by A B Facey
I told Dick that the next most important thing would be to get about two hundred acres of good grassland fenced in for the horses. ‘Then comes a decent house to put your wife and children in. These things will keep us busy for two to three months.’
Dick managed to get the necessary equipment – he borrowed some and bought some. While he was doing this I pegged out the site and grubbed out some trees and roots so we could use the plough and scoop without the risk of breaking them. We were four weeks putting the dam down and were lucky, as a few showers of rain fell but not enough to retard the work. In fact, the little rain that we got helped us, as it made the ground softer for us to plough and it stopped the dust. When we finished we had a dam of between one thousand and twelve hundred yards capacity.
We then went on to the fencing, enclosing two hundred acres of good grassland including the dam. The fence consisted of two barbed wires strung from tree to tree. Where the distance between trees was more than five yards, we put a post in. The barbed wire was nailed to the trees and posts. This kind of fence was called a ‘lightning fence’. It took us two weeks to complete – we received heavy rains which held us up for three days. The rain put water in the dam – it half-filled it in fact – so Dick’s water carting was over. He used to have to cart water three times a week.
Our next job was to build a decent home. We selected a spot and I suggested that we build the house out of bush timber with a galvanised, corrugated iron roof. My plan was for a structure with two ten-feet by twelve-feet rooms with nine-foot ceilings, a large kitchen twelve feet by twenty-four feet, making the overall size of the house twenty-four feet by twenty-two feet. The walls on the south and east sides were to be bush timber, and hessian whitewashed with a mixture of pipe-clay and lime with two percent English cement mixed with water. The north and west sides were to be made of iron because all the rough weather came from those directions. These walls would be whitewashed too.
I told the Rigolls I had helped an Irishman (Moran) to build a house, and before that, I had seen my uncle build one out of bush timber. That is where I got the ideas from. I told them, ‘A house like this will last at least ten years and by then you should be in a position to build a permanent home.’
The house that I suggested wouldn’t cost a lot of money – one hundred pounds or less for iron and hessian, nails and an oven. We could get all the timber we needed out of the bush and could buy three cheap barn doors and four windows fitted with glass and fasteners.
Both Dick and his wife agreed to my plans but asked, ‘Who is going to build it?’ I replied, ‘I will, with Dick to help me. We shouldn’t take more than three weeks and while Dick is getting the materials, I will be out cutting and shaping the timber, and digging the holes for the posts, and carting the timber. It won’t take long to put it up once we have everything on the spot.’ I said that we could build the fireplace and chimney out of granite rocks, using cement for mortar.
I was a little puzzled about Dick’s finance, and I asked him, when we were on our own, about how he would manage to pay for everything. He told me that his brother Len had a good job on the Goldfields and was financing the whole thing until it started to bring in enough money for both of them. Then Len would leave his job and shift down onto the farm. Dick said that at the moment they were okay – not rich but they had enough if they were careful and what I had suggested for the house was just what he wanted. He had written to Len and told him all about what we were doing. Dick said, ‘Len says that he is all the way behind us and to go straight ahead. He is extra happy about the dam.’
We worked hard and long hours on the house and had it finished by the middle of August. I will never forget the day we shifted in. Dick and Mrs Rigoll had a home-warming and Dick bought a few bottles of beer and wine and got drunk. He tried hard to get me to have a drink with him but to no avail.
Mrs Rigoll was on top of the world. She said that after living in tents for six months the house was lovely. I was very proud of it, especially the chimney. I had never built a chimney before, but after a lot of working out and changing around, it worked fine – without smoking. It had a fireplace on one side and an oven built on the other. It took up about eight feet of the south wall of the kitchen.
Now Dick and I started to get some land ready for cropping. This was hard manual work – we chopped down small trees and burned down the big ones. The timber was then left, as on the other farms where I had worked, to dry out ready for the burning season starting in February. Dick and I worked only six days a week as our urgent rush jobs were over. (While working on the dam and house we had worked all day every day, and as much as we could into the night.) We completed one hundred and forty acres of felling in eleven weeks.
While the felling was going on, I wrote to Grandma and told her I had decided to go for a trip to Victoria to see my sister Laura, who was still living with our uncle at Campbell’s Creek. I wanted to take Grandma with me and I told her that I would pay for her passage and expenses. Grandma wrote to me saying that she would love to go.
I asked Dick to let me go on the next trip to town for the stores, so that I could go to my uncle’s place – it was only five miles out from Wickepin – to see Grandma. Dick agreed. Grandma was overjoyed to see me, and to have the chance of seeing again all her old friends and relations, and her home town.
I wrote to the State Steamship Company and sent them a deposit for two first class fares to Port Adelaide. (That is the way we agreed to travel because Grandma had some relations in the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia who we wanted to see.) When I got a reply to say we were booked to sail the first week of December, I sent Grandma twenty pounds for her to get some clothes or whatever she wanted for the trip. I told her in the letter what day we were to sail. I didn’t get a reply but didn’t worry because the only way we got our mail was when we went into town or a neighbour went in.
