And you’ll remember farmer Kutz—
Though scarcely for his bounty—
He leased a forty-acre block,
And thought he owned the county;
A farmer of the old world school,
That men grew hard and grim in,
He drew his water from the pool
That we preferred to swim in.
And do you mind when down the creek
His angry way he wended,
A green-hide cartwhip in his hand
For our young backs intended?
Three naked boys upon the sand—
Half buried and half sunning—
Three startled boys without their clothes
Across the paddocks running.
We’ve had some scares, but we looked blank
When, resting there and chumming,
One glanced by chance along the bank
And saw the farmer coming!
And home impressions linger yet
Of cups of sorrow brimming;
I hardly think that we’ll forget
The last day we went swimming.
THE OLD BARK SCHOOL
It was built of bark and poles, and the floor was full of holes
Where each leak in rainy weather made a pool;
And the walls were mostly cracks lined with calico and sacks—
There was little need for windows in the school.
Then we rode to school and back by the rugged gully track,
On the old grey horse that carried three or four;
And he looked so very wise that he lit the master’s eyes
Every time he put his head in at the door.
He had run with Cobb and Co.—‘that grey leader, let him go!’
There were men ’as knowed the brand upon his hide,’
And ’as knowed it on the course’. Funeral service: ‘Good old horse!’
When we burnt him in the gully where he died.
And the master thought the same. ’Twas from Ireland that he came,
Where the tanks are full all summer, and the feed is simply grand;
And the joker then in vogue said his lessons wid a brogue—
’Twas unconscious imitation, let the reader understand.
And we learnt the world in scraps from some ancient dingy maps
Long discarded by the public-schools in town;
And as nearly every book dated back to Captain Cook
Our geography was somewhat upside-down.