by A B Facey
We spent the next few days looking around, and towards the evenings, setting snares for possum. The first morning Uncle and the boys caught twenty-two possums. They skinned them and pegged the skins out on big trees. Uncle called the trees ‘white gums’. The skins were nailed on with small nails. These skins, when dry, were about nine inches wide and about one foot long, although some would stretch to bigger than this, and some smaller. When dry they were worth a shilling each. They had to be nailed at least six feet off the ground to stop the dingoes pulling them off and destroying them. Aunt, Grandma and we kids used to stand on a box to nail them out.
Uncle had bought a kangaroo dog for three pounds while we were in Pingelly. The man that sold it to him said it was a good dog and would kill a kangaroo, then come back to whoever took it out hunting. It would then trot back slowly to where it had killed the ’roo. They used to call this ‘kill show’. Uncle and Eric went out hunting with the dog early the second morning and sure enough, the dog caught two ’roos – one fairly big, the other about three parts grown. The smaller ones, we found out, were the best for eating. The meat looked like steak but tasted a little different, but very nice. Up to this part of my life I hadn’t been given much meat because Grandma couldn’t afford to buy it.
The main work from then on for the women, girls and us kids was setting snares for possums. (They called Aunt’s youngest daughter, her son Bill and me ‘the kids’.) We always stuck together, we were all scared stiff of the dingoes. They came around a lot for the first few weeks.
Uncle Archie and my brothers were busy building a house. I suppose it would be called a humpy. They cut the poles about twelve feet long, and six inches thick at one end and about three to four inches thick at the other. They cut hundreds of them and carted them to where they intended to build the humpy. They then cut the smallest ends off the poles with a handsaw to make them all the same length and level. Then they dug two trenches three feet deep and twelve feet apart, both fifty feet long. They put the poles side by side in the trenches on their ends, the thickest ends in the trenches, then shovelled the earth back in, tramping it tight around and on each side of the pole. When the poles were put the full length of the trenches they formed two walls fifty feet long. Then Uncle and the boys dug a trench at each end and put poles in them in the same way, joining the two fifty foot walls together. Then they put up two dividing walls, also in the same way, making a twelve by twelve room at each end of the structure and leaving a living and dining-room in the centre, twenty-six feet by twelve. They then put a timbered roof over the three rooms and thatched it with blackboy spines.
The blackboy is a native grass-tree that grows in the West Australian bush. It has spine-like leaves that grow out of the top, and as they become older they dry out and go light brown. Uncle had a plentiful supply of this tree on and around his property.
After making the house, Uncle and my brothers carted home some large granite rocks (there were plenty of stones on the surrounding hills). They built a big fireplace in the main room, then they built a large table out of bush timber, and made two long stools for us to sit on to have our meals. So, that was our home.
Uncle Archie and Aunt Alice had one of the twelve-foot rooms for their bedroom and Grandma and the girls the other. We boys slept in tents outside. Uncle made a door frame for the big room out of bush timber, and sewed kangaroo skins on to it to keep out the cold weather and water. The doorways leading into the bedrooms had only curtains over them. When the building and thatching were finished, Uncle and the boys dug out clay from the creek which ran through the property, and after making it very wet and soft, they pushed it into the cracks of the poles that made the walls. When it was dry it made the place nice and weather-proof.
While this was going on, the rest of us were getting on with our work of setting snares, skinning possums and pegging out the skins. It took about eight hours to dry them, then they were ready for market. All of us put the skins we had done together for Uncle, and he would go into town every month and sell them to buy food. This was our only way of existing. There wasn’t any other income.
When the humpy was finished Uncle and my brothers started to work on the land. They were chopping small trees down and ringbarking the big ones, ready for burning down the next year. We found out that bushfires were a menace and we had to take great care as there were laws that made it an offence to light fires in the open from the fifteenth of November to the fifteenth of February each year. No clearing could be done until after this time.
Day by day our life was much the same. 1902 went and 1903 came but we had no Christmas. One day was the same as the other so far as we kids were concerned.
Our boots were worn out and we got used to going without them. Uncle, Aunt, Grandma and Eric managed to get boots. We kids had a lot of trouble with our feet when the burning season opened. On the first of March that year, Uncle put a fire through the areas that they had chopped down and we all had to pitch in and help with the clearing whenever we could. We got our feet burnt badly at times.
Everything was hot and dry and hard during the summer months but not so bad in the winter. During the summer months we had to carry water for drinking and general household purposes. The women used to carry all their washing down to the Government well a mile from our home, and do it there. The well was sixty feet deep and we had to haul the water up with a rope attached to a bucket and a winder. The bucket held six gallons and it was beautiful water.
Uncle’s trips to town took three days. One day to go twenty-six miles to town, then he would always give the horse a day’s rest and come home on the third day. When Uncle was away on one of these trips he was approached by a man who wanted a small boy to stay with his mother while he was away from home. He explained to Uncle that he and his three brothers were away for long periods. He said they were contractors and did all sorts of contract work, such as clearing and fencing and horse-breaking, and often went into the bush kangaroo hunting and catching wild horses. His mother was getting very old and was nearly blind. He said that the boy wouldn’t have much to do in the way of work, just be a companion for the old lady.
