The Penguin Henry Lawson Short Stories

by Henry Lawson

  There it stood, behind a calico screen that the coach-painters used to keep out the dust when they were varnishing. It was a first-class piece of work – pole, shafts, cushions, whip, lamps, and all complete. If you only wanted to drive one horse you could take out the pole and put in the shafts, and there you were. There was a tilt over the front seat; if you only wanted the buggy to carry two, you could fold down the back seat, and there you had a handsome, roomy, single buggy. It would go near fifty pounds.

  While I was looking at it, Bill Galletly came in and slapped me on the back.

  ‘Now, there’s a chance for you, Joe!’ he said. ‘I saw you rubbing your head round that buggy the last time you were in. You wouldn’t get a better one in the colonies, and you won’t see another like it in the district again in a hurry – for it doesn’t pay to build ’em. Now you’re a full-blown squatter, and it’s time you took little Mary for a fly round in her own buggy now and then, instead of having her stuck out there in the scrub, or jolting through the dust in a cart like some old Mother Flourbag.’

  He called her ‘little Mary’ because the Galletly family had known her when she was a girl.

  I rubbed my head and looked at the buggy again. It was a great temptation.

  ‘Look here, Joe,’ said Bill Galletly in a quieter tone. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll let you have the buggy. You can take it out and send along a bit of a cheque when you feel you can manage it, and the rest later on – a year will do, or even two years. You’ve had a hard pull, and I’m not likely to be hard up for money in a hurry.’

  They were good fellows the Galletlys, but they knew their men. I happened to know that Bill Galletly wouldn’t let the man he built the buggy for take it out of the shop without cash down, though he was a big-bug round there. But that didn’t make it easier for me.

  Just then Robert Galletly came into the shop. He was rather quieter than his brother, but the two were very much alike.

  ‘Look here, Bob,’ said Bill; ‘here’s a chance for you to get rid of your harness. Joe Wilson’s going to take that buggy off my hands.’

  Bob Galletly put his foot up on a saw-stool, took one hand out of his pocket, rested his elbow on his knee and his chin on the palm of his hand, and bunched up his big beard with his fingers, as he always did when he was thinking. Presently he took his foot down, put his hand back in his pocket, and said to me, ‘Well, Joe, I’ve got a double set of harness made for the man who ordered that damned buggy, and if you like I’ll let you have it. I suppose when Bill there has squeezed all he can out of you I’ll stand a show of getting something. He’s a regular Shylock, he is.’

  I pushed my hat forward and rubbed the back of my head and stared at the buggy.

  ‘Come across to the Royal, Joe,’ said Bob.

  But I knew that a beer would settle the business, so I said I’d get the wool up to the station first and think it over, and have a drink when I came back.

  I thought it over on the way to the station, but it didn’t seem good enough. I wanted to get some more sheep, and there was the new run to be fenced in, and the instalments on the selections. I wanted lots of things that I couldn’t well do without. Then, again, the farther I got away from debt and hard-upedness the greater the horror I had of it. I had two horses that would do; but I’d have to get another later on, and altogether the buggy would run me nearer a hundred than fifty pounds. Supposing a dry season threw me back with that buggy on my hands. Besides, I wanted a spell. If I got the buggy it would only mean an extra turn of graft for me. No, I’d take Mary for a trip to Sydney, and she’d have to be satisfied with that.

  I’d got it settled, and was just turning in through the big white gates to the goods-shed when young Black, the squatter, dashed past to the station in his big new wagonette, with his wife and a driver and a lot of portmanteaux and rugs and things. They were going to do the grand in Sydney over Christmas. Now it was young Black who was so shook after Mary when she was in service with the Blacks before the old man died, and if I hadn’t come along – and if girls never cared for vagabonds – Mary would have been mistress of Haviland homestead, with servants to wait on her; and she was far better fitted for it than the one that was there. She would have been going to Sydney every holiday and putting up at the old Royal, with every comfort that a woman could ask for, and seeing a play every night. And I’d have been knocking around amongst the big stations out back, or maybe drinking myself to death at the shanties.

