On Our Selection

Joe was a naturalist. He spent a lot of time--time that Dad considered should have been employed cutting burr or digging potatoes--in ear-marking bears and bandicoots, and catch...

It was early in the day. Traveller after traveller was trudging by Shingle Hut. One who carried no swag halted at the rails and came in. He asked Dad for a job. "I dunno," Dad a...

It was a real scorcher. A soft, sweltering summer's day. The air quivered; the heat drove the fowls under the dray and sent the old dog to sleep upon the floor inside the house....

We had just finished supper. Supper! dry bread and sugarless tea. Dad was tired out and was resting at one end of the sofa; Joe was stretched at the other, without a pillow, and...

Our selection was a great place for dancing. We could all dance--from Dan down--and there was n't a figure or a movement we did n't know. We learned young. Mother was a firm bel...

When Dad received two hundred pounds for the wheat he saw nothing but success and happiness ahead. His faith in the farm and farming swelled. Dad was not a pessimist--when he ha...

Three days to Christmas; and how pleased we were! For months we had looked forward to it. Kate and Sandy, whom we had only seen once since they went on their selection, were to...

That harvest of two hundred bags of wheat was the turning-point in the history of our selection. Things somehow seemed to go better; and Dad's faith was gradually justified--to...

Supper was over at Shingle Hut, and we were all seated round the fire--all except Joe. He was mousing. He stood on the sofa with one ear to the wall in a listening attitude, and...

A sweltering summer's afternoon. A heat that curled and withered the very weeds. The corn-blades drooping, sulking still. Mother and Sal ironing, mopping their faces with a towe...

We always looked forward to Sunday. It was our day of sport. Once, I remember, we thought it would never come. We longed restlessly for it, and the more we longed the more it se...

Our selection adjoined a sheep-run on the Darling Downs, and boasted of few and scant improvements, though things had gradually got a little better than when we started. A veran...

One hot day, as we were finishing dinner, a sheriff's bailiff rode up to the door. Norah saw him first. She was dressed up ready to go over to Mrs. Anderson's to tea. Sometimes...

There had been a long stretch of dry weather, and we were cleaning out the waterhole. Dad was down the hole shovelling up the dirt; Joe squatted on the brink catching flies and...

It was the year we put the bottom paddock under potatoes. Dad was standing contemplating the tops, which were withering for want of rain. He shifted his gaze to the ten acres so...

Dad used to say that Shingle Hut was the finest selection on Darling Downs; but WE never could see anything fine about it--except the weather in drought time, or Dad's old saddl...

She was the mistress of the local school, and had come to board with us a month. The parents of the score of more of youngsters attending the school had arranged to accommodate...

Dad was inside grunting and groaning with toothache. He had had it a week, and was nearly mad. For a while he sat by the fire, prodding the tooth with his pocket-knife; then he...

When the bailiff came and took away the cows and horses, and completely knocked the bottom out of Dad's land scheme, Dad did n't sit in the ashes and sulk. He was n't that kind...

It's twenty years ago now since we settled on the Creek. Twenty years! I remember well the day we came from Stanthorpe, on Jerome's dray--eight of us, and all the things--beds,...

We were not in bed long when the dog barked and a horse entered the yard. There was a clink of girth-buckles; a saddle thrown down; then a thump, as though with a lump of blue-m...

It had been a bleak July day, and as night came on a bitter westerly howled through the trees. Cold! was n't it cold! The pigs in the sty, hungry and half-fed (we wanted for our...

One evening a raggedly-dressed man, with a swag on his back, a bear-skin cap on his head, and a sheath-knife in his belt, came to our place and took possession of the barn. Dad...

Dave had been to town and came home full of circus. He sat on the ground beside the tubs while Mother and Sal were washing, and raved about the riding and the tumbling he had se...

It was dinner-time. And were n't we hungry!--particularly Joe! He was kept from school that day to fork up hay-work hard enough for a man--too hard for some men--but in many thi...

We had just finished. The girls were sowing the last of the grain when Fred Dwyer appeared on the scene. Dad stopped and talked with him while we (Dan, Dave and myself) sat on o...