MORNING
That loving Laughing Land, where life is fresh and clean,
Where the rivers flow all summer, and the grass is always green.
—Henry Lawson.
NORAH!”
“James?” said Norah, with polite inquiry. She paused with Jean, and turned a questioning eye towards the window whence Jim’s voice had reached her.
Jim, in his shirt sleeves, his face obscured by lather, looked out, razor in hand.
“Don’t go over to the stable just now, if that’s where you two are going,” said he.
“Right-oh, Jimmy. For how long?”
“Don’t quite know,” Jim said, grinning through the suds. “Dad’s having words with one of the men, and you’d better wait until he comes over. You mustn’t risk interrupting the flow of his eloquence.”
“Is anything wrong?” Norah asked.
“It’s that blithering ass, Harvey,” Jim answered. “He’s a useless loafer at the best of times; and he’s let us in for a nice game now! Dad has been sending him out to look round those new Queensland bullocks in the Bush Paddock, and he’s left the slip-rails down, and they’ve all boxed with the cattle next door, in the Far Plain.” At this point Jim’s wrath, or an unconscious movement, led him to take a mouthful of lather, and his head withdrew abruptly, spluttering. Incoherent sounds came from the interior of the room.
The girls laughed unfeelingly.
“He’s so funny when he shaves, isn’t he?” said his sister. “Jean, it’s an ill wind that blows nowhere!”
“Why?” asked Jean.
“Well, if those cattle are boxed it means a big muster,” said Norah; “and mustering the Bush Paddock is better fun than anything else. I don’t feel nearly as sorry as I might.”
“More shame for you!” said a voice above their heads, at which both girls jumped. Wally’s face emerged from the concealment of the dark green leaves of a cherry tree. A big black cherry bobbed temptingly near his nose, and he ate it, still keeping a severe eye upon his audience.
“I never knew any one with your ability for appearing in unexpected places,” said Norah, laughing. “Come down, Wally; I know quite well your mother doesn’t let you climb!”
“I come,” said Wally; “but more because the cherries are scarce than because of you, young woman. Funny how few ripe ones there are this morning.”
“Not a bit. Jean and I have been up there,” said Norah, with calmness. “That’s what comes of being early birds. If you’d only get up in the morning instead of snoring in a loud voice——”
“Never did,” said Wally, swinging his long form to earth. “ ’Twas Jim you heard.”
“Jim never snores!” said Jim’s sister.
“Then ’twas the Boss. Or probably you weren’t up at all, and heard yourself snoring in your sleep, which is far more likely. Certainly, the cherries have disappeared in a manner only possible to you and Jean; but that might have been while I swam peacefully in the lagoon. In any case, you’re a shocking hostess!” Wally paused for breath, while Norah grinned amiably and remarked that, at any rate, she had suited Jean!
“Given up to greed, both of you,” said Mr. Meadows, “while I, alas, am given up to hunger. Here comes your father, and he looks pretty wild. Wonder if he’s sacked Harvey?”
“We’ll want all hands to-day,” said Mr. Linton, pausing to greet them as he came up with quick strides. “Harvey’s boxed half the cattle on the place, and we’ll have our work cut out to get them all in, short-handed. You see, I gave the other men permission to go to the races, and they left about sunrise. And now Harvey’s leaving too, in haste!”
“Did you sack him, Dad?”
“I did,” said his father. “I don’t know that I would have done so, though he’s a most useless man on the place, but he chose to be insolent about it. In fact he told me just what he thought about me for oppressing the labouring man. I wished Murty and Boone and the rest had been there to have learned how down-trodden they are. They would have enjoyed it!”
“I believe Murty would have fought him,” Norah said, indignantly.
“It’s not unlikely,” her father answered. “Murty’s a loyal old soul. According to Harvey, they are all worms, and I am a callous tyrant, and Jim’s a whelp!”
“Oh, am I?” said that gentleman, with interest, looking out. “What have I done to the noble Harvey?”
“Well, you’ve existed. I can’t quite gather that you’ve done anything else, and I fancy Harvey would have mentioned it if you had. At times he seemed hard up for things to mention. Still, on the whole, he was very eloquent. I’ve known politicians tarred with the same brush; the less they have to say, the more fluent they become! Judging by present indications,” said Mr. Linton, “Harvey will develop into a Prime Minister, and probably afflict me with a special land tax. And all because I asked him why he’d left the slip-rails down.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve sent him away, Dad,” Norah said. “I always thought he had a horrid face.”
“Oh, he’s a miserable type,” her father answered—“the kind of man that never ought to come to the country. He’s absolutely useless, and I don’t think he ever did a day’s work in his life—if he did, it wasn’t on Billabong. We’ve put him at various kinds of work, and found him worthless at each; his one idea was to ‘knock off,’ and he shone at that. And, as you say, he’s a low-looking brute, and I shall be glad to have him off the place. But I don’t like sacking a man.”
