Mary had heard of a light American waggonette, when the steers went—a tray-body arrangement, and she thought she’d do with that. ‘It would be better than the buggy, Joe,’ she said—‘there’d be more room for the children, and, besides, I could take butter and eggs to Gulgong, or Cobborah, when we get a few more cows.’ Then James heard of a small flock of sheep that a selector—who was about starved off his selection out Talbragar way—wanted to get rid of. James reckoned he could get them for less than half-a-crown a-head. We’d had a heavy shower of rain, that came over the ranges and didn’t seem to go beyond our boundaries. Mary said, ‘It’s a pity to see all that grass going to waste, Joe. Better get those sheep and try your luck with them. Leave some money with me, and I’ll send James over for them. Never mind about the buggy—we’ll get that when we’re on our feet.’
So James rode across to Talbragar and drove a hard bargain with that unfortunate selector, and brought the sheep home. There were about two hundred, wethers and ewes, and they were young and looked a good breed too, but so poor they could scarcely travel; they soon picked up, though. The drought was blazing all round and Out-Back, and I think that my corner of the ridges was the only place where there was any grass to speak of. We had another shower or two, and the grass held out. Chaps began to talk of ‘Joe Wilson’s luck’.
I would have liked to shear those sheep; but I hadn’t time to get a shed or anything ready—along towards Christmas there was a bit of a boom in the carrying line. Wethers in wool were going as high as thirteen to fifteen shillings at the Homebush yards at Sydney, so I arranged to truck the sheep down from the river by rail, with another small lot that was going, and I started James off with them. He took the west road, and down Guntawang way a big farmer who saw James with the sheep (and who was speculating, or adding to his stock, or took a fancy to the wool) offered James as much for them as he reckoned I’d get in Sydney, after paying the carriage and the agents and the auctioneer. James put the sheep in a paddock and rode back to me. He was all there where riding was concerned. I told him to let the sheep go. James made a Greener shot-gun, and got his saddle done up, out of that job.
I took up a couple more forty-acre blocks—one in James’s name, to encourage him with the fencing. There was a good slice of land in an angle between the range and the creek, farther down, which everybody thought belonged to Wall, the squatter, but Mary got an idea, and went to the local land office and found out that it was ‘unoccupied Crown land’, and so I took it up on pastoral lease, and got a few more sheep—I’d saved some of the best-looking ewes from the last lot.
One evening—I was going down next day for a load of fencing-wire for myself—Mary said,—
‘Joe! do you know that the Matthews have got a new double buggy?’
The Matthews were a big family of cockatoos, along up the main road, and I didn’t think much of them. The sons were all ‘bad-eggs’, though the old woman and girls were right enough.
‘Well, what of that?’ I said. ‘They’re up to their neck in debt, and camping like black-fellows in a big bark humpy. They do well to go flashing round in a double buggy.’
‘But that isn’t what I was going to say,’ said Mary. ‘They want to sell their old single buggy, James says. I’m sure you could get it for six or seven pounds; and you could have it done up.’
‘I wish James to the devil!’ I said. ‘Can’t he find anything better to do than ride round after cock-and-bull yarns about buggies?’