The Record of Nicholas Freydon / An Autobiography

by A. J. Dawson

A few moments later and the kindly brightness of the new-risen sun was glinting between tree-trunks, the bush began to breathe naturally, and I was off at a trot for my morning dabble in the surf.

My father and I made but a poor show as housekeepers that day. I suppose we neither of us had ever washed a plate, or even boiled a kettle. In all such matters of what may be called outdoor domesticity (as in the use of such primitive and all-round serviceable tools as the axe), the Colonial-born man has a great advantage over his Home-born kinsman, in that he acquires proficiency in these matters almost as soon and quite as naturally as he learns to walk and talk. And not otherwise can the sane easy mastery of things be acquired.

My father had some admirably sound theories about cooking. He had knowledge enough most heartily to despise the Frenchified menus which, I believe, were coming into vogue in London when we left it, and warmly to appreciate the sterling virtue of good English cookery and food. The basic aim in genuine English cookery is the conservation of the natural flavours and essences of the food cooked. And, since sound English meats and vegetables are by long odds the finest in the world, there could be no better purpose in cooking than this. Subtle methods and provocative sauces, which give their own distinctive flavour to the dishes in which they are used, are well enough for less favoured lands than England, and a much-needed boon, no doubt. They are a wasteful mistake in England, or were, at all events, so long as unadulterated English food was available.

My father taught me these truths long ago, and I am an implicit believer in them to-day. All his theories about such matters were sound; and it may be that, in a properly appointed kitchen, he could have turned out an excellent good meal--given the right mood for the task. But I will admit that in Livorno Bay, both on this our first day alone there, and ever afterwards, my father's only attempts at domestic work were of the most sketchy and least satisfactory description; his grip of our housekeeping was of the feeblest, and in a very short time the matter fell entirely into my hands when Ted was not with us. Ted was my exemplar; from him such knowledge and ability as I acquired were derived. But to his shrewd practicality I was able to add something, in the shape of theory evolved from my father's conversation; and thus presently I obtained a quite respectable grasp of bush domesticity.

This day of Ted's absence in Werrina we devoted to a more or less systematic exploration of our territory. My father was in a cheery vein, and entertained me by bestowing names upon the more salient features of our domain. The two horns of Livorno Bay, I remember, were Gog and Magog; the lagoon remained always just The Lagoon; the timber belt was Arden; our camp, Zoar; and so forth. We found an eminently satisfactory little spring, not quite so near at hand as the water-hole from which Ted had drawn our supplies till now, but yielding brighter, fresher water. And we botanised with the aid of a really charming little manuscript book, bound in kangaroo-skin, and given to my father by the widow of a Queensland squatter whom we had met on the coasting steamer. That little volume is among my few treasured possessions to-day. Some of its watercolour sketches look a little worn and pallid, after all these years, but it is a most instructive book; and from it came all my first knowledge of the various wattles, the different mahoganies, the innumerable gums, the ferns, creepers, and wild flowers of the bush.

It was almost dark when Ted returned--in a cart. We were greatly surprised to see Jerry between the shafts of this ancient vehicle, and my father found it hard to credit that any cart could be driven over the bush track by which we had travelled, with its stumps and holes and sudden dips to watercourses. However, there the cart was, its harness plentifully patched with pieces of cord and wire; and it seemed well laden, too.

'Who lent it you?' asked my father. And Ted explained how the cart had been offered to him for £3, and how, at length, he had bought it for £2, 5s. and a drink. It seemed a sin to miss such a chance, but if my father really did not want it, well, he, Ted, would pay for it out of his earnings. Of course my father accepted responsibility for the purchase, and very useful the crazy old thing proved as time went on; for, though its collapse, like that of other more important institutions, seemed always imminent, it never did actually dissolve in our time, and only occasionally did it shed any vital portion of its fabric. Even after such minor catastrophes, it always bore up nobly under the rude first (and last) aid we could give with cord, or green-hide and axed wood.

To my inexperience it seemed that Ted had brought with him a wide assortment of most of the commodities known to civilisation. The unloading of the cart was to me as the enjoyment of a monstrous bran-pie; an entertainment I had heard of, but never seen. And when I heard there was certainly one more load, and probably two, to come, I felt that we really were rich beyond the dreams of most folk. I recalled the precise manner in which Fred (the Ariadne rival and fellow-passenger, whose surname I never knew) had wilted when he heard that my father and I had intended travelling steerage, and from my heart I wished he could see this cart-load of assorted goods. 'Goods' was the correct word, I thought, for such wholesale profusion; and 'cart-load' had the right spaciousness to indicate a measure of our abundance.

There were several large sheets of galvanised iron, appearing exactly as one in the cart, but covering a notable expanse of ground when spread out singly. These were for a roof in the place of the saloon skylight. My father had pished and tushed and pressed for a bark roof; but Ted, in his bush wisdom, had insisted on the prosaic 'tin,' as a catchment area for rain-water to be stored in the two ship's tanks. There were brooms, scrubbing-brushes, kettles, pots, pans, crockery, fishing-lines, ammunition for Ted's highly lethal old gun, and there were stores. I marvelled that stores so numerous and varied could have come out of Werrina. My imagination was particularly fired by the contemplation of a package said to contain a gross of boxes of matches. Reckoning on fifty to the box, I struggled for some time with a computation of the total number of our matches, giving it up finally when I had reached figures which might have thrilled a Rothschild. Our sugar was not in blue paper packages of a pound weight, but in a sack, as it might be for the sweetening of an army corps' porridge. And our tea! Like the true Australian he was, Ted had actually brought us a twenty-six pound case of tea. It was a wondrous collection, and I drew a long breath when I remembered that there was more, much more, to come. Here were nails, not in spiral twists of paper, but in solid seven-pound packages, and quite a number of them.

Had I been a shopkeeper's son, I suppose these trifles from Werrina would have been esteemed by me at something like their real value. So I rejoice that I was not a shopkeeper's son, for I still cherish a lively recollection of the glad feeling of security and comfortable well-being which filled my breast as I paced round and about our cart and all it had brought us. Long before sun-up next morning, Ted was off again to Werrina; but, seeing our incapacity on the domestic side, the good fellow gave an hour or two before starting to washing up and cooking work; and I pretended to work with him, out there in the star-light, conversing the while in whispers to avoid disturbing my father.