CHAPTER IX How the Days pass by at Surprise
Every day of the week, at fall of dark, I grope my way here into my tent at Surprise, light the hurricane lamp, hook it to the beam overhead, find paper and pen, and spur myself to the telling of a page more of this story. Sometimes a timid breeze comes through the doorway to cool the rising temper of the night; oftener the tent walls droop on their wooden framework; and neither pipe nor cigarette will bring me cheer.
The night wears on; the mosquito sharpens his appetite, and a fringe of the great army of flying things which moves abroad in the dark, flutters, jumps and creeps in at the doorway to the light. By half-past eight the attack has begun. Crickets in sober grey coats, black-banded on the legs, lead the advance; large crickets and small crickets. Great green grasshoppers follow; long and narrow grasshoppers, broad and deep-chested grasshoppers. Purple grasshoppers arrive on their heels; and now they come, large and small and in all habits. At nine o'clock they cover the ceiling, staring at the lamp with big stupid eyes; and strange moths and flies and flying ants have begun the Dance of Death about the globe.
Tilt back the chair; find the towel; neck and ears must be covered for the rest of the sitting. When the clock shows half-past nine, pack up the papers again, and step to the doorway awhile that contemplation may bring better humour. Then to bed.
At last my story is well begun, and a few days must wear out at Surprise and Kaloona before the tale moves much forward again. The cook puts the pot to boil. Little is to show when the lid first is lifted but the water is heating nevertheless.
Power came riding into Surprise now and again, and little he seemed altered, unless his temper had grown crotchety. The camp endured at Pelican Pool. Maud Neville went about the day's work as before and, if she was troubled ever so little so that she rose in the morning with a faint clutch at her heart—well, few at Surprise are without their crosses. Mr. Horrington, clambering off his stretcher, rather rocky in the morning, finds his eye filled with the wood-heap at the back door and a blunt axe standing by the wall, and hears Mrs. Horrington, clinking a billycan, crunch behind him along the path to the goat pen. Few would believe how unwell a man can feel at half-past six in the morning with a poor night's sleep behind him, and a wood-heap at his elbow.
Come morning then, come night; come laughter, come sorrow—the day's work goes forward. Saturday brings the coach bumping from Morning Springs. Monday, eight o'clock, hears the whistle beginning again the week. Shabby little camp set down in the wilderness, yours is the soul of the drudge, who finds brief time for singing at her labour, who finds still less time for tears.
On Monday mornings they do the washing at Surprise. Mrs. Bullock, brisk and brawny, sitting up in bed to rub her eyes, nudges Bullock from his last ten minutes' sleep.
"Don't forget the copper, dad. Yer left me with two sticks last time. Yer don't expect a woman to swing an axe as well as wash and bake and run after you from morning to night."