I took the opportunity, while in town, to interview the local storekeeper with a view to credit, which he willingly granted on explaining my position. The country storekeeper! Go where you will, one of the principal topics of conversation is sure to be the iniquities of the local storekeeper. But we couldn't do without him. By extending a liberal credit he enables one to stay on the farm until one's footing is secure, and if his prices are a bit stiff, it ought to be remembered how many bad debts he contracts, and what a risky thing it is to give credit to a comparatively unknown man. If it be true that the farmer is the country's backbone, it is equally true that the storekeeper is the one who stiffens that backbone till it can stay erect of itself, and often prevents it from breaking. I know. I'm one of the vertebræ, and I'd often have been dislocated but for old "Stores."
CHAPTER XIV.
Effecting Improvements.
After the satisfactory interview with the storekeeper I tramped out home with a light heart. I wouldn't starve for a month or two, anyhow, and now the first thing to be done was to erect a house. I had fourteen ten-foot sheets of iron, and though some of them were a bit battered owing to an irresponsible bloke thrashing out seed on them while I was away, still they were good enough for an eighteen-by-twelve humpy. The building was to be of rough-split bush timber. I chose red oak for the purpose, mainly because I didn't know of any of the other good splitters, like silky oak, young maple, or ash. With a crosscut I cut the tree up into three-foot lengths; then, with a maul, wedges and axe, split these up into a species of short weatherboards.
My two mates being now away on holiday, there was nobody to show me how to start right, so of course I met endless difficulties, which made the work back-breaking. An experienced "bushey" would have had all the required timber split in about four days. It took me exactly three weeks.
Then came the erection. Four corner posts, which I would have three feet in the ground, and going right up to the roof, for stability in case of cyclones, of the hardest timber I could find, which was also the heaviest, as I thought it would be the most likely to last in the ground. As a matter of fact, these rot quickest. The four posts weighed about five hundredweight each, and I had to "fleet jig" them with block and tackle over the log-strewn paddock up to the site, and then erect a derrick to get them into their places. It was interesting enough, but Lord! how slow.
Then wall plates and ground plates—the former one end at a time with the tackle; then lash that end while I tackled the other end up and nailed it. "Dinkum yakker" all right, and about three-parts of it not necessary, if I'd only known. I think "Senex's house" was the topic of amused conversation all over the district for months after.
The studs were saplings on which I left the bark, thus making a fine harbourage for all sorts of biting, stinging and stinking vermin. On to these went the slabs, weatherboard fashion. Then the roof, with a nail in every corrugation, in the concaves instead of the convexes, and the mansion wanted but a floor. I got a bloke to buy me some second-class boards from a mill on the line, and bring them out to me. The cartage came to ten shillings more than the price of the timber, but, as he had to wait nine months for me to pay him, he deserved it.
Next, I put in a fireplace with the roof of it at the wrong angle, so that the smoke came pouring into the main room all the time the fire was going. Finally, I set the guinea stamp of aristocracy on the mansion by inserting a cracked glass window. It was raining nearly all the time I was building. I had spilt a gallon billy of boiling water over my feet through the handle coming adrift, and, to add to the difficulties, I had to hump the floor boards about a mile through the mud, fallen timber preventing the cart getting right out. Anyhow, it was finished at last.