A Fortunate Life (Puffin story books) Page 2

  I’ll never forget the first night we spent there. We got settled for the night, beds fixed and made, and a nice fire going in the big fireplace. Aunt Alice got out the lamps, filled them with kerosene and lit them. Then Aunt and Grandma fixed a meal, mostly bread and jam. We were all sitting at the table when suddenly there was a terrible scream. Two of the girls jumped on to the table pointing to the floor where a big black snake, over six feet long, raised its head about eight inches from the ground. Grandma said, ‘Don’t move! Stay still!’ She walked backwards through the door, saying, ‘Leave it to me.’ Then she appeared again with a long-handled shovel in her hands. She walked across the floor as if she was going to pass the snake, then suddenly turned quickly, and cut the snake’s head off with the blade of the shovel.

  We kids were very happy living here. It was so different to Kalgoorlie. There was plenty of water and wood; we only had to fetch the wood out of the bush. We lived there until the end of August, and one day, just after my eighth birthday, Uncle and my brothers came. They had finished the railway work, and Uncle had come to make arrangements to start farming his land.

  So early one morning in the first week of September 1902, we packed all our belongings on to a cart Uncle had purchased, and left the old mud house for Uncle’s ‘dream land’. The land was about one hundred and forty miles by road from York, so we could do it in short stages.

  But the trip was hard. Only one person was allowed to ride on the cart and that was the driver. Uncle, Aunt and Grandma did all the driving while the rest of us walked. We averaged about ten miles a day while travelling, but there were about five days when it rained and we camped on those days, so the trip took us nearly three weeks. We kids went without boots—it was Grandma’s idea, as we couldn’t afford to buy new ones when the ones we had were worn out.

  Uncle didn’t have much money but he said there were ways of making some until we got the farm going. He explained that there were thousands of possums in the bush, their skins worth a shilling each. Also, there were hundreds of kangaroos and their meat was good to eat. He intended to buy a kangaroo dog. All these possibilities we discussed at meal times along the way.

  The night before we expected to arrive at Uncle’s land, Uncle, Aunt, Grandma and Eric made two hundred possum snares out of string and wire under Uncle’s directions. We were camped at a place called Gillimanning—an Aboriginal name. We had spent the rest of the money we had in the last town, Pingelly, purchasing stores such as flour, baking powder, golden syrup and jam.

  We were up early the next morning, very excited. We were soon to see this wonderful land that Uncle Archie spoke about so much. About two hours later we arrived, and Aunt Alice, Uncle and Grandma left us sitting under a shady tree while they found a suitable place to camp. About an hour later they came back and we moved to the place and Uncle and my brothers set about putting up the tents and making a fireplace for the women to do the cooking. Towards evening they set some snares for possums. We were all very tired and went to bed early that night. But just when everything seemed quiet, there was a terrible howl; long, sharp and very clear. I could feel a shiver go up my spine. Then a few minutes later another one farther away, and another closer. The howling was made by dingoes, and went on all night.

  We spent the next few days setting snares and the first morning Uncle and the boys caught twenty-two possums. They skinned them and pegged the skins out on big trees. Uncle would go into town every month and sell the skins to buy food. This was our only way of existing. There wasn’t any other income. They had to be nailed at least six feet off the ground to stop the dingoes pulling them off. They came around a lot for the first few weeks. We kids always stuck together, for we were all scared stiff of the dingoes.

  Uncle had bought a kangaroo dog while we were in Pingelly. 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 tasted very nice. Up to this part of my life I hadn’t been given much meat because Grandma couldn’t afford it.

  Uncle Archie and my brothers were busy building a house. They cut hundreds of poles and carted them to where they intended to build. Then they dug two trenches and put in the poles side by side. 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. They put up two dividing walls, 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 Western Australian bush.)

  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. When the building and thatching were finished, Uncle and the boys dug out clay from the creek which ran through the property, and pushed it into the cracks of the walls to make the place nice and weather-proof.

  After making the house, Uncle and my brothers carted home some large granite rocks. They built a big fireplace in the main room, then they built a large table out of bush timber, and made two long benches for us to sit on. That was our home.

  Then Uncle and my brothers started to work on the land, chopping small trees down and ring-barking the big ones, ready for burning down the next year. Bushfires were a menace and we had to take great care. On the first of March that year, 1903, Uncle put a fire to clear the areas that they had chopped down and we all had to pitch in and help with the clearing. Our boots were worn out and we got used to going without them; we got our feet burnt badly at times.

