“Him there, Missus,” she said, pointing to the gramaphone. “I bin hear him sing-sing.” Then she wanted to know how they had got in, and what they had to eat, “Which way whitefellow sit down, Missus?” she asked, peering down the funnel of the gramaphone, and screwing up her comical little nose as she tried to shut one eye.
“I don’t know, Bett-Bett,” I said, tired of answering questions. “Come for a walk-about in the paddocks.”
Off she scampered to collect the lubras, and by the time I arrived at the gate, they were all waiting for me with their “dilly bags.” I was the pupil, and they were the teachers, and my lessons were most interesting. They tried to teach me the tracks of animals, how to tell if they were new or old, where every bird built its nest, what it built it of, and how many eggs it laid, where to look for crocodiles’ eggs, and where the Bower-bird danced. They knew the tracks of every horse on the run, and every blackfellow of the tribe, and if they came on a stranger’s track, they knew the tribe he belonged to. They tried hard to teach me this, but try as I would, I could never see any difference, excepting in the size. They were very patient teachers, and I tried my very best; but I suppose I had not a blackfellow’s sight for tiny differences, and I failed dismally, I couldn’t even learn the tracks of my own lubras.
We all enjoyed the walk-abouts, and generally had a good time. This afternoon we found all sorts of queer prizes, and were coming home with them, when we came on Goggle Eye’s tracks, going in our homeward direction.
Bett-Bett simply refused to go any further, and so we had to take a short-cut through the scrub. By bad luck we came on his Majesty himself, just as we came up from the creek. He and Bett-Bett shut their eyes at once, and felt their way with outstretched hands. The path was very narrow, and as they groped about, I wondered what would happen if they bumped together, Perhaps Debbil-debbils would have come with a whizz, and would have left nothing but a little smoke!
Chapter 5
“Goodfellow Missus”
It was washing-day, and we were all delighted. So would you have been if you had been there; for when washing is done by black lubras the fun is always fast and furious.
Directly after breakfast, which was usually at sunrise, there was a wild scramble among the bundles of soiled clothes, followed by a go-as-you-please race to the billabong or water-hole. Each lubra, as she ran, looked like a big snowball with twinkling black legs; while perched on top of two or three of the snowballs sat little shiny-black piccaninnies. Bett-Bett had not had many washing-days, and that accounts for her being last with the stocking-bag. As they reached the creek every one dropped her bundle, slipped off her clothes and began the day’s work by taking a header into the water.
When I came along I threw big pieces of soap at them, and they all ducked and dived to dodge it, and when they came up they all ducked and dived again to find it.
“Now,” I said, sitting down in the shade of some pandanus palms, “come and begin, and wash the clothes very clean to-day.”