Oh, Dad's language then! He swung his arms about and foamed at the mouth. Dave edged away from him.
Joe came up waving triumphantly a chewed piece of the waistcoat. "D-d-did it g-give them a buster, Dad?" he said, the sweat running over his face as though a spring had broken out on top of his head. Dad jumped a log and tried to unbuckle his strap and reach for Joe at the same time, but Joe fled.
That threw a painful pall over everything. Dad declared he was sick and tired of the whole thing, and would n't do another hand's-turn. Dave meditated and walked along the fence, plucking off scraps of skin and hair that here and there clung to the bent and battered wire.
We had just finished supper when old Bob Wren, a bachelor who farmed about two miles from us, arrived. He used to come over every mail-night and bring his newspaper with him. Bob could n't read a word, so he always got Dad to spell over the paper to him. WE did n't take a newspaper.
Bob said there were clouds gathering behind Flat Top when he came in, and Dad went out and looked, and for the fiftieth time that day prayed in his own way for rain. Then he took the paper, and we gathered at the table to listen. "Hello," he commenced, "this is M'Doolan's paper you've got, Bob."
Bob rather thought it was n't.
"Yes, yes, man, it IS," Dad put in; "see, it's addressed to him."
Bob leaned over and LOOKED at the address, and said: "No, no, that's mine; it always comes like that." Dad laughed. We all laughed. He opened it, anyway. He had n't read for five minutes when the light flickered nearly out. Sarah reckoned the oil was about done, and poured water in the lamp to raise the kerosene to the wick, but that did n't last long, and, as there was no fat in the house, Dad squatted on the floor and read by the firelight.
He plodded through the paper tediously from end to end, reading the murders and robberies a second time. The clouds that old Bob said were gathering when he came in were now developing to a storm, for the wind began to rise, and the giant iron-bark tree that grew close behind the house swayed and creaked weirdly, and threw out those strange sobs and moans that on wild nights bring terror to the hearts of bush children. A glimmer of lightning appeared through the cracks in the slabs. Old Bob said he would go before it came on, and started into the inky darkness.
"It's coming!" Dad said, as he shut the door and put the peg in after seeing old Bob out. And it came—in no time. A fierce wind struck the house. Then a vivid flash of lightning lit up every crack and hole, and a clap of thunder followed that nearly shook the place down.