  The Blacks didn’t see me as I went by, ragged and dusty, and with an old, nearly black, cabbage-tree hat drawn over my eyes. I didn’t care a damn for them, or any one else, at most times, but I had moods when I felt things.

  One of Black’s big wool-teams was just coming away from the shed, and the driver, a big, dark, rough fellow, with some foreign blood in him, didn’t seem inclined to wheel his team an inch out of the middle of the road. I stopped my horses and waited. He looked at me and I looked at him – hard. Then he wheeled off, scowling, and swearing at his horses. I’d given him a hiding, six or seven years before, and he hadn’t forgotten it. And I felt then as if I wouldn’t mind trying to give someone a hiding.

  The goods clerk must have thought that Joe Wilson was pretty grumpy that day. I was thinking of Mary, out there in the lonely hut on a barren creek in the Bush – for it was little better – with no one to speak to except a haggard, worn-out Bushwoman or two, that came to see her on Sunday. I thought of the hardships she went through in the first year – that I haven’t told you about yet; of the time she was ill, and I away, and no one to understand; of the time she was alone with James and Jim sick; and of the loneliness she fought through out there. I thought of Mary, outside in the blazing heat, with an old print dress and a felt hat, and a pair of ’lastic-siders of mine on, doing the work of a station manager as well as that of a housewife and mother. And her cheeks were getting thin, and the colour was going: I thought of the gaunt, brick-brown, saw-file voiced, hopeless and spiritless Bushwomen I knew – and some of them not much older than Mary.

  When I went back into the town, I had a drink with Bill Galletly at the Royal, and that settled the buggy; then Bob shouted, and I took the harness. Then I shouted, to wet the bargain. When I was going, Bob said, ‘Send in that young scamp of a brother of Mary’s with the horses: if the collars don’t fit I’ll fix up a pair of makeshifts, and alter the others.’ I thought they both gripped my hand harder than usual, but that might have been the beer.

  IV

  THE BUGGY COMES HOME

  I ‘WHIPPED the cat’ a bit, the first twenty miles or so, but then, I thought, what did it matter? What was the use of grinding to save money until we were too old to enjoy it. If we had to go down in the world again, we might as well fall out of a buggy as out of a dray – there’d be some talk about it, anyway, and perhaps a little sympathy. When Mary had the buggy she wouldn’t be tied down so much to that wretched hole in the Bush; and the Sydney trips needn’t be off either. I could drive down to Wallerawang on the main line, where Mary had some people, and leave the buggy and horses there, and take the train to Sydney, or go right on, by the old coach road, over the Blue Mountains: it would be a grand drive. I thought best to tell Mary’s sister at Gulgong about the buggy; I told her I’d keep it dark from Mary till the buggy came home. She entered into the spirit of the thing, and said she’d give the world to be able to go out with the buggy, if only to see Mary open her eyes when she saw it; but she couldn’t go, on account of a new baby she had. I was rather glad she couldn’t, for it would spoil the surprise a little, I thought. I wanted that all to myself.

  I got home about sunset next day, and, after tea, when I’d finished telling Mary all the news, and a few lies as to why I didn’t bring the cart back, and one or two other things, I sat with James, out on a log of the wood-heap, where we generally had our smokes and interviews, and told him all about the buggy. He whistled, then he said:

  ‘But what do you want to make it such a bushranging b
usiness for? Why can’t you tell Mary now? It will cheer her up. She’s been pretty miserable since you’ve been away this trip.’

  ‘I want it to be a surprise,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’ve got nothing to say against a surprise, out in a hole like this; but it ’ud take a lot to surprise me. What am I to say to Mary about taking the two horses in? I’ll only want one to bring the cart out, and she’s sure to ask.’

  ‘Tell her you’re going to get yours shod.’

  ‘But he had a set of slippers only the other day. She knows as much about horses as we do. I don’t mind telling a lie so long as a chap has only got to tell a straight lie and be done with it. But Mary asks so many questions.’

  ‘Well, drive the other horse up the creek early, and pick him up as you go.’

  ‘Yes. And she’ll want to know what I want with two bridles. But I’ll fix her – you needn’t worry.’

