Many were the schemes unfolded and plans laid by the boys during the last schooldays. The holidays would not be an undiluted playtime to any one of the boys. Many of the lads would work hard on the farms; their parents, bearing in mind the old adage of Satan and idle hands, will take good care to anticipate the sinister designs of that interfering old gentleman. The wood pile stood as an unfailing object of labour. Sheds were awaiting the whitewash brush. Fowl houses loomed expectant. Fences demanded attention. These, and many other duties about house and farm, were put off till the "holidays."
There were other anticipations, however, far more highly coloured and bewitching than these. Charm the schoolboy never so wisely, his thoughts, with a dogged obstinacy or triumphant breakaway, return to the delectable things of the groves, streams, mountains, and plains. Horse, gun, dog, rod, bat, duck, quail, pigeon; perch, bream, mullet; kangaroo, wallaby, dingo, brumby, scrubber! These are the sources and instruments of pleasure; things that people the imagination, and make an earthly paradise.
Sobering down, after an unusual indulgence in larks to mark the auspicious event, Joe, Tom, and Sandy, separating from the others, sauntered to the slip-rail entrance of the school horse-paddock. Joe and Tom, at the express request of Mrs. M'Intyre, are to spend the holidays with Sandy on the station. Here all kinds of fun and alluring adventure are promised the lads. How well that promise was redeemed let the sequel bear witness.
"Now then, you fellows, don't forget that you are to be at Bullaroi on the morning of Christmas Eve without fail."
"I say, ole boss, what does eve mean?"
"Eve! Why, a—er—short for evening, I s'pose. What makes you ask, Joe?"
"Well, if Christmas Eve is evening, how can we be there in the mornin'?—you savee?"
"You're mighty smart, Blain, but did you ever know an evening that didn't have a morning to it?"
"Oh—ah—yes, I see. We're to come out on the morning of the evening. Sure it's an Irishie ye ought to be instead of a Scotchie."
"Scotchie or no Scotchie," replied Sandy, who was the essence of good-humour, "ye're not to be later than ten o'clock of the forenoon of the day before Christmas. There! Will that fit you, you pumpkin-headed son of a bald-bellied turnip?"