FROM SELECTION TO CITY.

Evening Star, Issue 14002, 8 March 1909, Page 2

FROM SELECTION TO CITY.

[By Steele Rcdd.] XI. ROY ON A STATION". Like all things earthly, the joy that our shearing cheques brought to the homo came to an end ; and, in a few weeks or less, matters had drifted hack into the same uneventful old groove, and life was dragging along in the same hopeless old way, when a messenger from the station happened along one day. and said that tho Boss required a hoy to yard the horses every morning, and run the mail twice a week, end perform sundry other light work on horseback. In fact, a permanent billet was open to him, and the wage was to he .£'J."i a year. The messenger looked at me, said I was just the .-hap for the job, and added that " the Boss had mentioned my name." Then mother looked at me. I looked round for mv share of the family blanket to roll my belongings in, end, telling the man to " hold on a bit, - ' rushed away to saddle the old moke that I was in the habit of calling mine.

A permanent station hand, and £2o a year! Croat money bags! Mv goal was reached. It was what I had dreamed of every night since I had been born. Mv millennium had arrived.

I caught the moke, and was ready to start—ready to leave home, and mother, and Kate, and all tho rest for all time.

I heard mother say, as 1 climbed into the saddle: '■ I would like to have kept him at his books a little! longer, to see it wo could make something more of him than we have of the others, but action lest mother should change her mind and call me back again. Ah. yes! Mother had great hopes of me then. But it wasn't her fault. She couldn't help it. All mothers do set 1 promises of great things in some member or other of their families; and I happened to be that unfortunate one in our family. But it made no difference to the others. My early genius never created jealousy in any of them. * * x- * * * * for five years I remained on that station, five years running in horses at early morning, when the white frost cracked under hoof and hit at your ears, and drew blood from the cracks in your hands —five years picking wool from the carcases of dead sheep that lay strewn over the sunbaked plains, and stuffing it into smellsome bags to lumber before me on the saddle to the woolshed—five years following the creek banks in all their windings to rescue sheep that were bogged, and skin others that were dead (they were mostly dead") —live years running the mail through drought and Hood to the township, twenty miles off. and lumbering packets of tea. end kettles, and reels of cotton, and yards of calico, and brooms, and frying pans, when "I didn't mind." or

" if it wasn't too much trouble," for sel--< tors' wives isolated by the road-

Ah. yes. the life of the permanent station hand wasn't all sport and but-ter-i'at. It was dull and hard enough sometimes, but it had its moods and bright spots. It had its romance and excitements, too. 'When the manager announced a general muster of cattle for ,i draught of fats for the butcher, and warned us to be well-mounted, and see to our girths: ah, that was the tiie>». Those were the moments when dull care was thrown to the winds, and the warm blood surged and tingled through every vein. The eager expectancy of a mad, reckless gallop down ridge and spur, filled one v. ith new life and a desire to live long. And when the staring, rushing herds assembled from all quarters, "' their voices ail blent into one," and we had to hold them together on the camp while the fats were cut out, the life the! was grand. The galloping, the. yelling, the swearing, the wheeling, and the 'spills,'' were extra grand. Hut when all that was over, and the order ■■>( the day was cutting burr on the shelterless plains, or draughting stubborn, sulky sheep in the dust-choked vards, or chopping wood, the reaction wis heart-breaking. It was like being sent j ;ieed to hard labor, f was never sentenced to hard labor, but it was like that.

Sometimes I was given a pack-horse, and tokl t<» take rations to the shepherds stationed at different parts of the run. Ration-carrying was not pi>. objectiouablj job. I preferred, it to cutting burr or polishing the boss's boots. Therj was more variety—more novelty in it. It afforded an opportunity for a yarn with the shepherds. \ liked yarning with the sheph-.-rds. They w-'re so entertaining, so interesting, so well informed—they were an education—and a cheap one. And the shepherds loved to get tin? ear of someone to yarn into The circle of their society was pretty limited. It was confined to the sheep, and the dog—and themselves. It was wonderful, though, how they could keep going; how they could sustain a conversation. I believe they could have kept going for a week, if the audience remained. Still some were not so int -resting as others; some were more gifted. tli« hair some had was worth showing. Old Ben, who was stationed at the wash pool, showed the most. Fie wa; a uni.'jr-uty man. Fie wouldn't have been shepherding if he hadn't been. Ben was a saver of words. Ffe never wast?d any on preliminary courtesies. Fie never said '" good-day " when you arrived " Well, now," he would begiu, on fiearing you approach, and without looking up—" if it was so and Scripture says it was, that from seven small loaves and five small fishes (or was it five small loaves ?) the Lord caused a multitude of hungry people to feast in plenty, how is it " —here he would look up and stare steadily at you—" that all these sheep, and bullocks, and goats, and fowl of the air are required to feed the. people of the world to-day?" Once I tried to supply some answer to his question, but that was on my first visit to him. On the second I was prepared ; and, acting or. the storekeeper's advice, said •"rats!" to him, and rode awa v.

