"Debbil-debbil, sit down," she screamed, as, flinging the telescope from
her in a frenzy of fear, she found the distance still and composed,
"No more touch him, missus!" she shrieked, as I stooped to pick up the
telescope. "'Spose you touch him, all about there come on quick fellow.
Me bin see him! My word him race!"
After many assurances, I was allowed to pick it up, Maudie crouching in a
shuddering heap the while behind the office, to guard against surprises.
Next morning she applied for leave of absence and "went bush." Jimmy's
Nellie, however, was not so easily scared, and after careful
investigation treated herself to a pleasant half hour with the telescope.
"Tree all day walk about," she said, explaining the mystery to the staff;
and the looking-glass speedily lost in favour. The telescope proved full
of delights. But although it was a great sight to see a piccaninny "come
on big-fellow," nothing could compare with the joy of looking through the
reversed end of the glass, into a world where great men became "little
fellow," unless it were the marvel of watching dim, distant specks as
they took on the forms of birds, beasts, or men.
The waggons gone, and with them Nellie's shyness, she quietly ousted Rosy
from her position at the head of the staff. "Me sit down first time,"
she said; and happy, smiling Rosy, retiring, obeyed orders as willingly
as she had given them. With Nellie and Rosy at the head of affairs,
house-cleaning passed unnoticed, and although, after the arrival of
unlimited changes of everything, washing-day threatened to become a
serious business, they coped with that difficulty by continuing to live
in a cycle of washing days - every alternate day only, though, so as to
leave time for gardening.
The gardening staff, which consisted of a king, an heir-apparent, and a
royal councillor, had been engaged to wheel barrow-loads of rich loamy
soil from the billabong to the garden beds; but as its members preferred
gossiping in the shade to work of any kind, the gardening took time and
supervision.
"That'll do, Gadgerrie?" was the invariable question after each load, as
the staff prepared to sit down for a gossip; and "Gadgerrie" had to start
every one afresh, after deciding whose turn it was to ride back to the
billabong in the barrow.
Six loads in a morning was a fair record, for "Gadgerrie" was not often
disinclined for a gossip on court matters, but although nothing was done
while we were out-bush, the garden was gradually growing.
Two of the beds against the verandah were gaily flourishing, others
"coming on," and outside the broad pathway a narrow bed had been made all
round the garden for an hibiscus hedge; while outside this bed again, one
at each corner of the garden, stood four posts - the Maluka's promise of a
dog-proof, goat-proof, fowl-proof fence. So far Tiddle'ums had acted as
fence, when we were in, at the homestead, scattering fowls, goats, and
dairy cows in all directions if they dared come over a line she had drawn
in her mind's eye. When Tiddle'ums was out-bush with us, Bett-Bett acted
as fence.
Johnny, generally repairing the homestead now, admired the garden and
declared everything would be "A1 in no time."
"Wouldn't know the old place," he said, a day or two later, surveying his
own work with pride. Then he left us, and for the first time I was sorry
the house was finished. Johnny was one of the men who had not "learnt
sense" but the world would be a better place if there were more Johnnies
in it.
Just as we were preparing to go out-bush for reports, Dan came in with a
mob of cattle for branding and the news that a yard on the northern
boundary was gone from the face of the earth.
"Clean gone since last Dry," he reported; "burnt or washed away, or
both."
Rather than let his cattle go, he had travelled in nearly thirty miles
with the mob in hand, but "reckoned" it wasn't "good enough." "The time
I've had with them staggering bobs," he said, when we pitied the poor,
weary, footsore little calves: "could 'av brought in a mob of snails
quicker. 'Tisn't good enough."
The Maluka also considered it not "good enough," and decided to run up a
rough branding wing at once on to the holding yard at the Springs; and
while Dan saw to the branding of the mob the Maluka looked out his plans.
