by Henry Lawson
I used to cut myself a good deal: I was always impatient over shaving.
Then he went in to interview his mother about it. She understood his lingo better than I did.
But I wasn’t always at ease with him. Sometimes he’d sit looking into the fire, with his head on one side, and I’d watch him and wonder what he was thinking about (I might as well have wondered what a Chinaman was thinking about) till he seemed at least twenty years older than me: sometimes, when I moved or spoke, he’d glance round just as if to see what that old fool of a dadda of his was doing now.
I used to have a fancy that there was something Eastern, or Asiatic—something older than our civilisation or religion—about old-fashioned children. Once I started to explain my idea to a woman I thought would understand—and as it happened she had an old-fashioned child, with very slant eyes—a little tartar he was too. I suppose it was the sight of him that unconsciously reminded me of my infernal theory, and set me off on it, without warning me. Anyhow, it got me mixed up in an awful row with the woman and her husband—and all their tribe. It wasn’t an easy thing to explain myself out of it, and the row hasn’t been fixed up yet. There were some Chinamen in the district.
I took a good-size fencing contract, the frontage of a ten-mile paddock, near Gulgong, and did well out of it. The railway had got as far as the Cudgegong River—some twenty miles from Gulgong and two hundred from the coast and “carrying” was good then. I had a couple of draught-horses, that I worked in the tip-drays when I was tank-sinking, and one or two others running in the Bush. I bought a broken-down waggon cheap, tinkered it up myself—christened it “The Same Old Thing”—and started carrying from the railway terminus through Gulgong and along the Bush roads and tracks that branch out fanlike through the scrubs to the one-pub towns and sheep and cattle stations out there in the howling wilderness. It wasn’t much of a team. There were the two heavy horses for “shafters”; a stunted colt, that I’d bought out of the pound for thirty shillings; a light, spring-cart horse; an old grey mare, with points like a big red-and-white Australian store bullock, and with the grit of an old washerwoman to work; and a horse that had spanked along in Cobb & Co.’s mail-coach in his time. I had a couple there that didn’t belong to me: I worked them for the feeding of them in the dry weather. And I had all sorts of harness that I mended and fixed up myself. It was a mixed team, but I took light stuff, got through pretty quick, and freight rates were high. So I got along.
Before this, whenever I made a few pounds I’d sink a shaft somewhere, prospecting for gold; but Mary never let me rest till she talked me out of that.
I made up my mind to take on a small selection farm—that an old mate of mine had fenced in and cleared, and afterwards chucked up—about thirty miles out west of Gulgong, at a place called Lahey’s Creek. (The places were all called Lahey’s Creek, or Spicer’s Flat, or Murphy’s Flat, or Ryan’s Crossing, or some such name—round there.) I reckoned I’d have a run for the horses and be able to grow a bit of feed: I always had a dread of taking Mary and the children too far away from a doctor—or a good woman neighbour; but there were some people came to live on Lahey’s Creek, and besides, there was a young brother of Mary’s—a young scamp (his name was Jim, too, and we called him “Jimmy” at first to make room for our Jim—he hated the name “Jimmy” or James). He came to live with us—without asking—and I thought he’d find enough work at Lahey’s Creek to keep him out of mischief. He wasn’t to be depended on much—he thought nothing of riding off, five hundred miles or so, “to have a look at the country”—but he was fond of Mary, and he’d stay by her till I got someone else to keep her company while I was on the road. He would be a protection against “sundowners” or any shearers who happened to wander that way in the “D.T.’s” after a spree. Mary had a married sister come to live at Gulgong just before we left, and nothing would suit her and her husband but we must leave little Jim with them for a month or so—till we got settled down at Lahey’s Creek. They were newly married.
Mary was to have driven into Gulgong, in the spring-cart, at the end of the month and taken Jim home; but when the time came she wasn’t too well—and, besides, the tyres of the cart were loose, and I hadn’t time to get them cut, so we let Jim’s time run on a week or so longer, till I happened to come out through Gulgong from the river with a small load of flour for Lahey’s Creek way. The roads were good, the weather grand—no chance of it raining, and I had a spare tarpaulin if it did—I would only camp out one night; so I decided to take Jim home with me.
Jim was turning three then, and he was a cure. He was so old-fashioned that he used to frighten me sometimes—I’d almost think that there was something supernatural about him; though, of course, I never took any notice of that rot about some children being too old-fashioned to live. There’s always the ghoulish old hag (and some not so old nor haggish either) who’ll come round and shake up young parents with such croaks as, “You’ll never rear that child—he’s too bright for his age.” To the devil with them! I say.
But I really thought that Jim was too intelligent for his age, and I often told Mary that he ought to be kept back, and not let talk too much to old diggers and long lanky jokers of Bushmen who rode in and hung their horses outside my place on Sunday afternoons.
I don’t believe in parents talking about their own children everlastingly—you get sick of hearing them; and their kids are generally little devils, and turn out larrikins as likely as not.
But, for all that, I really think that Jim, when he was three years old, was the most wonderful little chap, in every way, that I ever saw.
For the first hour or so along the road he was telling me all about his adventures at his auntie’s.