Uncle told us all about this when he returned home from his trip. Grandma came to me later and told me that Uncle would like me to go. He had said that the man would give me five shillings a month and keep, including clothes and boots and socks. I told Grandma I didn’t want to go. She said that the man would be coming in a few days to see if Uncle had managed to talk her into letting me take the job.
About a week later the man came. He was a big man, about thirty-five years old, with a big black bush beard. He was riding a horse and leading a very pretty pony. It had a saddle on ready for me. I didn’t like the look of the man and I told Grandma so, but she explained that I would be helping Uncle if I went as it would mean one less to feed, and I would get plenty of good food, and clothes and boots, and also five shillings a month.
The man camped at our place that night. He came to tell me about his mother and said that she kept cows, pigs and fowls, so she had plenty of good fresh cow’s milk, fresh eggs and bacon. And there was plenty of fresh meat from a cousin who lived about five miles away. Then he said that if I went with him and didn’t like the job, I just had to say so and he would bring me back to my uncle. He asked me if I would like the pony he brought for me to ride. I was very fond of animals and this pony was lovely, such a pretty little thing. I asked him how far away from Uncle’s his place was, and he said thirty miles. Then he said, ‘You can have the pony to do what you want with if you will take the job.’ But I said that I couldn’t ride it. I had never ridden a horse. He said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll learn you in a few minutes.’ After tea we all went to bed. I hadn’t agreed to go but my brothers said they wished they had the chance.
Early next morning Grandma came to me and said, ‘You go, and if you don’t like it you can come back home again.’ Grandma had been the only mother I had known and I loved her, and I believed in her judgement. She
had taken us in and worked hard to feed and look after us when our mother had deserted us. So, on this darling old lady’s advice, I agreed to take the job. Grandma told the man. He had just returned with his horse and my pony from where they had been grazing tethered out for the night.
I had a problem now. I had to ride the pony and this troubled me. I was frightened, being so young – although I was big for my age I was still under nine years old. (I would turn nine in August but still had three months to go.) The man’s name was Bob – ‘Short for Robert,’ he said. ‘They all call me Bob.’ He put the saddle on the pony, then he helped me into it and led the pony around by the reins with me on its back. I grabbed the front of the saddle and held on. The pony didn’t mind a bit, and it didn’t seem too bad. Then Bob put the saddle on his horse and got on its back and trotted it around in a circle to show me how to rise to a trot. I got the idea of this, but not before I had fallen off several times, to the amusement of Uncle, Aunt, Grandma and the other kids.
So about ten o’clock that morning we set off. Grandma gave me a single red blanket. She put all my clothes and things in the blanket, wrapping it up like a swag. Then the man strapped it on to the front of the saddle. This made it safer for me to ride, at least I thought it did.
It was hard leaving Grandma and the rest of the kids. After we had been travelling for a while Bob suddenly wanted to go faster. He explained to me that when you made a horse go faster than trotting it was called cantering. He set his horse into a canter, and my pony responded at once, but I didn’t. I started to lose my balance and let go of the reins and held on like blazes to the saddle. The pony was off, going as fast as it could. We were on a bushtrack which wasn’t straight, and the pony didn’t bother to keep to it. A limb of a tree caught me, lifted me clean out of the saddle and dumped me on the ground. The pony didn’t bother to stop. I felt sure that it was glad to get rid of me.
The fall shook me up badly, but I wasn’t hurt. Bob told me to wait while he went after the pony. I waited a long time before Bob came back with the pony, and it took a long time before I plucked up enough courage to get back into the saddle. Finally I did and we were on our way, but we didn’t try to canter again.
It was past midday when Bob said we had better rest the horses. He picked a place where there was plenty of good grass for the horses and tethered them, and we had a rest ourselves and ate some food that Bob had with him. When we got going again I found that riding horseback wasn’t all fun. My bottom and legs were getting very sore, in fact so sore that I had to hold all of my weight up out of the saddle by standing up in the stirrups.
The sun was going down and it was near dark when we rested the horses again. Bob undid my blanket and spread it over my saddle. This was soft and would make it better for me. How sore I was. My legs were red raw. After awhile we got going again and arrived at Bob’s mother’s place about nine o’clock that night.
The old lady was waiting for us. I was too tired to notice much about the place, and after having some supper, I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. I never even knew the old lady had rubbed some kind of ointment on my sore legs and bottom until next morning.
6
CAVE ROCK
Next morning when I woke up I found that the house was a big mud brick humpy with a roof of corrugated iron. There was no ceiling and no floor boards, just a dirt floor. The place had a lovely setting: in a flat, surrounded by huge granite hills. The area was called Cave Rock and got its name from the many caves in the hills. These caves were a breeding ground for dingoes. The dingoes would go hundreds of feet into the caves to have their litters undisturbed, away from man. On these hills there were big granite boulders hundreds of feet high. You could climb up on top of some of them and see for miles.