“Don’t know why we ever put him on,” said Jim, through the window.
“Well, he said he hadn’t a penny, and wanted work. One doesn’t like to send a man away without giving him a chance. But I’m sorry I kept Harvey. However, he’s off, or he will be shortly, so we needn’t bother our heads about him. The bullocks are likely to need all our energies. Jean, can I rely on your assistance?”
Jean nodded vigorously. It was clear that the prospect afforded her undiluted joy.
“That’s right. And Wally?” Wally grinned, disdaining further answer.
“Then,” said Mr. Linton, “as I presume I can count on Jim and Norah——”
“Not that they’re much use,” said Wally, despondently. A large boot hurtled from Jim’s window, took him in the rear, and he uttered a startled yell. Recovering his composure, he possessed himself of the missile and proceeded to swarm up the bare trunk of a tall palm, going up hand over hand, much like a monkey on a stick. Arrived at the crown of leaves, he clung with his legs while he tied the boot firmly in with the laces.
“Bring that down, Wally, you reptile,” sang out Jim. He made a dash for the garden, one foot encased in a sock, and, seizing a hoe, prodded vainly upwards in the climber’s direction.
“Not if I know it,” said Wally, happily. “Looks lovely up here—like some strange tropic blossom. Orchid Kangaroohides Jamesobium Wallistylis. Exquisite new species, flowering once a century. Look out, Jimmy, I’m going to slide.”
“Are you?” said Jim with vigour. His eye, roving round in search of a weapon, had caught sight of a fragment of barbed wire—the remains of a device of Hogg, the gardener, to keep greedy ’possums from devouring his rosebuds. It was but a moment’s work to seize it and coil it round the palm trunk in a long spiral. He stood back, grinning.
“Better not slide too suddenly, old man!” he said, pleasantly.
Wally had already begun to move, but he checked himself quickly. There were not many intonations in his chum’s voice that he did not understand. He leaned sideways and surveyed the trunk, his face lengthening involuntarily.
“Oh!” he said, and paused, apparently seeking for inspiration. “Beast!”
Jim sat down in a leisurely fashion on the grass and nursed his unshod foot.
“It’s a nice morning,” he remarked, conversationally. “Garden looks jolly well before the sun gets hot, doesn’t it? Tropic blossoms well out, and all that—including the climbing novelties! And there’s breakfast,” as the gong sounded. “What a pity to leave it all!” He gathered himself up, slowly. “So long!”
“Brute!” said Wally, with fervour.
“Aren’t you happy?” asked Jim, surprise in his tone. “You ought to be—I’ve never seen you look so nice! Will you bring me my boot, young Wally?”
“I will not,” said the victim, firmly. “Not if I stay here for a week!”
“The barbed wire will last longer than that,” said Jim, grinning. “Does it strike you, Dad, that the climbing novelty looks dry?”
“It’s more evident that it’s annoyed with you,” said David Linton, laughing. “Better bring him his boot, Wally—it’s his game, I think.”
“Never!” said the captive.
“Told you he was dry,” said Jim. “Look at that purple flush—doesn’t that indicate a need of cooling down?” He disappeared behind a clump of laurustinus, and returned armed with a coil of hose.
Norah gave a fresh burst of laughter. “Oh, Jimmy, you won’t!” she cried.
“Will I not?” grinned her brother, turning on the tap. A light shower of drops spattered the trunk near the victim’s head—with due regard for the safety of the dangling boot.
“My hat, Jimmy, when I get within reach of you——,” said Wally, laughing. “Put that down, you fiend, and fight fair!”
“Bless you, I’m not fighting,” said Jim blandly. “I’m watering the garden!”
“Yes, you’re Daddy’s useful little son, I know,” returned Mr. Meadows. “I’ll deal with you when I get down!”
“Told you water was necessary,” said Jim to his audience, two-thirds of which had collapsed on the grass, helpless. “Parched, that’s what he is. Turn on that tap a little harder, Dad, and I’ll give him a really nice tropic downpour!”
Mr. Meadows capitulated.
“Take off your beastly barbed wire,” he said, his tone expressing anything but pious resignation. “And put on your beastly great boot!” The boot descended with some force, and caught Jim on the shoulder as he stooped over his spiked entanglement. “Nice shot—there’s some balm in Gilead!” said Wally. He slid down, arriving at the ground with some force, and immediately gave chase to Jim, who had gathered up his property and fled.
“No one would think there was any work waiting on this place!” said Mr. Linton, laughing. “Come to breakfast, all of you—hurry up, Norah!”