“But they spoilt me too much, dad,” he said, as solemn as a native bear. “An’ besides, a boy ought to stick to his parrans!”
I was taking out a cattle-pup for a drover I knew, and the pup took up a good deal of Jim’s time.
Sometimes he’d jolt me, the way he talked; and other times I’d have to turn my head away and cough, or shout at the horses, to keep from laughing outright. And once, when I was taken that way, he said:
“What are you jerking your shoulders and coughing, and grunting, and going on that way for, dad? Why don’t you tell me something?”
“Tell you what, Jim?”
“Tell me some talk.”
So I told him all the talk I could think of. And I had to brighten up, I can tell you, and not draw too much on my imagination—for Jim was a terror at cross-examination when the fit took him; and he didn’t think twice about telling you when he thought you were talking nonsense. Once he said:
“I’m glad you took me home with you, dad. You’ll get to know Jim.”
“What!” I said.
“You’ll get to know Jim.”
“But don’t I know you already?”
“No, you don’t. You never has time to know Jim at home.”
And, looking back, I saw that it was cruel true. I had known in my heart all along that this was the truth; but it came to me like a blow from Jim. You see, it had been a hard struggle for the last year or so; and when I was home for a day or two I was generally too busy, or too tired and worried, or full of schemes for the future, to take much notice of Jim. Mary used to speak to me about it sometimes. “You never taken notice of the child,” she’d say. “You could surely find a few minutes of an evening. What’s the use of always worrying and brooding? Your brain will go with a snap some day, and, if you get over it, it will teach you a lesson. You’ll be an old man, and Jim a young one, before you realise that you had a child once. Then it will be too late.”
This sort of talk from Mary always bored me and made me impatient with her, because I knew it all too well. I never worried for myself—only for Mary and the children. And often, as the days went by, I said to myself, “I’ll take more notice of Jim and give Mary more of my time, just as soon as I can see things clear ahead a bit.” And the hard days went on, a
nd the weeks, and the months, and the years——Ah, well!
Mary used to say, when things would get worse, “Why don’t you talk to me, Joe? Why don’t you tell me your thoughts, instead of shutting yourself up in yourself and brooding—eating your heart out? It’s hard for me: I get to think you’re tired of me, and selfish. I might be cross and speak sharp to you when you are in trouble. How am I to know, if you don’t tell me?”
But I didn’t think she’d understand.
And so, getting acquainted, and chumming and dozing, with the gums closing over our heads here and there, and the ragged patches of sunlight and shade passing up, over the horses, over us, on the front of the load, over the load, and down on to the white, dusty road again—Jim and I got along the lonely Bush road and over the ridges, some fifteen miles before sunset, and camped at Ryan’s Crossing on Sandy Creek for the night. I got the horses out and took the harness off. Jim wanted badly to help me, but I made him stay on the load; for one of the horses—a vicious, red-eyed chestnut—was a kicker: he’d broken a man’s leg. I got the feedbags stretched across the shafts, and the chaff-and-corn into them; and there stood the horses all round with their rumps north, south, and west, and their heads between the shafts, munching and switching their tails. We use double shafts, you know, for horse-teams—two pairs side by side—and prop them up, and stretch bags between them, letting the bags sag to serve as feed-boxes. I threw the spare tarpaulin over the wheels on one side, letting about half of it lie on the ground in case of damp, and so making a floor and a break-wind. I threw down bags and the blankets and ’possum rug against the wheel to make a camp for Jim and the cattle-pup, and got a gin-case we used for a tucker-box, the frying-pan and billy down, and made a good fire at a log close handy, and soon everything was comfortable. Ryan’s Crossing was a grand camp: I stood with my pipe in my mouth, my hands behind my back, and my back to the fire, and took the country in.
Reedy Creek came down along a western spur of the range: the banks here were deep and green, and the water ran clear over the granite bars, boulders, and gravel. Behind us was a dreary flat covered with those gnarled, grey-barked, dry-rotted “native apple-trees” (about as much like apple-trees as the native bear is like any other), and a nasty bit of sand-dusty road that I was always glad to get over in wet weather. To the left on our side of the creek were reedy marshes, with frogs croaking, and across the creek the dark box-scrub-covered ridges ended in steep “sidings” coming down to the creek-bank, and to the main road that skirted them, running on west up over a “saddle” in the ridges and on towards Dubbo. The road by Lahey’s Creek to a place called Cobborah branched off, through dreary apple-tree and stringy-bark flats, to the left, just beyond the crossing: all these fanlike branch tracks from the Cudgegong were inside a big horse-shoe in the Great Western Line, and so they gave small carriers a chance; now that Cobb & Co.’s coaches and the big teams and vans had shifted out of the main western terminus. There were tall she-oaks all along the creek, and a clump of big ones over a deep water-hole just above the crossing. The creek oaks have rough-barked trunks, like English elms, but are much taller, and higher to the branches—and the leaves are reedy; Kendall, the Australian poet, calls them the “she-oak harps Æolian”. Those trees are always sigh-sigh-sighing—more of a sigh than a sough or the “whoosh” of gum-trees in the wind. You always hear them sighing, even when you can’t feel any wind. It’s the same with telegraph wires: put your head against a telegraph post on a dead, still day, and you’ll hear and feel the far-away roar of the wires. But then the oaks are not connected with the distance, where there might be wind; and they don’t roar in a gale, only sigh louder and softer according to the wind, and never seem to go above or below a certain pitch—like a big harp with all the strings the same. I used to have a theory that those creek oaks got the wind’s voice telephoned to them, so to speak, through the ground.
