Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales | Page 9

emerge, on the way back
to their pasturage, slim, delicate, agile, with a bright black A legibly
branded with tar on their paper-white skins.
The Anabanco world--stiffish but undaunted--is turning out of bed one
morning. Ha! what sounds are these? And why does the room look so
dark? Rain, as I'm alive. "Hurrah!" says Master Jack Bowles, one of the
young gentlemen. He is learning (more or less) practical sheep-farming,
preparatory to having (one of these days) an Anabanco of his own.

"Well, this is a change, and I'm not sorry for one," quoth Mr. Jack, "I'm
stiff all over. No one can stand such work long. Won't the shearers
growl! No shearing to-day, and perhaps none tomorrow either." Truth
to tell, Mr Bowles' sentiments are not confined to his ingenuous bosom.
Some of the shearers grumble at being stopped "just as a man was
earning a few shillings." Those who are in top pace and condition don't
like it. But to many of the rank and file--working up to and a little
beyond their strength--with whom swelled wrists and other protests of
nature are becoming apparent, it is a relief, and they are glad of the
respite. So at dinner-time all the sheep in the sheds, put in overnight in
anticipation of such a contingency, are reported shorn. All hands are
then idle for the rest of the day. The shearers dress and avail themselves
of various resources. Some go to look at their horses, now in clover, or
its equivalent, in the Riverina graminetum. Some play cards, others
wash or mend their clothes. A large proportion of the Australians
having armed themselves with paper, envelopes, and a shilling's worth
of stamps from the store, bethink themselves of neglected or desirable
correspondents. Many a letter for Mrs Leftalone, Wallaroo Creek, or
Miss Jane Sweetapple, Honeysuckle Flat, as the case may be, will find
its way into the post-bag tomorrow. A pair of youngsters are having a
round or two with the gloves; while to complete the variety of
recreations compatible with life at a woolshed, a selected troupe are
busy in the comparative solitude of that building, at a rehearsal of a
tragedy and a farce, with which they intend, the very next rainy day, to
astonish the population of Anabanco.
At the home-station a truce to labour's "alarms" is proclaimed except in
the case and person of Mr de Vere. So far is he from participation in the
general holiday that he finds the store thronged with shearers, washers,
and "knock-about men," who being let loose, think it would be nice to
go and buy something "pour passer le temps." He therefore grumbles
slightly at having no rest like other people.
"That's all very fine," says Mr Jack Bowles, who, seated on a case, is
smoking a large meerschaum and mildly regarding all things, "but what
have you got to do when we're all HARD AT WORK at the shed?" He
speaks with an air of great importance and responsibility.

"That's right, Mr Bowles," chimes in one of the shearers, "stand up for
the shed. I never see a young gentleman work as hard as you do."
"Bosh!" growls de Vere, "as if anybody couldn't gallop about from the
shed to the washpen, and carry messages, and give half of them wrong!
Why, Mr Gordon said the other day, he should have to take you off and
put on a Chinaman--that he couldn't make more mistakes."
"All envy and malice, and t'other thing, de Vere, because you think I'm
rising in the profession," returns the good-natured Bowles, "Mr
Gordon's going to send 20,000 sheep, after shearing, to the Lik Lak
paddock, and he said I should go in charge."
"Charge be hanged!" laughs de Vere, with two very bright-patterned
Crimean shirts, one in each hand, which he offers to a tall young
shearer for inspection. "There's a well there, and whenever either of the
two men, of whom you'll have CHARGE, gets sick or runs away, you'll
have to work the whim in his place, till another man's sent out, if it's a
month."
This appalling view of station promotion rather startles Mr Jack, who
applies himself to his meerschaum, amid the ironical comments of the
shearers. However, not easily daunted or "shut up," according to the
more familiar station phrase, he rejoins, after a brief interval of
contemplation, "that accidents will happen, you know, de Vere, my
boy-- apropos of which moral sentiment, I'll come and help you in your
dry-goods business; and then, look here, if YOU get ill or run away, I'll
have a profession to fall back upon."
This is held to be a Roland of sufficient pungency for de Vere's Oliver.
Everyone laughed. And then the two youngsters betook themselves to a
humorous puffing of