The end of the third week in November, I finished with the Rigolls and Dick paid me up and took me into Wickepin. He had asked me to give him a statement as to what he should do when I left, so I told him the following and he wrote it down: ‘During the summer months, that is December and January, get as much ring-barking done as you can. That will kill the trees and give the natural grass a better chance to grow freely, increase the feed for the stock and also make the trees easier to burn later. And while you are doing the ring-barking, cut posts from all the suitable trees you come across, for fencing in the winter months after you get your crop in.
‘Now you must be ready to start burning off the land we have chopped down, in February. You will want two or three men to help you do this, so each time you go to town try and make arrangements for them to start, or – if you can manage the finance – get a man just after Christmas. He can work on the ring-barking and post-cutting as well as helping with the burning – it would be money well spent. (Two pounds a week and keep would be good wages for this kind of work.)
‘Now, when burning off, first of all burn all the stumps down to ground level and be careful that you don’t burn all the other wood up before you finish this – otherwise you will have to cart more wood to finish burning the stumps. A good idea is to mark out an area, then go all over it and pack wood on all the stumps. When all the loose wood burns shovel the burnt coal off and pack more wood in. Keep doing this until all the stumps are burnt to the ground level, then you can pack whatever wood is left onto the fires and clear it all up.
‘Before you start to plough the cleared land, you will have to go over it with a shovel and fill in all the holes that have been caused by some of the dry stumps that have burnt down into the ground.
‘Now when the clearing is finished you will have to buy four good, medium draught horses (I advise to buy four young ones about four years old). Four horses will pull a three-furrow stump-jump plough. You will also have to buy the plough and you will want a drill. A sixteen-run drill is the best and four horses will pull the drill with the harrows behind easily.’
; I told Dick that when he had done all of these things he would be well on the way to having a real wheat farm. I also advised him to write to the Agricultural Department for all the available books on wheat growing, which would have the times and kinds of wheat to grow. Then I said, ‘I don’t know what I will do when I get back from this trip but I hope to see you then.’
40
RETURN
I rode out to Wickepin to see when Grandma would be ready. The boat was to sail at eleven o’clock one morning in the first week in December. When I arrived at Uncle’s place I got the shock of my life. Grandma wasn’t coming. When I asked her why she said that she was too old to travel, and no matter what I said or did she wouldn’t change her mind. After about two hours I went back to Wickepin, feeling very disappointed, and caught the next train to Perth.
The shipping company refunded me the money I had paid for Grandma’s fare and although I was disappointed, I had a wonderful trip on the boat, the Dimboola. The sea was calm and a beautiful blue. I dined at the Captain’s table.
I travelled through South Australia to Ballarat, then took a train to Castlemaine in Victoria. The train that went through Campbells Creek left Adelaide about five o’clock that evening (I sent Laura a telegram from Adelaide to say that I was coming by the train), arriving at Campbells Creek near midday the next day. To my surprise Laura was there to meet me. I was very excited. I hadn’t seen her since I was four years old, and I had no idea what she looked like, but she knew me. She was about twenty and had grown into a beautiful woman.
I stayed with Laura until after Christmas and into the New Year of 1912, and we travelled around Castlemaine and Barkers Creek where Grandma used to live. I remembered the old place but I didn’t know I had so many relations. We also went to Bendigo because we had relations there.
During this time that I was at Laura’s I decided to travel up to Sydney to see the much talked-about Johnson–Burns fight that was being held up there at the Sydney Stadium.
I caught the train, first to Melbourne, and then up to Sydney. I didn’t know a soul, but on the train to Sydney I met a young chap from Sydney, Peter Malone, who had been in Melbourne to visit an uncle. He lived at Rushcutters Bay, not far from the stadium, and invited me to stay at his place. His mother was a wonderful woman, and his father was away working in the bush.
I stayed with them for a few days and they showed me around Sydney. The fight itself turned out to be a complete waste of time. I was never so disgusted in all my life. It wasn’t sport at all – they were both nasty and spiteful. It was a vicious fight, and an absolute waste of my whole trip.
After I returned to Campbells Creek and the Christmas holidays were over, I took Laura down to our Aunt Lizzie’s place in Footscray and we stayed with her until I sailed from Port Melbourne for the West again.
This was the best holiday I had ever had. I gave my sister a wonderful time – we saw all of Melbourne’s suburbs and beauty spots, and all of the shows, pictures and everything we could think of. When I sailed from Port Melbourne on the S.S. Orsova Laura was very sorry. I wanted her to come back with me to the West, but she would have had to leave Uncle Best who was a cripple and she said she couldn’t let him down. That was typical of Laura.
