On Our Selection | Page 8

did n't--mobs of them were
in at daybreak. Dad swore from the house at them, but they took no
notice; and when he ran down, they just hopped over the fence and sat
looking at him. Poor Dad! I do n't know if he was knocked up or if he
did n't know any more, but he stopped swearing and sat on a stump
looking at a patch of barley they had destroyed, and shaking his head.
Perhaps he was thinking if he only had a dog! We did have one until he
got a bait. Old Crib! He was lying under the table at supper-time when
he took the first fit, and what a fright we got! He must have reared

before stiffening out, because he capsized the table into Mother's lap,
and everything on it smashed except the tin-plates and the pints. The
lamp fell on Dad, too, and the melted fat scalded his arm. Dad dragged
Crib out and cut off his tail and ears, but he might as well have taken
off his head.
Dad stood with his back to the fire while Mother was putting a stitch in
his trousers. "There's nothing for it but to watch them at night," he was
saying, when old Anderson appeared and asked "if I could have those
few pounds." Dad asked Mother if she had any money in the house? Of
course she had n't. Then he told Anderson he would let him have it
when he got the deeds. Anderson left, and Dad sat on the edge of the
sofa and seemed to be counting the grains on a corn-cob that he lifted
from the floor, while Mother sat looking at a kangaroo-tail on the table
and did n't notice the cat drag it off. At last Dad said, "Ah, well!--it
won't be long now, Ellen, before we have the deeds!"
We took it in turns to watch the barley. Dan and the two girls watched
the first half of the night, and Dad, Dave and I the second. Dad always
slept in his clothes, and he used to think some nights that the others
came in before time. It was terrible going out, half awake, to tramp
round that paddock from fire to fire, from hour to hour, shouting and
yelling. And how we used to long for daybreak! Whenever we sat down
quietly together for a few minutes we would hear the dull THUD!
THUD! THUD!--the kangaroo's footstep.
At last we each carried a kerosene tin, slung like a kettle-drum, and
belted it with a waddy--Dad's idea. He himself manipulated an old bell
that he had found on a bullock's grave, and made a splendid noise with
it.
It was a hard struggle, but we succeeded in saving the bulk of the
barley, and cut it down with a scythe and three reaping-hooks. The girls
helped to bind it, and Jimmy Mulcahy carted it in return for three days'
binding Dad put in for him. The stack was n't built twenty-four hours
when a score of somebody's crawling cattle ate their way up to their
tails in it. We took the hint and put a sapling fence round it.

Again Dad decided to go up country for a while. He caught Emelina
after breakfast, rolled up a blanket, told us to watch the stack, and
started. The crows followed.
We were having dinner. Dave said, "Listen!" We listened, and it
seemed as though all the crows and other feathered demons of the wide
bush were engaged in a mighty scrimmage. "Dad's back!" Dan said,
and rushed out in the lead of a stampede.
Emelina was back, anyway, with the swag on, but Dad was n't. We
caught her, and Dave pointed to white spots all over the saddle, and
said--"Hanged if they have n't been ridin' her!"--meaning the crows.
Mother got anxious, and sent Dan to see what had happened. Dan
found Dad, with his shirt off, at a pub on the main road, wanting to
fight the publican for a hundred pounds, but could n't persuade him to
come home. Two men brought him home that night on a sheep-hurdle,
and he gave up the idea of going away.
After all, the barley turned out well--there was a good price that year,
and we were able to run two wires round the paddock.
One day a bulky Government letter came. Dad looked surprised and
pleased, and how his hand trembled as he broke the seal! "THE
DEEDS!" he said, and all of us gathered round to look at them. Dave
thought they were like the inside of a bear-skin covered with writing.
Dad said he would ride to town at once, and went for Emelina.
"Could n't y' find her, Dad?" Dan said, seeing him return