  ‘And, James,’ I said, ‘get a chamois leather and sponge – we’ll want ’em anyway – and you might give the buggy a wash down in the creek, coming home. It’s sure to be covered with dust.’

  ‘Oh! – orlright.’

  ‘And if you can, time yourself to get here in the cool of the evening, or just about sunset.’

  ‘What for?’

  I’d thought it would be better to have the buggy there in the cool of the evening, when Mary would have time to get excited and get over it – better than in the blazing hot morning, when the sun rose as hot as at noon, and we’d have the long broiling day before us.

  ‘What do you want me to come at sunset for?’ asked James. ‘Do you want me to camp out in the scrub and turn up like a blooming sundowner?’

  ‘Oh well,’ I said, ‘get here at midnight if you like.’

  We didn’t say anything for a while – just sat and puffed at our pipes. Then I said:

  ‘Well, what are you thinking about?’

  ‘I’m thinking it’s time you got a new hat, the sun seems to get in through your old one too much,’ and he got out of my reach and went to see about penning the calves. Before we turned in he said:

  ‘Well, what am I to get out of the job, Joe?’

  He had his eye on a double-barrel gun that Franca the gunsmith in Cudgegong had – one barrel shot, and the other rifle; so I said:

  ‘How much does Franca want for that gun?’

  ‘Five-ten; but I think he’d take my single barrel off it. Anyway, I can squeeze a couple of quid out of Phil Lambert for the single barrel.’ (Phil was his bosom chum.)

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Make the best bargain you can.’

  He got his own breakfast and made an early start next morning, to get clear of any instructions or messages that Mary might have forgotten to give him overnight. He took his gun with him.

  I’d always thought that a man was a fool who couldn’t keep a secret from his wife – that there was something womanish about him. I found out. Those three days waiting for the buggy were about the longest I ever spent in my life. It made me scotty with everyone and everything; and poor Mary had to suffer for it. I put in the time patching up the harness and mending the stockyard and the roof, and, the third morning, I rode up the ridges to look for trees for fencing timber. I remember I hurried home that afternoon because I thought the buggy might get there before me.

  At tea-time I got Mary on to the buggy business.

  ‘What’s the good of a single buggy to you, Mary?’ I asked. ‘There’s only room for two, and what are you going to do with the children when we go out together?’

  ‘We can put them on the floor at our feet, like other people do. I can always fold up a blanket or ’possum rug for them to sit on.’

  But she didn’t take half so much interest in buggy talk as she would have taken at any other time, when I didn’t want her to. Women are aggravating that way. But the poor girl was tired and not very well, and both the children were cross. She did look knocked up.

  ‘We’ll give the buggy a rest, Joe,’ she said. (I thought I heard it coming then.) ‘It seems as far off as ever. I don’t know why you want to harp on it to-day. Now, don’t look so cross, Joe – I didn’t mean to hurt you. We’ll wait until we can get a double buggy, since you’re so set on it. There’ll be plenty of time when we’re better off.’

  After tea, when the youngsters were in bed, and she’d washed up, we sat outside on the edge of the veranda floor, Mary sewing, and I smoking and watching the track up the creek.

  ‘Why don’t you talk, Joe?’ asked Mary. ‘You scarcely ever speak to me now: it’s like drawing blood out of a stone to get a word from you. What makes you so cross, Joe?’

  ‘Well, I’ve got nothing to say.’

  ‘But you should find something. Think of me – it’s very miserable for me. Have you anything on your mind? Is there any new trouble? Better tell me, no matter what it is, and not go worrying and brooding and making both our lives miserable. If you never tell me anything, how can you expect me to understand?’

  I said there was nothing the matter.

  ‘But there must be, to make you so unbearable. Have you been drinking, Joe – or gambling?’

  I asked her what she’d accuse me of next.

  ‘And another thing I want to speak to you about,’ she went on. ‘Now, don’t knit up your forehead like that, Joe, and get impatient – ’

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t swear in the hearing of the children. Now, little Jim to-day, he was trying to fix his little go-cart, and it wouldn’t run right, and – and – ’

  ‘Well, what did he say?’

  ‘He –’ (she seemed a little hysterical, trying not to laugh) – ‘he said, “Damn it!”’

