THE TALTYS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1507, 17 January 1901, Page 61

THE TALTYS.

AN AUSTRALIAN SKETCH. (By Steele Rudd, in “The Queenslander.’’) The Talt vs lived at Saddletop, on the road to New South Wales—three boys and three girls and the "old man and woman.’’ A well-grown family, healthy and strong as horses.. They took great care of their strength, too—they never used any of it. The children were all natives of tlie

selection, had grown up with its grass and saplings, were part and parcel of it. and in a. weird, wild sort of way lived happily. They never complained ; they seemed to have no trials, ivj cares, not-huig to worry about. They had nothing to wear about either, very often.

Talty\s selection Wasn't one of tlie smiling order or experimental sort.. No money was wasted on it; there was no unnecessary buildings, no wire-netting fences, no ornamental trees, no clrays, no carts, no machinery, and no old iron lying about rusting in the sun ; no extravagance of any kind. The house, which opened into a garden fenced with sticks* and filled with a rose bush and a currajong-tree and a wrterhole, was without a chimney and without a tank. It leaned l on an acre or two: of cleared ground ornamented with burnt holes and ash patches and stumps and sawn logs from which the dry sapwood had been hacked and chopped away. Round the house to protect it from bush fires a, ploughed circle ; four years since it was ploughed, and grass and weeds growing luxuriantly out of it. At the rear a pigsty built of heavy logs, a hard beaten track identifying it with the house; and looming behind the stv a steep, stony mountain .which periodically when the family were dining let slip a hundredweight or two of granite., which bounded over the pig and bumped the. corner of the house and knocked slabs out and shook cobweb and spiders and shingles and things on to the dinner, and let daylight into the whole caboose ; creeping slowly down the mountain side, threatening to submerge the sty and the house and the cleared ground, a thick, matted scrub that at ni?rlit emitted hair-raising howls and noises and sent forth battalions of wallabies and things to encourage the Taitys and keep them employed. In front a paddock of five acres fenced with fallen timber and sticks and piles of hushes. The Taitys called this “the cultivation,” sometimes "the apiary.” It contained a patch of wheat embroidered with "stinking Rodger” and grass higher than any horse, and some beehives

m white boxes cocked up on forked sticks. The Taitys combined hoiit-y----rahing with agriculture—they didn’t bein’ vo in placing all their eggs in one basket. No live stock were ever on Taitys selection excepting a pair of gray horses that kept people who drew water from the creek a!way- ccoupled pulling them cut cf tlie mud. The Taitys owned cattle, though, but they only cams round ••die place in the wheat season. They possessed fowl, too. and a. pet kangaroo and an emu and a. magpie capable cf talcing degrees in prola mty. The kangaroo and emu used to forage near the road and race drovers’ and shepherds’ dogs from the fence to the house, where the magpie would lend a {land and slang the retreating cTgs. Tally tlie. elder was a humble man—•a stunted, weedy person of a few ’possum power, shy as a bandicoot and afraid of his wife. He weut about in magpie trousers —white moleskins with black patches round the legs—raid a starved, tailed beard, and he had a voice that would draw pity from a pawnbroker. Tally was a man of method and far moil on a system : a good system he reckoned was everything on a farm. He cocked for shearers half the year and grew .wheat and pumpkins and strained honey the.other half. He pottered about till all hours of night ; he •was never done, and slept every mom-

ing till the flies and the heat of the sun hunted him out.

"Get the hoe, lads,” lie would say to the boys in an eager kind of way just about dinner time. The boys would l rush about and search the paddock and the long grass about the pigsty and the heads of trees where some of them had ‘‘seen it one day,” and when they had found it Talty would spend an hour wedging the handle, then amble off with it on his shoulder, the boys following at his heels, and scratch holes in the grass and plant pumpkin seeds. When the last seed was planted lie would stand the hoe up where he couldn’t find it again and trot back to the house and make an entry in a book —an exercise book containing records of things put in the ground and particulars and brands cf the stock—the gray horses and cows that were away. Then he would find things to do at tiae fence, where anyone going by might see him and ask the way and talk all day if they were not in a hurry or he would sit down in the corner of the chimney and study the sky and watch for the rain that was to bring the pumpkin up. The Taitys were close observers of people. No one ever passed along the road unnoticed by them. They seemed, to know by instinct when any one was passing, and would flock out of the house by both doors and line up and gape. Johnny McCoy was passing with a priest one day—the priest was going to see old O’Brien who was sick—and tire Taitys failed to> show out. They were having dinner. "No one live there?” asked the priest, in a tired, disinterested tone. "Oh, yes.” Johnny said, reining m, and facing Talty’s house, "just you watch. Father.” “Hey!” he shouted 1 ; and before tlie echo had died away all the Taitys tumbled out like ants disturbed in their nests, and some looked the wrong way. “Well, well, well. well,” said the

