which I sneaked from the cook and hid under my bunk and had the foresight
to refill from the cask last night, under cover of warm, still,

suffocating darkness. Or was it the night before last? Anyhow, it will be
sneaked from me to-day, and from the crawler who will collar it to-morrow,

and `touched' and `lifted' and `collared' and recovered by the cook,
and sneaked back again, and cause foul language, and fights, maybe,

till we `cut-out'.
"No; we didn't have sweet dreams of home and mother, gentle poet --

nor yet of babbling brooks and sweethearts, and love's young dream.
We are too dirty and dog-tired when we tumble down, and have too little time

to sleep it off. We don't want to dream those dreams out here --
they'd only be nightmares for us, and we'd wake to remember.

We MUSTN'T remember here.
"At the edge of the timber a great galvanised-iron shed, nearly all roof,

coming down to within 6ft. 6in. of the `board' over the `shoots'.
Cloud of red dust in the dead timber behind, going up -- noon-day dust.

Fence covered with skins; carcases being burned; blue smoke going straight up
as in noonday. Great glossy (greasy-glossy) black crows `flopping' around.

"The first syren has gone. We hurry in single files
from opposite ends of rouseabouts' and shearers' huts

(as the paths happen to run to the shed) gulping hot tea or coffee
from a pint-pot in one hand and biting at a junk of brownie in the other.

"Shed of forty hands. Shearers rush the pens and yank out sheep
and throw them like demons; grip them with their knees, take up machines,

jerk the strings; and with a rattling whirring roar the great machine-shed
starts for the day.

"`Go it, you ---- tigers!' yells a tar-boy. `Wool away!' `Tar!' `Sheep Ho!'
We rush through with a whirring roar till breakfast time.

"We seize our tin plate from the pile, knife and fork from the candle-box,
and crowd round the camp-oven to jab out lean chops, dry as chips,

boiled in fat. Chops or curry-and-rice. There is some growling and cursing.
We slip into our places without removing our hats. There's no time

to hunt for mislaid hats when the whistle goes. Row of hat brims, level,
drawn over eyes, or thrust back -- according to characters or temperaments.

Thrust back denotes a lucky absence of brains, I fancy. Row of forks
going up, or jabbing, or poised, loaded, waiting for last mouthful

to be bolted.
"We pick up, sweep, tar, sew wounds, catch sheep that break from the pens,

jump down and pick up those that can't rise at the bottom of the shoots,
`bring-my-combs-from-the-grinder-will-yer,' laugh at dirty jokes,

and swear -- and, in short, are the `will-yer' slaves, body and soul,
of seven, six, five, or four shearers, according to the distance

from the rolling tables.
"The shearer on the board at the shed is a demon. He gets so much a hundred;

we, 25s. a week. He is not supposed, by the rules of the shed, the Union,
and humanity, to take a sheep out of the pen AFTER the bell goes

(smoke-ho, meals, or knock-off), but his watch is hanging on the post,
and he times himself to get so many sheep out of the pen BEFORE

the bell goes, and ONE MORE -- the `bell-sheep' -- as it is ringing.
We have to take the last fleece to the table and leave our board clean.

We go through the day of eight hours in runs of about an hour and 20 minutes
between smoke-ho's -- from 6 to 6. If the shearers shore 200 instead of 100,

they'd get 2 Pounds a day instead of 1 Pound, and we'd have twice as much
work to do for our 25s. per week. But the shearers are racing each other

for tallies. And it's no use kicking. There is no God here and no Unionism
(though we all have tickets). But what am I growling about?

I've worked from 6 to 6 with no smoke-ho's for half the wages,
and food we wouldn't give the sheep-ho dog. It's the bush growl,

born of heat, flies, and dust. I'd growl now if I had a thousand a year.
We MUST growl, swear, and some of us drink to d.t.'s, or go mad sober.

"Pants and shirts stiff with grease as though a couple of pounds
of soft black putty were spread on with a painter's knife.

"No, gentle bard! -- we don't sing at our work. Over the whirr and roar
and hum all day long, and with iteration that is childish and irritating

to the intelligent greenhand, float unthinkable adjectives and adverbs,
addressed to jumbucks, jackaroos, and mates indiscriminately. And worse words

for the boss over the board -- behind his back.
"I came of a Good Christian Family -- perhaps that's why I went to the Devil.

When I came out here I'd shrink from the man who used foul language.
In a short time I used it with the worst. I couldn't help it.

"That's the way of it. If I went back to a woman's country again
I wouldn't swear. I'd forget this as I would a nightmare.

That's the way of it. There's something of the larrikin about us.
We don't exist individually. Off the board, away from the shed

(and each other) we are quiet -- even gentle.
"A great-horned ram, in poor condition, but shorn of a heavy fleece,

picks himself up at the foot of the `shoot', and hesitates,
as if ashamed to go down to the other end where the ewes are.

The most ridiculous object under Heaven.
"A tar-boy of fifteen, of the bush, with a mouth so vile that a street-boy,

same age (up with a shearing uncle), kicks him behind --
having proved his superiority with his fists before the shed started.

Of which unspeakable little fiend the roughest shearer of a rough shed
was heard to say, in effect, that if he thought there was

the slightest possibility of his becoming the father of such a boy
he'd ---- take drastic measures to prevent the possibility of his becoming

a proud parent at all.
"Twice a day the cooks and their familiars carry buckets

of oatmeal-water and tea to the shed, two each on a yoke.
We cry, `Where are you coming to, my pretty maids?'

"In ten minutes the surfaces of the buckets are black with flies.
We have given over trying to keep them clear. We stir the living cream aside

with the bottoms of the pints, and guzzle gallons, and sweat it out again.
Occasionally a shearer pauses and throws the perspiration from his forehead

in a rain.
"Shearers live in such a greedy rush of excitement that often

a strong man will, at a prick of the shears, fall in a death-like faint
on the board.

"We hate the Boss-of-the-Board as the shearers' `slushy' hates
the shearers' cook. I don't know why. He's a very fair boss.

"He refused to put on a traveller yesterday, and the traveller
knocked him down. He walked into the shed this morning

with his hat back and thumbs in waistcoat -- a tribute to man's weakness.
He threatened to dismiss the traveller's mate, a bigger man,

for rough shearing -- a tribute to man's strength. The shearer said nothing.
We hate the boss because he IS boss, but we respect him

because he is a strong man. He is as hard up as any of us, I hear,
and has a sick wife and a large, small family in Melbourne. God judge us all!

"There is a gambling-school here, headed by the shearers' cook.
After tea they head-'em, and advance cheques are passed from hand to hand,

and thrown in the dust until they are black. When it's too dark to see
with nose to the ground, they go inside and gamble with cards.

Sometimes they start on Saturday afternoon, heading 'em till dark,
play cards all night, start again heading 'em Sunday afternoon,

play cards all Sunday night, and sleep themselves sane on Monday,
or go to work ghastly -- like dead men.

"Cry of `Fight'; we all rush out. But there isn't much fighting.
Afraid of murdering each other. I'm beginning to think that most bush crime

is due to irritation born of dust, heat, and flies.
"The smothering atmosphere shudders when the sun goes down.

We call it the sunset breeze.
"Saturday night or Sunday we're invited into the shearers' hut.

There are songs that are not hymns and recitations and speeches
that are not prayers.