Jimmy grinned, and then showed me all sorts of marks which he drew in the dirt with his finger. Signs for spears, food, wet season, people’s names, white men, names of places, and many other things. He ended up with “chewbac” and his own name. He was very particular that I should remember “chewbac.” Then he showed me a letter he had just received from Terrible Billy at Daly Waters. Jimmy’s lubra Nellie was his mother-in-law, and this letter was to say that he was quite out of hair-string, and would Nellie kindly cut her hair and send some. All this was told in a winding line, twisting round and round the stick, and a short stroke to end with, and then Nellie’s name, which read, “String —long—hair—Nellie.” Then came some gossip—one thick ring which said “walk-about,” and a mark which was Monkey’s name. Now “Monkey” was a Willeroo, and always up to mischief; so it was very kind of Billy to warn Jimmy that he was having a walk-about. Perhaps he was afraid that Monkey might run off with his mother-in-law, hair and all.
Jimmy’s lecture was suddenly cut short by shrieks from the lubras of—
“Cheeky fellow snake sit down. Cheeky fellow snake, Missus.”
Jimmy ran to the cucumber bed, all his little shells bobbing and jingling as he went, and quick as a flash caught the snake by the tail, and broke its back by cracking it like a stock-whip, and then flinging it from him. In case of accidents, the lubras and I had all scurried in behind the bananas. It is just as wise to be out of the way when poisonous snakes are flying through the air; for of course a “cheeky fellow snake” means a poisonous one.
After a good look at the horrid creature, we all went back to the house, leaving Jimmy to finish his letter. As we went, I saw that Bett-Bett was carrying the snake on the end of a long stick.
“What name, Bett-Bett?” I asked.
“Me put him longa Nellie bed,” she answered, grinning and going down to the humpy. Nellie was out, and Bett-Bett arranged the snake in a very life-like position on her bluey. Of course in about an hour we heard shrieks of “Cheeky fellow snake sit down longa Nellie bed.” The nigger world flew to the rescue, and Nellie got unmercifully teased for being frightened of a “deadfellow snake”; while Bett-Bett grinned secretly and impishly.
Next morning Nellie brought me a “yabber stick” cut all over with “chewbac” signs, and with Jimmy’s name at the bottom. I now understood why he wanted me to remember this sign, for the letter read—“Jimmy wants a big mob of tobacco.” I saw the old rascal grinning through the trees, to see if I was understanding his joke. “Jimmy,” I said, calling him up, “you’re the cutest, cleverest old nigger that ever was born, and you ought to be King. You know exactly how to manage your Missus.”
Jimmy seemed to think this was a compliment, and chuckled as I threw him a couple of sticks of “chew-bac.” He picked them up with his toes, and passed them into his hands without bending his back. As he and Nellie walked away, I saw that she had obeyed her son-in-law, and had cut her hair.