Johnny wanted several yards of strong string, and
a "sup" of ink, to make guiding lines on the timber for his saw; but as
only sewing cotton was forthcoming, and the Maluka refused to part with
one drop of his precious ink, we were obliged to go down to the beginning
of things once more: two or three lubras were set to work to convert the
sewing-cotton into tough, strong string, while others prepared a
substitute for the ink from burnt water-lily roots.
The sawing of the tree-trunks lasted for nearly three weeks, and the
Dandy, being the under-man in the pit, had anything but a merry time.
Down in the pit, away from the air, he worked; pulling and pushing,
pushing and pulling, hour after hour, in a blinding stream of sawdust.
When we offered him sympathy and a gossamer veil, he accepted the veil
gratefully, but waved the sympathy aside, saying it was "all in the good
cause." Nothing was ever a hardship to the Dandy, excepting dirt.
Johnny being a past-master in his trade, stood on the platform in the
upper air, guiding the saw along the marked lines; and as he instructed
us all in the fine art of pit-sawing, Dan decided that the building of a
house, under some circumstances, could be an education in itself.
"Thought she might manage to learn a thing or two out of it," he said.
"The building of it is right enough. It all depends what she uses it for
when Johnny's done with it."
As the pliant saw coaxed beams, and slabs, and flooring boards out of the
forest trees I grew to like beginning at the beginning of things, and
realised there was an underlying truth in Dan's whimsical reiteration,
that "the missus was in luck when she struck this place"; for beams and
slabs and flooring boards wrested from Nature amid merrymaking and
philosophical discourses are not as other beams and slabs and flooring
boards. They are old friends and fellow-adventurers, with many a good
tale to tell, recalling comical situations in their reminiscences with a
vividness that baffles description.
Perhaps those who live in homes with the beginning of things left behind
in forests they have never seen, may think chattering planks a poor
compensation for unpapered, rough-boarded walls and unglazed window
frames. Let them try it before they judge; remembering always, that
before a house can be built of old friends and memories the friends must
be made and the memories lived through.
But other things beside the sawing of timber were in progress, Things
were also "humming" in the dog world. A sturdy fox-terrier, Brown by
name, had been given by a passing traveller to the Maluka, given almost
of necessity for Brown - as is the way with fox-terriers at times - quietly
changed masters, and lying down at the Maluka's feet, had refused to
leave him.