The old lady was over seventy years old, and as Bob said, she could not see very well. She told me she had four sons and one daughter. The sons’ names were Alfred (usually called Alf), Alec, Bob, and the youngest was Jack. She said Alf and Jack were married and that they all went away for long periods, sometimes as long as four months. The boys, as she called them, worked together trapping brumbies in the bush, and breaking them in for riding and pulling a cart or plough. The old lady said that sometimes when they came home they drove a herd of horses, as many as sixty, and they did the breaking-in there.
I soon found that my job wasn’t going to be light. In fact, I had to keep going from daylight to dark. The old lady had some fourteen head of cattle, thirty sheep, four breeding sows and a boar pig, and a lot of fowls. She made me rub ointment on my sore legs and bottom three to four times each day, then on the third day I had to commence my duties.
I had to get up at daybreak and go and bring the cows in. Seven had to be milked. They were always turned into a hundred-acre paddock at night and brought in early in the morning. When the milking was over I had to turn them out to graze where they liked in the open country. Now I had never learnt to milk a cow and didn’t know how to go about it. When I had put the cows into their yard the old lady was waiting with the milk pails. She said that I must learn to milk, and the thought frightened me. The cows all had big, ugly, long horns and they looked at me like they would use them if I came near. The old lady called out, ‘Bail up, bail up,’ and the cows seemed to understand. The ones that had to be milked walked into their stalls and put their heads into a railing that the old lady called a bail. She then walked alongside the cow in each stall and pushed a vertical rail, that was bolted at the bottom but loose at the top, towards the cow’s neck until it was fairly firm, and then secured it at the top with a bolt that was hanging on a piece of string for the purpose.
I was told to stand close while the old lady was milking and take notice of the way that it was done. She milked two cows, then made me sit on the milking-stool with the milk-pail on the ground under the next cow to be milked. This frightened the wits out of me as I was afraid of cows. The old lady showed me how to squeeze the teats to make the milk come out. But try as I may, I couldn’t squeeze hard enough, being under nine years old, and a little too young for milking. So the old lady sent me up to the house to get Bob to help finish the milking. After milking we had breakfast.
I then had to let the sheep out of their small yard near the house. The old lady came with me. She told me the sheep had to be protected and someone had to be with them while they were grazing away from the home paddocks during the day on account of the dingoes. She had about thirty sheep, all sorts and sizes. She said that when they had had enough feed they would return to the house paddock so we just had to follow them until they came back themselves. She said that they were well trained. We were away for about two hours. I was told that I would have to do this every morning, and again in the afternoon from about three thirty until five o’clock. (After she was satisfied that I knew how to look after the sheep, the old lady used to have a rest each afternoon for about two hours.)
I was shown how to feed the pigs and the fowls, and told that I had to bring in the cows at night to be milked. When the boys were home they all used to help with the milking. I also had to get wood for the house. The old lady had a two-wheeled handcart and I had to take this out and pick up wood anywhere I could find it.
So I found that my light job, ‘just keeping the old lady company’, turned out to be a daylight to dark job that made me dog-tired, and many times I wished that I was back with Uncle, the kids and dear old Grandma.
The old lady used to put the milk into flat tin trays, each one holding about two gallons. She would then put these into a large bag cooler and let them stand like that for about twelve hours. By that time the cream would have come to the top of the milk and she would skim it off and make it into butter. Her daughter’s children used to come and take it away and sell it, and the money from this and the eggs that she sold were her only cash income.
The daughter’s children were teenagers and I didn’t like any of them. They used to bully me, and there were always two or three of them so there
wasn’t much I could do about it. They were nearly twice my size. They called me names such as ‘dopey’ and ‘kid’, and they used to pull my shirt out of my pants. I often wished I was older and bigger.
After I had been there about two weeks, Bob and his brothers went away on one of their trips and an old man called Albert came to stay with us. He was a nice old man and he used to help me with the milking, and sometimes he would help me get wood and feed the pigs. The old lady asked me how I liked the job after I had been there about a month. I told her I didn’t like it and wanted to go back to Uncle’s place. I said that was the arrangement that Bob had made with my Uncle and Grandma. She said, ‘You had better like staying here because you’ll not be leaving and don’t think you can run away because the blacks will get you before you get outside the paddock.’ That frightened me because I didn’t know that there were any Aboriginals around.
A few weeks later the boys came home and they brought a lot of horses with them. The old lady told Bob about me wanting to go home and he came to me and said, ‘Get that out of your mind, you’re here to stay whether you like it or not.’ So for a few days I waited, and then I asked Albert if he could write a letter for me. I couldn’t read or write, as I hadn’t had any schooling. He asked me who I wanted to write to. I told him Grandma, and he said, ‘Son, if I could I would, but like you I never had any schooling and can’t even write my name.’ He advised me not to say anything to anyone about writing home because ‘this mob’ (meaning the old lady and her sons) were a bad lot. He said that if I got the chance to get away from there to take it, but to be careful because if Bob caught me he would horse-whip me. He said, ‘I’m only staying here because I have nowhere else to go.’ He was too old to do hard work, and he got his food there, and was able to snare possums and sell their skins to buy tobacco and clothes.