So July came along, with some hard frosts. Now frost up here is invariably followed by rain within two days in a normal year, which causes the grass to get a spring on at once, as the days are always warm and bright. But in this infernal year there was no rain, so the grass got completely settled—above ground, that is. It sprang again in a night once the rain came at the end of the year. My cows were wandering out through Braun's paddock all over the country searching for a bit of green stuff, and I nearly tramped my legs off looking for them to keep them dipped and clear of ticks. Half the time I couldn't find them, so that with ticks and starvation the herd got down to ten.
August. Still no rain! Got a job brushing for old Pardy, and had to walk four miles each way to work and back every day, so averaged about 30/- a week, which had to be hoarded over against bank interest at the end of the year. And the storekeeper's bill still rose!
October. Will it ever rain again? Dismal tales from everyone of dying stock, bankruptcy and ruin. My remaining cows could hardly stagger, and their ribs stood out like the black notes on a piano. I managed to get them home, when they were too weak to play up, let them into my banana patch, and the twenty clumps kept them going for a week or two. They even pawed out and ate the roots. My bull got into a very rough paddock not far away, fell down a steep stony creek, broke a leg and died there. The outlook was as hopeless as financial stability under Freetrade.
November came, and old Omar's "blue sullen vault of sky" glared remorselessly down on us for over a fortnight of the month. No rain—not even the distant muttering promise of coming thunder. Then, on the 20th November, about 2 p.m., there was a sudden long roll of thunder in the distance. Two cows had calved, and I had the poor, miserable, staggering wretches in the bails, trying to force down their necks a bit of watercress I had found in the creek over a mile away.
I whipped out of the shed.
Thank God! There, rapidly rising over the trees to the South-East, was a long bank of black cloud. The thunder grew louder, and a cold refreshing wind suddenly sprang into being. We could see and smell the grey drifting curtain of rain that spelt Resurrection! A faint pattering on the roof. Louder; louder yet! until it became a deafening roar that kept up for over an hour. Salvation! The drought had broken at last. I went out and bathed in the rain, absorbing it in every pore. I think it's the only time in my life I was delighted to be wet through. It was just in time to save my remaining cows.
I had left but seven cows, and six twenty-month heifers—say, £118 worth; but the debt of £200 to the bank still remained, and the storekeeper's £40 had to be remembered, and the—oh, but why recall such misery?
Apropos the drought. It wasn't really a drought at all. I remember once going from Sydney to Melbourne by train, and after Albury the whole country was literally bare as a board. Well, up here, at the worst time, there was knee-high dry grass somewhere in every paddock; but the fool cows, never having been used to anything but green feed, simply starved sooner than look at it. A few that did take to it here and there kept in fair nick throughout, but of course didn't give any milk. I'll bet there isn't a Victorian cocky who would have thought it anything worse than just a bit of a dry spell. And, too, out of the hundreds of creeks running through the scrublands, I only saw one that had gone dry. I shall never forget the delicious smell of the wet earth after the first rainstorm, and that night, all over the paddocks, there was a pæan of praise from countless millions of frogs. Now, where the dickens do these blokes get to during a dry spell? We hadn't heard a croak for at least six months (or when the cows croaked they didn't do it audibly).
Next morning there was a faint green sheen all over the place, and in a week the grass was six inches high. The cows bogged in, their ribs disappeared, and four more calved. Thus about the middle of December I was a bloated capitalist, owning land and stock, with six cows milking and one more to come in, and reckoned it was high time to lend my support to the local butter factory and commence sending in cream.