The Summer Old Bob Died.
It was a real scorcher. A soft, sweltering summer's day. The air quivered; the heat drove the fowls under the dray and sent the old dog to sleep upon the floor inside the house. The iron on the skillion cracked and sweated--so did Dad and Dave down the paddock, grubbing--grubbing, in 130 degrees of sunshine. They were clearing a piece of new land--a heavily-timbered box-tree flat. They had been at it a fortnight, and if any music was in the ring of the axe or the rattle of the pick when commencing, there was none now.
Dad wished to be cheerful and complacent. He said (putting the pick down and dragging his flannel off to wring it): "It's a good thing to sweat well." Dave did n't say anything. I don't know what he thought, but he looked up at Dad--just looked up at him--while the perspiration filled his eyes and ran down over his nose like rain off a shingle; then he hitched up his pants and "wired in" again.
Dave was a philosopher. He worked away until the axe flew off the handle with a ring and a bound, and might have been lost in the long grass for ever only Dad stopped it with his shin. I fancy he did n't mean to stop it when I think how he jumped--it was the only piece of excitement there had been the whole of that relentlessly solemn fortnight. Dad got vexed--he was in a hurry with the grubbing--and said he never could get anything done without something going wrong. Dave was n't sorry the axe came off--he knew it meant half-an-hour in the shade fixing it on again.
"Anyway," Dad went on, "we'll go to dinner now."On the way to the house he several times looked at the sky--that cloudless, burning sky--and said--to no one in particular, "I wish to God it would rain!" It sounded like an aggravated prayer. Dave did n't speak, and Idon't think Dad expected he would.
Joe was the last to sit down to dinner, and he came in steaming hot. He had chased out of sight a cow that had poked into the cultivation. Joe mostly went about with green bushes in his hat, to keep his head cool, and a few gum-leaves were now sticking in his moist and matted hair.
"I put her out, Dad!" he said, casting an eager glare at everything on the table. "She tried to jump and got stuck on the fence, and broke it all down. On'y I could n't get anything, I'd er broke 'er head--there was n't a thing, on'y dead cornstalks and cow-dung about." Then he lunged his fork desperately at a blowfly that persistently hovered about his plate, and commenced.
Joe had a healthy appetite. He had charged his mouth with a load of cold meat, when his jaws ceased work, and, opening his mouth as though he were sleepy, he leaned forward and calmly returned it all to the plate. Dad got suspicious and asked Joe what was up; but Joe only wiped his mouth, looked sideways at his plate, and pushed it away.
All of us stopped eating then, and stared at each other. Mother said, "Well, I--I wrapped a cloth round it so nothing could get in, and put it in the safe--I don't know where on earth to put the meat, I'm sure; if Iput it in a bag and hang it up that thief of a dog gets it.""Yes," Dad observed, "I believe he'd stick his nose into hell itself, Ellen, if he thought there was a bone there--and there ought to be lots by this time." Then he turned over the remains of that cold meat, and, considering we had all witnessed the last kick of the slaughtered beast, it was surprising what animation this part of him yet retained. In vain did Dad explore for a really dead piece--there was life in all of it.
Joe was n't satisfied. He said he knew where there was a lot of eggs, and disappeared down the yard. Eggs were not plentiful on our selection, because we too often had to eat the hens when there was no meat--three or four were as many as we ever saw at one time. So on this day, when Joe appeared with a hatful, there was excitement. He felt himself a hero.
We thought him a little saviour.
"My!" said Mother, "where did you get all those?""Get 'em! I've had these planted for three munce--they're a nest I found long ago; I thought I would n't say anythink till we really wanted 'em."Just then one of the eggs fell out of the hat and went off "pop" on the floor.
Dave nearly upset the table, he rose so suddenly; and covering his nose with one hand he made for the door; then he scowled back over his shoulder at Joe. He utterly scorned his brother Joe. All of us deserted the table except Dad--he stuck to his place manfully; it took a lot to shift HIM.
Joe must have had a fine nerve. "That's on'y one bad 'n'," he said, taking the rest to the fireplace where the kettle stood. Then Dad, who had remained calm and majestic, broke out. "Damn y', boy!" he yelled, "take th' awful things outside--YOU tinker!" Joe took them out and tried them all, but I forget if he found a good one.
Dad peered into the almost-empty water-cask and again muttered a short prayer for rain. He decided to do no more grubbing that day, but to run wire around the new land instead. The posts had been in the ground some time, and were bored. Dave and Sarah bored them. Sarah was as good as any man--so Dad reckoned. She could turn her hand to anything, from sewing a shirt to sinking a post-hole. She could give Dave inches in arm measurements, and talk about a leg! She HAD a leg--a beauty! It was as thick at the ankle as Dad's was at the thigh, nearly.
Anyone who would know what real amusement is should try wiring posts.
What was to have been the top wire (the No. 8 stuff) Dad commenced to put in the bottom holes, and we ran it through some twelve or fifteen posts before he saw the mistake--then we dragged it out slowly and savagely; Dad swearing adequately all the time.