  I had to laugh. Mary tried to keep serious but it was no use.

  ‘Never mind, old woman,’ I said, putting an arm round her, for her mouth was trembling, and she was crying more than laughing. ‘It won’t be always like this. Just wait till we’re a bit better off.’

  Just then a black boy we had (I must tell you about him some other time) came sidling along by the wall, as if he were afraid somebody was going to hit him – poor little devil! I never did.

  ‘What is it, Harry?’ said Mary.

  ‘Buggy comin’, I bin thinkit.’

  ‘Where?’

  He pointed up the creek.

  ‘Sure it’s a buggy?’

  ‘Yes, missus.’

  ‘How many horses?’

  ‘One – two.’

  We knew that he could hear and see things long before we could. Mary went and perched on the wood-heap, and shaded her eyes – though the sun had gone – and peered through between the eternal grey trunks of the stunted trees on the flat across the creek. Presently she jumped down and came running in.

  ‘There’s someone coming in a buggy, Joe!’ she cried, excitedly. ‘And both my white table-cloths are rough dry. Harry! put two flat-irons down to the fire, quick, and put on some more wood. It’s lucky I kept those new sheets packed away. Get up out of that, Joe! What are you sitting grinning like that for? Go and get on another shirt. Hurry – Why, it’s only James – by himself.’

  She stared at me, and I sat there, grinning like a fool.

  ‘Joe!’ she said. ‘Whose buggy is that?’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s yours,’ I said.

  She caught her breath, and stared at the buggy, and then at me again. James drove down out of sight into the crossing, and came up close to the house.

  ‘Oh, Joe! what have you done?’ cried Mary. ‘Why, it’s a new double buggy!’ Then she rushed at me and hugged my head. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Joe? You poor old boy! – and I’ve been nagging at you all day!’ And she hugged me again.

  James got down and started taking the horses out – as if it was an everyday occurrence. I saw the double-barrel gun sticking out from under the seat. He’d stopped to wash the buggy, and I suppose that’s what made him grumpy. Mary stood on the veranda, with her eyes twice as big as usual, and breat
hing hard – taking the buggy in.

  James skimmed the harness off, and the horses shook themselves and went down to the dam for a drink. ‘You’d better look under the seats,’ growled James, as he took his gun out with great care.

  Mary dived for the buggy. There was a dozen of lemonade and ginger-beer in a candle-box from Galletly – James said that Galletly’s men had a gallon of beer, and they cheered him, James (I suppose he meant they cheered the buggy), as he drove off; there was a ‘little bit of ham’ from Pat Murphy, the storekeeper at Home Rule, that he’d ‘cured himself’ – it was the biggest I ever saw; there were three loaves of baker’s bread, a cake, and a dozen yards of something ‘to make up for the children,’ from Aunt Gertrude at Gulgong; there was a fresh-water cod, that long Dave Regan had caught the night before in the Macquarie River, and sent out packed in salt in a box; there was a holland suit for the black boy, with red braid to trim it; and there was a jar of preserved ginger, and some lollies (sweets) (‘for the lil’ boy’), and a rum-looking Chinese doll and a rattle (‘for lil’ girl’) from Sun Tong Lee, our storekeeper at Gulgong – James was chummy with Sun Tong Lee, and got his powder and shot and caps there on tick when he was short of money. And James said that the people would have loaded the buggy with ‘rubbish’ if he’d waited. They all seemed glad to see Joe Wilson getting on – and these things did me good.

  We got the things inside, and I don’t think either of us knew what we were saying or doing for the next half-hour. Then James put his head in and said, in a very injured tone:

  ‘What about my tea? I ain’t had anything to speak of since I left Cudgegong. I want some grub.’

  Then Mary pulled herself together.

  ‘You’ll have your tea directly,’ she said. ‘Pick up that harness at once, and hang it on the pegs in the skillion; and you, Joe, back that buggy under the end of the veranda, the dew will be on it presently – and we’ll put wet bags up in front of it to-morrow, to keep the sun off. And James will have to go back to Cudgegong for the cart – we can’t have that buggy to knock about in.’