Rut old Charlie was different to Ben. Charlie w.T-n't .1 thinker or ji reader. Nothing ever worried Charlie. Tie simply sat on a log all day and dozed, and allowed his hair t<i get long and white, [f you failed to shout a greeting to him when you came upon him to annonnce your presence, he would take conrnlsions, and clutch the log to save himself from falling off it, and gasp.

'"Oh-h, yer frightened me—damme if I saw yer coruin'." Bjrt when he had recovered from the shook he would want to know all that u-a.i going on, and everyone's business at the head station. Charlie loved gossip. In that respect he was a woman. I don't know in what respect he va« a man.

What th' devil are they up tor, in he wonki ask in a grieved ton*. And, on "being toid, he would sneer: •■They're bally well killed with work, they are. Why don't they come out hero if they want sennethin' to do?" Then, after a .short doze: "' When are they going to send a man out here to shift tne, and lot that bally old fool Ben come here!- 1 Cm gettiii' full o' this, an' rt looks as if like ter see me buried in this blasted hole. Yon tell th' overwser." And one Xmas Eve, when work was slack, and we thought we had finished lor the yeair, the overseer remembered Charlie's prayer, and sent me with a pack-hurst- to .shift his Indongings to the washpool, and settle him in the hut there. The pack-horse I was given was a saddle-horse—a touchy, nervous headstrong brute, that had been spell tbx-firstitimsjie had car-

rietl a pack, and Charlie's belongings made a formidable-boking burden. They consisted of blankets, a full bed tick, a billy can and pint pots, a supply of cahb.ge-tree that he made hats out of, sometimes, a frying pan, a bucket. :i bottlo of pickles, a tin of jam, and other luxuries ho had promised himself for Xmas Day. And when it was all pack-id on the saddle, there was hardly any of the horse to be seen. The horse himself couldn't sje anything but the pack, and the situation heightened his nervousness. For tin first few miles of the way be led beside me in an uncertain sort of way; but when the plain was reached be seemed to get used to the business and jogged along goodnaturedly. I had twelve miles to go, and crawling slowly along n the heat and flies was the devil. I couldn't see why that pack-horse shouldn't raise a cantsr and break the monotony. He raised a canter. He broke the monotony, too. He aho broke all station records for that distance, and he broke everything that \w. tied on him, and he pretty well broke my heart.

It was like this: When he started to canter, the billy can and pii.t pots started to belt out a refrain on the frying pan. That horse had no ee.r for music. He. took fright and started to buck and bolt alternately. I bolted with him. It was my only hope to steady him, but trouble set in. The billy can separated from the pack and travelled heavenward like a ticket. L didn't hear it ! fall. I must have been a furlong from it when it hit the earth. Then the pickles were burled at ny bead, and the jam was propelled into the long grass. 1 was distracted ; but steady that pack-hor?o I couldn't. I spurred my own mount to keep pace with him. It must have been a fine race to watch I'e gradually forged ahead of me. I leaned out of the saddle, clinging ti. my grip of the halter. I was in hopes he would tire. He never tired. I tired, and let go the baiter. He went faster Then I got a splendid view ot the frying pan as it war. whirled from the pack and floated through, the sir. The bed-tick showed signs of unrest. It Hopped about like a plain terkey on the wing, then ducked under the animal's belly and turned into straw and dust and scraps of rag. Straw and Tag fell all over the plain. Still tl at horse was going strong Thoughts of old Charlie, and the boss, and home, (lashed through me, and my heart sank. A white gate shn.ved itself en abend. J.'.v! There w;;s a chance of the runaway puiling up there, and handing himself over. He pulled up, and he handed himself over, too But that was all he did In.nd over. He had nothing on but the halter. 11« was naked Misery, me! What was to he done. I could never collect the wreck. I wept—leaned on the brute's foamllaked neck nud wept. After a while the u-elcssotSs of my emotion struck me, and I swore manfully, kicked the brute in the ribs, and then led him back to the station.

Tilers have been instances in my life when I didn't know how to aft. This was not one of them. I acted silently. 1 saw no use of making a. song about the disaster, and let no one into the secret. 1 ate well at tea time, hut somehow I went right off my sleep that night. Old Charlie seemed to be sleeping at the foot of my bunk. 1 fancied I could see him standing over inc. brandishing the frying pan. There was no room in my mind, though, for fancy when he turned up at the station next day. searching for his Xrnas dinner. There was no 7'oom for me at the station, either. [ detested explanations. Resides I was " full up " of station life. [ left.

NExt Article will aooear on Mon day, March i 5.