Mother brought up the rear -- but soon worked to the front --
with a baking-dish and a big spoon. The old lady -- she wasn't old then --

had a deep-rooted prejudice that she could do everything
better than anybody else, and that the selection and all on it

would go to the dogs if she wasn't there to look after it.
There was no jolting that idea out of her. She not only believed

that she could do anything better than anybody, and hers was
the only right or possible way, and that we'd do everything upside down

if she wasn't there to do it or show us how -- but she'd try
to do things herself or insist on making us do them her way,

and that led to messes and rows. She was excited now,
and took command at once. She wasn't tongue-tied, and had no impediment

in her speech.
"`Don't throw up dust! -- Stop throwing up dust! --

Do you want to smother 'em? -- Don't throw up so much water! --
Only throw up a pannikin at a time! -- D'yer want to drown 'em?

Bang! Keep on banging, Joe! -- Look at that child! Run, someone! -- run!
you, Jack! -- D'yer want the child to be stung to death? --

Take her inside! . . . Dy' hear me? . . . Stop throwing up dust, Tom!
(To father.) You're scaring 'em away! Can't you see they want to settle?'

[Father was getting mad and yelping: `For Godsake shettup and go inside.']
`Throw up water, Jack! Throw up -- Tom! Take that bucket from him

and don't make such a fool of yourself before the children!
Throw up water! Throw -- keep on banging, children! Keep on banging!'

[Mother put her faith in banging.] `There! -- they're off! You've lost 'em!
I knew you would! I told yer -- keep on bang--!'

"A bee struck her in the eye, and she grabbed at it!
"Mother went home -- and inside.

"Father was good at bees -- could manage them like sheep when he got to know
their ideas. When the swarm settled, he sent us for the old washing stool,

boxes, bags, and so on; and the whole time he was fixing the bees
I noticed that whenever his back was turned to us his shoulders would jerk up

as if he was cold, and he seemed to shudder from inside, and now and then
I'd hear a grunting sort of whimper like a boy that was just starting

to blubber. But father wasn't weeping, and bees weren't stinging him;
it was the bee that stung mother that was tickling father. When he went

into the house, mother's other eye had bunged for sympathy. Father was always
gentle and kind in sickness, and he bathed mother's eyes and rubbed mud on,

but every now and then he'd catch inside, and jerk and shudder,
and grunt and cough. Mother got wild, but presently the humour of it

struck her, and she had to laugh, and a rum laugh it was,
with both eyes bunged up. Then she got hysterical, and started to cry,

and father put his arm round her shoulder and ordered us out of the house.
"They were very fond of each other, the old people were, under it all --

right up to the end. . . . Ah, well!"
Mitchell pulled the swags out of a bunk, and started to fasten

the nose-bags on.
Andy Page's Rival

Tall and freckled and sandy,
Face of a country lout;

That was the picture of Andy --
Middleton's rouseabout.

On Middleton's wide dominions
Plied the stock-whip and shears;

Hadn't any opinions ------
And he hadn't any "ideers" -- at least, he said so himself --

except as regarded anything that looked to him like what he called
"funny business", under which heading he catalogued tyranny, treachery,

interference with the liberty of the subject by the subject,
"blanky" lies, or swindles -- all things, in short,

that seemed to his slow understanding dishonest, mean or paltry;
most especially, and above all, treachery to a mate.

THAT he could never forget. Andy was uncomfortably "straight".
His mind worked slowly and his decisions were, as a rule, right and just;

and when he once came to a conclusionconcerning any man or matter,
or decided upon a course of action, nothing short of an earthquake

or a Nevertire cyclone could move him back an inch -- unless a conviction
were severelyshaken, and then he would require as much time

to "back" to his starting point as he did to come to the decision.
Andy had come to a conclusion with regard to a selector's daughter

-- name, Lizzie Porter -- who lived (and slaved) on her father's selection,
near the township corner of the run on which Andy was a general "hand".

He had been in the habit for several years of callingcasually
at the selector's house, as he rode to and fro between

the station and the town, to get a drink of water and exchange the time of day
with old Porter and his "missus". The conversation concerned the drought,

and the likelihood or otherwise of their ever going to get a little rain;
or about Porter's cattle, with an occasional enquiry concerning,

or reference to, a stray cow belonging to the selection,
but preferring the run; a little, plump, saucy, white cow, by-the-way,

practically pure white, but referred to by Andy -- who had eyes
like a blackfellow -- as "old Speckledy". No one else

could detect a spot or speckle on her at a casual glance.
Then after a long bovine silence, which would have been painfully embarrassing

in any other society, and a tilting of his cabbage-tree hat forward,
which came of tickling and scratching the sun-blotched nape of his neck

with his little finger, Andy would slowly say: "Ah, well. I must be gettin'.
So-long, Mr. Porter. So-long, Mrs. Porter." And, if SHE were in evidence

-- as she generally was on such occasions -- "So-long, Lizzie."
And they'd shout: "So-long, Andy," as he galloped off from the jump.

Strange that those shy, quiet, gentle-voiced bushmen seem
the hardest and most reckless riders.

But of late his horse had been seen hanging up outside Porter's
for an hour or so after sunset. He smoked, talked over

the results of the last drought (if it happened to rain),
and the possibilities of the next one, and played cards with old Porter;

who took to winking, automatically, at his "old woman", and nudging,
and jerking his thumb in the direction of Lizzie when her back was turned,

and Andy was scratching the nape of his neck and staring at the cards.
Lizzie told a lady friend of mine, years afterwards, how Andy

popped the question; told it in her quiet way -- you know Lizzie's quiet way
(something of the old, privileged house-cat about her);

never a sign in expression or tone to show whether she herself
saw or appreciated the humour of anything she was telling,

no matter how comical it might be. She had witnessed two tragedies,
and had found a dead man in the bush, and related the incidents

as though they were common-place.
It happened one day -- after Andy had been coming two or three times a week

for about a year -- that she found herself sitting with him
on a log of the woodheap, in the cool of the evening,

enjoying the sunsetbreeze. Andy's arm had got round her --
just as it might have gone round a post he happened to be leaning against.

They hadn't been talking about anything in particular. Andy said
he wouldn't be surprised if they had a thunderstorm before mornin' --

it had been so smotherin' hot all day.
Lizzie said, "Very likely."

Andy smoked a good while, then he said: "Ah, well! It's a weary world."
Lizzie didn't say anything.

By-and-bye Andy said: "Ah, well; it's a lonely world, Lizzie."
"Do you feel lonely, Andy?" asked Lizzie, after a while.

"Yes, Lizzie; I do."
Lizzie let herself settle, a little, against him, without either

seeming to notice it, and after another while she said, softly:
"So do I, Andy."

Andy knocked the ashes from his pipe very slowly and deliberately,