Wally joined them in the breakfast-room, somewhat dishevelled.
“He’ll be in in a moment—he’s putting on the boot!” he said. “Isn’t he an uncivilized ostrich? I don’t know how you brought him up in his youth, sir, but he’s no credit to you. I’d sooner have old Lee Wing, pigtail and all.”
“You look a little damp, Wally,” Norah said, kindly. “I hope you won’t take cold!” To which the injured one returned merely a baleful glance, before devoting himself to his porridge.
Jim slipped in unobtrusively, wearing an air of bland composure.
“We’ll take lunch out, I suppose, Dad?”
“Yes, I sent Brownie a message some time ago,” said his father. “You’ll have to run up the horses after breakfast, Jim, and when you’ve caught ours turn the others out into the big paddock.”
Jim glanced up inquiringly. It was an unusual command.
“I wouldn’t trust that beggar, Harvey,” his father said, answering the glance. “If the horses were close at hand the temptation to borrow one to get as far as Cunjee might be too strong; but he couldn’t catch one in the big paddock. It won’t take long to put them back when we come in.”
“You’re not going to send him in to the township then?”
“I’m not,” said Mr. Linton, firmly. “He came carrying his swag, and he can carry it away—after the flood of bad language and insolence I had from him this morning, I really don’t feel any obligation to have him driven in. The walk may give him time to get a little sense—not that you could put sense into a man of the Harvey type by any known means.”
“Well, it won’t hurt him—and I don’t see who would have driven him, anyhow,” Jim said. “Are you letting him have any tucker?”
“Oh, yes; I said he could get some from the kitchen.”
“Then he’s got nothing to grumble at,” Jim declared. “Not that that is in the least likely to keep him from grumbling. I expect it wouldn’t be a bad precaution to lock up pretty carefully at the stables, Dad.”
“Certainly, lock up everything,” his father answered. “I’d have been glad to see him fairly off the place, as Murty and Boone are away—still Hogg and Lee Wing are about, so there’s really no need—and we can’t afford the time.”
“Lee Wing would be sufficient guardian for any place,” said Wally, who cherished an undying affection for the stolid Chinaman, who did not return the feeling at all. It was not certain that Lee Wing loved any one, though Norah was wont to declare that he wrote sonnets to a girl in China. So far as Australia was concerned, his heart seemed to be given to his onions, and he regarded Wally with a dubious eye.
Mrs. Brown came in, favouring the company impartially with her wide and beaming smile.
“Will you be boilin’ the billy, sir?”
“Yes, decidedly,” said Mr. Linton. “It is going to be hot enough to make tea a necessity, I fancy. And Wally is aching to carry the billy—aren’t you, my boy?”
“Personally,” said Jim, “I should have thought it was the breakfast he’s eaten, on top of about a hundredweight of cherries. Give him some more coffee, Norah—he looks pensive!”
“That’s because he has had two cups already—and I don’t allow him three, as a rule,” said Norah, callously. “However, he’s had a hard morning, so I’ll be weak—and so will be the coffee. Pass his cup, Jean.”
“I don’t know why I come to stay with the Linton tribe,” said Wally, surrendering his cup and sighing heavily. “I’m not appreciated, and it’s blighting my young life. Mrs. Brown, may I stay with you to-day and hold your hand?”
“You can’t. I got a fair amount to do with it,” rejoined Brownie. “Not but I will say, Master Wally, you’re the good-temperedest ever I see! And gimme a boy as laughs!”
“Well, I’ve thrown myself at your feet often enough, but you won’t pick me up!” said Wally, much aggrieved. “Some day I will wed another, and then you’ll know what you’ve lost!” At which Mrs. Brown bridled, and said, “Ah, go along now, do!” and aimed a destructive blow at him with her apron. Murmuring something about lunch, she retreated to the kitchen.
“I’ll go and run up the horses,” said Jim, pushing back his chair. “Young Wally, see that you have the saddles out by the time I get them in, and bring the bridles down to the yards.”
“Be it thine to command,” said Wally, with meekness. “Mine to obey—when I’m ready.”
“Better make it convenient to be ready quickly,” warned Jim. “Otherwise——”
He left the sentence dramatically unfinished, and, finding a halfpenny lying on the mantelshelf, deftly inserted it into his friend’s collar as he passed him. Wally choked over his coffee, and fled in hot pursuit, clutching at his backbone as he went.
“Aren’t they cheerful babies!” said Norah, laughing. “I guess I’ll be grey-haired long before they grow up. Come on, Jeanie—I’ll race you getting ready!” The sound of their flying feet echoed down the corridor.
“ ‘Bless you, I’m not fighting—I’m watering the garden!’ ”