The trip back was very rough after we left Port Adelaide. Although the Orsova was a twelve thousand ton vessel, the sea tossed her like a cork. I got terribly seasick and was glad to arrive at Fremantle.
After getting off the boat I went straight home to my mother’s place, and found that my brothers were still at home and were both still in work. I asked Bill if he had any jobs for me but he said that things were very slack and there were a lot of men out of work. He was very sorry, but he couldn’t help me.
On the next Friday night I went to boxing school. They all said that I had grown and jokingly said I would be a heavy-weight in two to three years. I had a long talk with Mr Burns and he said that, owing to the number of unemployed, I would find it hard getting a job in Perth. He wanted to know if I had done any boxing since I’d been away. I explained that I had been in the bush and hadn’t had a chance. I then asked him about a set of six-ounce boxing gloves and he offered me a good second-hand set with a platform punching ball and two skipping ropes – two pounds for the lot, which was cheap. The top platform board went with the ball and could be put up in a few minutes anywhere in a hall or shed. I bought the equipment as both Mr Burns and George Hickling advised me to keep doing punch ball, skipping and exercises whenever I could. They also told me to get someone to put the boxing gloves on and spar with me whenever possible, and not to forget to try all the things they had taught me. I promised them I would and then I left.
I stayed home for a few days, paying my board and helping Mother. Then one morning there was an advertisement in the newspaper. The Western Australian Water Supply wanted men to go into the country, fencing-in Government dams, rabbit-proofing, and fixing dam pumps. The ad said that only experienced men were wanted and that an understanding of horses was an advantage. Applicants were to apply that day at the Water Supply Offices in James Street, Perth.
I got ready and went in straight away. I got there about eight a.m. but there must have been about thirty men there already. None had been called in for an interview up to that point, so I waited. I went to the office counter and gave the clerk my name. He looked hard at me and said, ‘Only men with experience wanted, son.’ I replied, ‘That’s all right.’ He then said, ‘The job’s in the bush up in the outer wheat-belt.’ I just nodded my head and went and sat down with the men who were waiting.
About half an hour later they commenced to call names (a lot had come since me). As each man’s name was called he went into an office on the other side of the room, and a few minutes later came out and left. This went on for about an hour, then suddenly my name was called. It gave me a start. I went into the office and a man was writing something. He looked up suddenly and said, ‘Yes?’ I said, ‘I want a job.’ He looked at me and said, ‘What do you know about horses and fencing?’ I said that I was used to horses and I understood about fencing. He said, ‘This work is in the bush. Have you any references?’ I said, ‘Not in writing but I have had a lot of experience working for farmers and new settlers and for my uncle who is a vet.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘what is your uncle’s name?’ I told him, ‘Archie McCall – he is at Wickepin and he has a farm there.’ My uncle’s name made him sit up. He looked at me and said, ‘I know him very well.’
The man seemed interested now. He said, ‘We have a gang of five men working east of Wickepin in the Harrismith District. They have two lovely-looking horses – I don’t know what’s happened but they won’t pull the empty cart. By what we’ve been told they’ve become rank jibs. Do you think you could do anything with them?’ I said that I would like to have a try and that I got along fine with horses. I said that perhaps the men were knocking them about – they become very nasty if they’re treated cruelly. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you wait out there I will see you again later on.’
A lot more men went in to be interviewed and came out and left, and finally there were only five of us still there. Two were called in for further questions, then one went away and the other sat down to wait further. I was called in and asked more questions about how I would handle the horses. The Water Supply man was happy with my answers and said that he had decided to give me the job.
Then he suddenly asked, ‘What is your age?’ I told him that I was seventeen years old last August. He then told me that his name was Sublet and he gave me an order to travel to Wickepin via Narrogin, leaving Perth on the Tuesday evening train. He said that a man named Johnson would be there to meet me with a buggy and pair, and drive me out to the gang. He told me that he had selected two other men who would be replacements for another gang. With that he shook my hand and said that he would see me soon as he made an inspection every few weeks.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘remember that you will be completely in charge of those two horses. I hope tha
t you’re going to be a success.’ I started to leave when he called to me. I turned back and he said, ‘I never told you anything about wages. You will be paid ten shillings each day, Saturday and Sunday included, as the horses have to be looked after every day. How does that suit you?’ I replied, ‘That would be fine, Mr Sublet.’
41
SETTLING IN
So now, with a job with the Western Australian Water Supply, I was going back to the Wickepin area. It seemed a strange coincidence that both the jobs I got through advertisements were in the Wickepin District. Although the actual place of my new job was Harrismith, the Water Supply Depot was two miles east of Wickepin.
I arrived at Wickepin on Wednesday and Tom Johnson was there to take me out to join the gang. We drove out to the depot and he said, ‘We will have some lunch before I take you out to the gang. They’re fencing a Government dam about twenty-five miles from here, so I will camp out there tonight and drive back tomorrow morning.’