I happened to look down, and there was Jim (I thought he was on the tarpaulin, playing with the pup): he was standing close beside me with his legs wide apart, his hands behind his back, and his back to the fire.
He held his head a little on one side, and there was such an old, old, wise expression in his big brown eyes—just as if he’d been a child for a hundred years or so, or as though he were listening to those oaks and understanding them in a fatherly sort of way.
“Dad!” he said presently. “Dad! do you think I’ll ever grow up to be a man?”
“Wh—why, Jim?” I gasped.
“Because I don’t want to.”
I couldn’t think of anything against this. It made me uneasy. But I remembered I used to have a childish dread of growing up to be a man.
“Jim,” I said, to break the silence, “do you hear what the she-oaks say?”
“No, I don’t. Is they talking?”
“Yes,” I said, without thinking.
“What is they saying?” he asked.
I took the bucket and went down to the creek for some water for tea. I thought Jim would follow with a little tin billy he had, but he didn’t: when I got back to the fire he was again on the ’possum rug, comforting the pup. I fried some bacon and eggs that I’d brought out with me. Jim sang out from the waggon:
“Don’t cook too much, dad—I mightn’t be hungry.”
I got the tin plates and pint-pots and things out on a clean new flour-bag, in honour of Jim, and dished up. He was leaning back on the rug looking at the pup in a listless sort of way. I reckoned he was tired out, and pulled the gin-case up close to him for a table and put his plate on it. But he only tried a mouthful or two, and then he said “I ain’t hungry, dad! You’ll have to eat it all.”
It made me uneasy—I never liked to see a child of mine turn from his food. They had given him some tinned salmon in Gulgong, and I was afraid that that was upsetting him. I was always against tinned muck.
“Sick, Jim?” I asked.
“No, dad, I ain’t sick; I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
“Have some tea, sonny?”
“Yes, dad.”
I gave him some tea, with some milk in it that I’d brought in a bottle from his aunt’s for him. He took a sip or two and then put the pint-pot on the gin-case.
“Jim’s tired, dad,” he said.
I made him lie down while I fixed up a camp for the night. It had turned a bit chilly, so I let the big tarpaulin down all round—it was made to cover a high load, the flour in the waggon didn’t come above the rail, so the tarpaulin came down well on to the ground. I fixed Jim up a comfortable bed under the tail-end of the waggon: when I went to lift him in he was lying back, looking up at the stars in a half-dreamy, half-fascinated way that I didn’t like. Whenever Jim was extra old-fashioned, or affectionate, there was danger.
“How do you feel now, sonny?”
It seemed a minute before he heard me and turned from the stars.
“Jim’s better, dad.” Then he said something like, “The stars are looking at me.” I thought he was half asleep. I took off his jacket and boots, and carried him in under the waggon and made him comfortable for the night.
“Kiss me ’night-night, daddy,” he said.
I’d rather he hadn’t asked me—it was a bad sign. As I was going to the fire he called me back.
“What is it, Jim?”
“Get me my things and the cattle-pup, please, daddy.”
I was scared now. His things were some toys and rubbish he’d brought from Gulgong, and I remembered the last time he had convulsions he took all his toys and a kitten to bed with him. And “night-night” and “daddy” were two-year-old language to Jim. I’d thought he’d forgotten those words—he seemed to be going back.
“Are you quite warm enough, Jim?”
“Yes, dad.”
I started to walk up and down—I always did this when I was extra worried.
I was frightened now about Jim, though I tried to hide the fact from myself. Presently he called me again.
“What is it, Jim?
”
“Take the blankets off me, fahver—Jim’s sick!” (They’d been teaching him to say father.)
I was scared now. I remembered a neighbour of ours had a little girl die (she swallowed a pin), and when she was going she said:
“Take the blankets off me, muvver—I’m dying.”
And I couldn’t get that out of my head.
I threw back a fold of the ’possum rug and felt Jim’s head—he seemed cool enough.
“Where do you feel bad, sonny?”
No answer for a while; then he said suddenly, but in a voice as if he were talking in his sleep:
“Put my boots on, please, daddy. I want to go home to muvver!”
I held his hand, and comforted him for a while; then he slept—in a restless, feverish sort of way.
I got the bucket I used for water for the horses and stood it over the fire; I ran to the creek with the big kerosene-tin bucket and got it full of cold water and stood it handy. I got the spade (we always carried one to dig wheels out of bogs in wet weather) and turned a corner of the tarpaulin back, dug a hole, and trod the tarpaulin down into the hole, to serve for a bath in case of the worst. I had a tin of mustard, and meant to fight a good round for Jim, if death came along.