There is one advantage in a heart trouble, that it often departs as suddenly as it attacks, and ere it was again Carry's week in the house, I was once more able to stroll round and depend upon Andrew for entertainment.
He invited me to the dairy to see him turn the hand cream-separator, and I remained to dry the discs out of its bowl while he washed them. He had a conversational turn, and in his choice of subjects was a patriot. He never went out of his realm for imported themes, but entirely confined his patronage to those at hand. This day his discourse was of blow-flies; I cared not though it had been of manure. I had knocked around the sharp corners of life sufficiently to have got a sensible adjustment of weights and measures, refinements and vulgarities. Besides, I gratefully remembered the tears Andrew had shed during my illness, and bore in mind that many a dandy who could please me by his phraseology of choice anecdotes could not be more than "bored" though I might die in torture at his feet.
"My word! I'm thankful for the winter for one thing," he began, "and that's because there ain't any blow-flies. They'd give you the pip in the summer. They used to be here blowin' everything they come across. They'd blow the cream if we left it a day. They'd blow you if you didn't look sharp. I had Whiskey taught to ketch 'em. Here, Whiskey! Whiskey!" and as that mongrel appeared, his master tossed him pellets of curds dipped in cream, and grinned delightedly as they were fiercely snapped. "He thinks it's blow-flies. Great little Whiskey! good little Whiskey, catch 'em blow-flies. By Jove! I've had enough of farming," continued he, "it's the God-forsakenest game, but me grandma won't let me chuck it. I notice no one with any sense stays farmin'. They all get a job on the railway, or take to auctioneering, or something with money in it. You're always scratchin' on a farm. You should have been here in the summer when the tomatoes was ripe. Couldn't get rid of 'em for a song—couldn't get cases enough. They rotted in the field till the stink of them was worse than a chow's camp, an' what didn't rot was just cooked in the sun. Peaches the same, an' great big melons for a shilling a dozen. That's farming for you! The only time you could sell things would be when you haven't got 'em. Whiskey can eat melon like a good 'un, and grapes too." Andrew now threw out the wash-up water, pitching it on to Whiskey, who went away whimpering aggrievedly, much to the delight of his master, and illustrating that even the favourite pet of a youth has something to put up with in this imperfect life.
TEN.
PROVINCIAL POLITICS AND SEMI-SUBURBAN DENTISTS.
May dawned over the world, and throughout New South Wales awoke a stir, reaching even to the sleepy heart of Noonoon. This was owing to the fact that the State Parliament was near the end of its term, and political candidates for the ensuing election were already in the field.
Though not many decades settled, the country had progressed to nationhood, England allowing the precocious youngster this freedom of self-government, and sending her Crown Prince to open her first Commonwealth Parliament. Then the fledgling nation, bravely in the van of progress, had invested its women with the tangible hall-mark of full being or citizenship, by giving them a right to a voice in the laws by which they were governed; and now, watched by the older countries whose women were still in bondage, the women of this Australian State were about to take part in a political election. Not for the first time either,—let them curtsey to the liberality of their countrymen!
The Federal elections, for which women were entitled to stand as senatorial candidates, had come previously, and though old prejudice had been too strong to the extent of many votes to grasp that a woman might really be a senatrix, and that a vote cast for her would not be wasted, still one woman candidate had polled 51,497 votes where the winning candidate had gone in on 85,387, and this had been no "shrieking sister" such as the clever woman is depicted by those who fear progress, but a beautiful, refined, educated, and particularly womanly young lady in the heyday of youth. The cowardly old sneer that disappointment had driven her to this had no footing here, as she had every qualification, except empty-headedness, to have ensured success as a belle in the social world, had she been disposed to pad her own life by means of a wealthy marriage instead of endeavouring to benefit her generation in becoming a legislator. She was a fitting daughter of the land of the Southern Sun, whose sons were among the first to admit their sisters to equal citizenship with themselves, and she brilliantly proved her fitness for her right by her wonderful ability on the hustings, which had been free from any vocal shortcoming and unacquainted with hesitation in replying to the knottiest question regarding the most intricate bill.