  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. It was beautiful water.

  Three

  When Uncle was away on one of his trips to town, he was approached by a man who wanted a boy to be a companion for his old mother while he was away from home, as he and his three brothers were away for long periods. They did all sorts of contract work, clearing and fencing and horse-breaking. His mother was nearly blind, and he said that the boy wouldn’t have much work to do.

  Grandma told me that Uncle would like me to go. The man would give me five shillings a month and keep, including clothes. He would be coming in a few days to see if Uncle had managed to talk her into letting me take the job. I told Grandma I didn’t want to go.

  About a week later the man came. His name was Bob, and was about thirty-five years old, with a big black beard. He was riding a horse and leading a very pretty pony with a saddle on ready for me. I told Grandma I didn’t like the look of him, but she explained that I would be helping Uncle if I went.

  The man said that if I 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 liked the pony he brought for me to ride. I had never ridden a horse but 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 yet, 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 home again.’ I loved Grandma and believed in her judgement She had worked hard to look after us when our mother deserted us. So, on this darling old lady’s advice, I agreed to take the job.

  I had a problem now—I had to ride the pony. I was frightened—although I was big for my age I was still under nine years old. Bob put the saddle on the pony, then helped me into it and I grabbed the front of the saddle and held on. Then Bob put the saddle on his horse 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.

  After we had been travelling for a while Bob set his horse into a canter, and my pony responded at once, but I didn’t. We were on a bush-track and suddenly a tree limb caught me, lifted me clean out of the saddle and dumped me on the ground. The pony didn’t stop. I felt sure that it was glad to get rid of me. The fall shook me up badly, though I wasn’t hurt, and it took a long time before I plucked up enough courage to get back into the saddle.

  It was past midday when we had a rest and ate some food. When we got going again I found that riding horseback wasn’t all fun. My bottom was so sore that I had to hold all my weight out of the saddle by standing in the stirrups.

  The sun was going down when we finally arrived at Bob’s mother’s place. My legs were red raw. The old lady was waiting for us. I was too tired to notice much about the place, and after some supper, I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. I never even knew the old lady had rubbed some ointment on my sore legs and bottom until next morning.

  When I woke up I found that the house was a big mud-brick humpy with a roof of corrugated iron. 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, which was a breeding ground for dingoes.

  The old lady told me she had four sons and one daughter. The sons’ names were Alf, Alec, Bob, and Jack. Alf and Jack were married. They went away for long periods, sometimes as long as four months, trapping brumbies in the bush, and breaking them in.

  I soon found that my job wasn’t going to be light. In fact, I had to keep going from daylight to dark. Many times I wished I was back with Uncle, the kids and dear old Grandma.

  The old lady had fourteen head of cattle, thirty sheep, four breeding sows and a boar, and a lot of fowls. I had to get up at daybreak and bring the cows in. I had never learnt to milk a cow and didn’t know how to go about it. The cows all had big, ugly, long horns and frightened the wits out of me. When I had put them into their yard the old lady was waiting with the milk pails. She called out, ‘Bail up, bail up,’ and the cows walked into their stalls and put their heads into a railing that the old lady called a bail.

  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, but I couldn’t squeeze the teats hard enough to make the milk come out. So the old lady sent me up to the house to get Bob to help finish the milking. The old lady used to make butter from the milk and the money from this and the eggs she sold were her only cash income.

  Then I had to let the sheep out of their small yard near the house after breakfast. The old lady told me someone had to be with the sheep while they were grazing away from the home paddocks during the day on account of the dingoes. When they had had enough feed they would return to the house paddock; I just had to follow them until they came back themselves. We were away for about two hours. I would have to do this every morning, and again in the afternoon.

  I was shown how to feed the pigs and the fowls, and to get wood for the house. The old lady had a two-wheeled hand-cart and I had to take this out and pick up wood anywhere I could find it.

  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 nice and used to help me with the milking, and feeding the pigs. The old lady asked me how I liked the job. I told her I didn’t like it, and wanted to go back to Uncle’s place. 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 badly.

  A few weeks later the boys came home and the old lady told Bob about me wanting to go home. He came to me and said, ‘Get that out of your mind, you’re here to stay whether you like it or not.’ I waited a few days, and then I asked Albert if he could write a letter to Grandma for me. I couldn’t read or write, as I hadn’t had any schooling. He said, ‘Son, if I could I would, but I can’t even write my own name.’ He advised me not to say anything about writing home because the old lady and her sons were a bad lot. He said that if I got the chance to get away 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. I could see no hope of getting away for the time being so I carried on.

