Traveller came into our camp circle, and busied himself
with the making of tea.
The tea made to his satisfaction, he asked diffidently if there was a
"bit of meat to spare," as his was a "bit off"; and Dan went to the
larder with a hospitable "stacks!"
"How would boiled cabbage and roast turkey go?" Dan called, finding
himself confronted with the great slabs of cabbage; and the traveller,
thinking it was supposed to be a joke, favoured us with another nervous
grin and a terse "Thanks!" Then Dan reappeared, laden, and the man's
eyes glistened as he forgot his first surprise in his second. "Real
cabbage!" he cried. "Gosh! ain't tasted cabbage for five years"; and the
Maluka telling him to "sit right down then and begin, just where you
are" - beside our camp fire - with a less nervous "begging your pardon,
ma'am," he dropped down on one knee, and began.
"Don't be shy of the turkey," the Maluka said presently, noticing that he
had only taken a tiny piece, and the man looked sheepishly up. "'Tain't
exactly that I'm shy of it," he said, "but I'm scared to fill up any
space that might hold cabbage. That is," he added, again apologetic, "if
it's not wanted, ma'am."
It wasn't wanted; and as the man found room for it, the Maluka and Dan
offered further suggestions for the construction of the damper and its
conveyance to the fire.
The conveyance required judgment and watchful diplomacy, as the damper
preferred to dip in a rolling valley between my extended arms, or hang
over them like a tablecloth, rather than keep its desired form. But with
patience, and the loan of one of Dan's huge palms, it finally fell with
an unctuous, dusty "whouf" into the opened-out bed of ashes.
By the time it was hidden away, buried in the heart of the fire, a
woman's presence in a camp had proved less disturbing than might be
imagined, and we learned that our traveller had "come from Beyanst," with
a backward nod towards the Queensland border, and was going west; and by
the time the cabbage and tea were finished he had become quite talkative.
"Ain't seen cabbage, ma'am, for more'n five years," he said, leaning back
on to a fallen tree trunk, with a satisfied sigh (cabbage and tea being
inflating), adding when I sympathised, "nor a woman neither, for that
matter."
Neither a cabbage nor a woman for five years! Think of it, townsfolk!
Neither a cabbage nor a woman - with the cabbage placed first. I wonder
which will be longest remembered.
"Came on this, though, in me last camp, east there," he went on,
producing a hairpin, with another nod eastwards. "Wondered how it got
there." "Your'n, I s'pose"; then, sheepish once more, he returned it to
his pocket, saying he "s'posed he might as well keep it for luck."
It being a new experience to one of the plain sisterhood to feel a man
was cherishing one of her hairpins, if only "for luck," I warmed towards
the "man from Beyanst," and grew hopeful of rivalling even that cabbage
in his memory.
