On the Track | Page 3

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On the Track by Henry Lawson
This etext was prepared by Alan R. Light ([email protected], formerly
[email protected], etc.). To assure a high quality text, the
original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared.
[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALISED. Some
obvious errors have been corrected after being confirmed.]

On the Track by Henry Lawson Author of "While the Billy Boils", and
"When the World was Wide"

Preface

Of the stories in this volume many have already appeared in (various
periodicals), while several now appear in print for the first time.
H. L. Sydney, March 17th, 1900.

Contents

The Songs They used to Sing A Vision of Sandy Blight Andy Page's
Rival The Iron-Bark Chip "Middleton's Peter" The Mystery of Dave
Regan Mitchell on Matrimony Mitchell on Women No Place for a
Woman Mitchell's Jobs Bill, the Ventriloquial Rooster Bush Cats
Meeting Old Mates Two Larrikins Mr. Smellingscheck "A Rough
Shed" Payable Gold An Oversight of Steelman's How Steelman told his
Story

On the Track

The Songs They used to Sing

On the diggings up to twenty odd years ago -- and as far back as I can
remember -- on Lambing Flat, the Pipe Clays, Gulgong, Home Rule,
and so through the roaring list; in bark huts, tents, public-houses, sly
grog shanties, and -- well, the most glorious voice of all belonged to a
bad girl. We were only children and didn't know why she was bad, but
we weren't allowed to play near or go near the hut she lived in, and we
were trained to believe firmly that something awful would happen to us
if we stayed to answer a word, and didn't run away as fast as our legs
could carry us, if she attempted to speak to us. We had before us the
dread example of one urchin, who got an awful hiding and went on
bread and water for twenty-four hours for allowing her to kiss him and
give him lollies. She didn't look bad -- she looked to us like a grand and
beautiful lady-girl -- but we got instilled into us the idea that she was an
awful bad woman, something more terrible even than a drunken man,
and one whose presence was to be feared and fled from. There were
two other girls in the hut with her, also a pretty little girl, who called
her "Auntie", and with whom we were not allowed to play -- for they
were all bad; which puzzled us as much as child-minds can be puzzled.
We couldn't make out how everybody in one house could be bad. We
used to wonder why these bad people weren't hunted away or put in
gaol if they were so bad. And another thing puzzled us. Slipping out
after dark, when the bad girls happened to be singing in their house,
we'd sometimes run against men hanging round the hut by ones and

twos and threes, listening. They seemed mysterious. They were mostly
good men, and we concluded they were listening and watching the bad
women's house to see that they didn't kill anyone, or steal and run away
with any bad little boys -- ourselves, for instance -- who ran out after
dark; which, as we were informed, those bad people were always on the
lookout for a chance to do.
We were told in after years that old Peter McKenzie (a respectable,
married, hard-working digger) would sometimes steal up opposite the
bad door in the dark, and throw in money done up in a piece of paper,
and listen round until the bad girl had sung the "Bonnie Hills of
Scotland" two or three times. Then he'd go and get drunk, and stay