  I had my ninth birthday while I was there. I knew that dear old Grandma would remember, and didn’t I wish I was with her. But I didn’t get any letters; this puzzled me as Grandma never missed wishing me a happy birthday and had always given me some small present.

  As the weeks and months passed by, the weather became warmer and the grass began to dry off. One day the boys came home with a mob of horses, and about twenty head of cattle. They had with them two blacks and two other men. The whites were cousins, old Albert told me. The day after they arrived they started roping the horses and getting them used to being handled. When the animals were all broken-in they were branded, then driven to the nearest market to be sold.

  On Christmas Eve 1903 the old lady’s daughter and two grand-daughters came, along with several other women and girls who were strangers to me. They were soon busy preparing a Christmas feast. Cases of beer, rum, wine and whisky arrived. Old Albert told me they would all get drunk, and end up in an all-round brawl.

  That night all the men and boys slept in the shed, and the women and girls had the house. Next morning I took the sheep out to graze, arriving back near midday. Already the spree was in full swing and the men were all getting too much to drink.

  We all sat down to eat but dinner had only been going about ten minutes when one of the men knocked one end of the table over, breaking crockery, glasses and bottles of beer. One of the other men called him a ‘so and so’, then a brawl started, and the women all took sides. I grabbed as much food as I could carry, and got out. I went behind the shed under a nice shady tree and finished my dinner.

  The yelling and swearing up at the house was awful. They were knocking each other down, women and all. I had never seen people carry on like this before, so I did my jobs and kept out of the way as much as possible.

  One of the Aboriginals came to see me—the first black man I had ever talked to. He said he didn’t touch any grog. He was about twenty years old and he hadn’t had any schooling either. His mother had died when he was born and he had been brought up in the bush by wild blacks. He told me to call him Charlie. He could do almost anything with horses and had been working with the boys on and off for about three years. They gave him a few pounds every time they sold a large mob of horses. We went together to the house after we had done the milking, and found men and some women lying around, inside and outside, all hopelessly drunk. We got some more food and had our meal in the stable and slept the night there.

  Next day was a day of sore heads. All the visitors had gone and things were very quiet. Charlie helped me all day and I felt for the first time since I left Uncle’s place that I had a friend. He was a real pal to me. He helped me and showed me so much. We had breakfast and the midday meal with the old lady. She never mentioned anything about the brawl. Alec was the first of the boys to appear. He had two badly blackened eyes and bits of skin knocked off his knuckles. Then Bob came out, and he was as bad as Alec. For the next few days the men did nothing, only lay around until all their bruises were better.

  The boys all went away again in the New Year, so the old lady, Albert and I were the only ones left The weeks went by slowly. I was now in rags; I hadn’t been given any wages and had no boots. Then one day Albert went to town, and brought home for me two pairs of trousers. He bought them out of money he made by selling possum skins. He said it pained him to see me so neglected. He would have bought me some boots but he didn’t have enough money. He was very good to
me and I felt grateful to the old man.

  The boys had been gone about twelve weeks. The old lady hadn’t heard from them and Albert said that they hadn’t been away that long before. I heard him say to the old lady that something must have gone wrong.

  Then about three weeks later, a man came on horseback to the house to talk to the old lady. Albert said to me, ‘That man is a policeman. Tell him nothing. The boys are in trouble; those horses and cattle they have been bringing home—well, some of them have been stolen.’

  The policeman stayed with us that night. When I was putting the cows into the yard next morning, he asked me how many cows they had when I came there first, and did I see, at any time, many horses and cattle. I told him about the horse-breaking and branding. He asked me if any of the men had told me not to say anything if I was questioned and I told him no. I never said anything about the warning that old Albert had given me. He then asked me how they treated me, and I told him rotten. The policeman then asked what they would do to me if they knew what I had told him. I said that they would half kill me, that they were very cruel. He said, ‘Don’t worry, they will never know and thanks, you have given me a clue.’

  I asked the policeman if he ever went near Uncle’s place. He said that his district didn’t go that far. I said I would like to get word to my Grandma to come and get me, as they were not paying me my wages or giving me any clothing or boots and the work was too hard. He promised to try and get word to Grandma.

  After the policeman rode off I went to the house for something and the old lady was crying. Old Albert told me that Alec and Jack were in gaol and Bob and two of their relations had gone bush until things cooled down. He said that Charlie had also cleared out with the other black man called Ben.