A woman with a swag sounds homeless enough to Australian ears, but Dan, with his habit of looking deep into the heart of things, “didn’t exactly see where the homelessness came in.”
We had finished supper, and the Măluka stretching himself luxuriously in the firelight, made a nest in the warm leaves for me to settle down in. “You’re right, Dan,” he said, after a short silence, “when I come to think of it; I don’t exactly see myself where the homelessness comes in. A bite and a sup and a faithful dog, and a guidwife by a glowing hearth, and what more is needed to make a home. Eh, Tiddle’ums?”
Tiddle’ums having for some time given the whole of her heart to the Măluka, nestled closer to him and Dan gave an appreciative chuckle, and pulled Sool’em’s ears. The conversation promised to suit him exactly.
“Never got farther than the dog myself,” he said. “Did I, Sool’em, old girl?” But Sool’em becoming effusive there was a pause until she could be persuaded that “nobody wanted none of her licking tricks.” As she subsided Dan went on with his thoughts uninterrupted: “I’ve seen others at the guidwife business, though, and it didn’t seem too bad, but I never struck it in a camp before. There was Mrs. Bob now. You’ve heard me tell of her? I don’t know how it was, but while she was out at the “Downs” things seemed different. She never interfered and we went on just the same, but everything seemed different somehow.”
The Măluka suggested that perhaps he had “got farther than the dog” without knowing it, and the idea appearing to Dan, he “reckoned it must have been that.” But his whimsical mood had slipped away, as it usually did when his thoughts strayed to Mrs. Bob; and he went on earnestly, “She was the right sort if ever there was one. I know ’em, and she was one of ’em. When you were all right you told her yarns, and she’d enjoy ’em more’n you would yourself, which is saying something; but when you were off the track a bit you told her other things, and she’d heave you on again. See her with the sick travellers!” And then he stopped unexpectedly as his voice became thick and husky.
Camp-fire conversations have a trick of coming to an abrupt end without embarrassing any one. As Dan sat looking into the fire, with his thoughts far away in the past, the Măluka began to croon contentedly at “Home, Sweet Home,” and, curled up in the warm, sweet nest of leaves, I listened to the crooning, and, watching the varying expression of Dan’s face, wondered if Mrs. Bob had any idea of the bright memories she had left behind her in the bush. Then as the Măluka crooned on, everything but the crooning became vague and indistinct, and, beginning also to see into the heart of things, I learned that when a woman finds love and comradeship out-bush, little else is needed to make even the glowing circle of a camp fire her home-circle.
Without any warning the Măluka’s mood changed, “There is nae luck aboot her house, there is nae luck at a’,” he shouted lustily, and Dan, waking from his reverie with a start, rose to the tempting bait.
“No luck about her house!” he said. “It was Mrs. Bob that had no luck. She struck a good, comfortable, well-furnished house first go off, and never got an ounce of educating. She was chained to that house as surely as ever a dog was chained to its kennel. But it’ll never come to that with the missus. Something’s bound to happen to Johnny, just to keep her from ever having a house. Poor Johnny, though,” he added, warming up to the subject. “It’s hard luck for him. He’s a decent little chap. We’ll miss him”; and he shook his head sorrowfully, and looked round for applause.
The Măluka said it seemed a pity that Johnny had been allowed to go to his fate; but Dan was in his best form.
“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” he said tragically. “He’d have got fever if he’d stayed on, or a tree would have fallen on him. He’s doomed if the missus keeps him to his contract.”