priest. Talty owned twenty-five head of cattle. mostly cows; the makers of good',

mi iker*. too ; and it- was the time when no dairies were about, when no one cue had cows, and butter was T- per lb at the local store. And whenever these craws came round in the daytime, Tnltv and the boys, in the iuteiv-t- of the patch cf rusty wheat, would deg and stone them across fences and over ridges, and do their utmost to ‘ wander” them. They wouldn’t get home till all hours at night ; and talk about hunger. Tlie petkangaroo and the magpie kept cut of the way when that meal was on. And 1 no sooner would they be under the blankets when seme one would shout “Listen!” Then Talty and the boys would bound from bed- and run out in their shirts and shout and call the clog and grope in ’ the dark for stones to chase the cattle back over more mountains. Talt.vs" was a great place for excitement in the wheat season. Mrs Talty was a woman cf character. She had great- personality. A big. upstanding woinaiu with a strong jaw and heavy flat- feet. She had long thick wrists and a waist that rolled and wobbled as she walked. A serious woman who would stand: no fooling, and never hesitated to- throw things at people. She had. a suspicious mind, and held her own opinion about things and expressed them in a way that made you think she wanted to fight.

The schoolmaster from tlie Nobby called at Taitys’ one morning while Tally was at- t-lie shearing to know why the children’s education was being neglected. He was a single man, tlie schoolmaster, well dressed, hut new to the ways of bush people. He crawled through the fence and approached the house. There was great commotion on the farm; all hands racing about in different directions and shouting. Tlie pig was .out. and Airs Tally and the boys and two of the girls were pursuing it in and cut the scrub. Finally it sought refuge in the house and disturbed" a fowl that .was sitting there cn no eggs. Airs Talty was up first —she had her boots off —and tried to block the pig at the door. She held wide her skirts. Streams of perspiration ran down her broad; face, and she shouted to the family to hurry. But the family were winded, and came up at a tired trot : some cf them saw the schoolmaster and immediately vanished ; slunk behind trees and now and again peeped round at him like, gonnas. The schoolmaster was interested in the antics of Airs Talty. He put his hat back and stood and watched her. “Quick! shoo! shoo! —’’she gasped. But the pig would come out. It poked into- her apron and rolled her over and over and tramped on her and left mud and marks on her neck. The schoolmaster laughed, then tried to smother his mirth and laughed more. He stepped towards ?Urs Talty to assist her. But she didn’t require help. The •sound of a strange voice was enough. {She jumped up and glared round. She wasn’t pleased to see the schoolmaster. “What might you want here?’’ she asked, with an ugly glare in her eye.

The schoolmaster hadn't full control of his feelings.

"You’re a blackguard!" Airs Tally said, shaking her fist at him. He stepped back a pace, trying to say something conciliatory. But Airs Talty reached for him quickly. tie didn’t like the look in her eyes, nor the way she was sweating, and after hesitating turned to run. She just managed to grip an inch of liis coat with her finger and thumb before he could get way on, and held t,o it. He ran, pulling her after him. She kept up well, making vain attempts to fix her left in his coat collar ; but the pace was fast and downhill.

She hehl him well till the infernal kangaroo, who was taught all kinds of pranks by the boys, thought there was a new game started, and suddenly emerging from the paddock joined in and spoilt Airs Talty’s chances ; aiid the schoolmaster escaped. The T'alty’s held a sale one Christmas and sold all their cows—got ten shillings a head and were glad. Talty and the, boys went oil foot and helped the purchaser to drive them away. Three months after a dairy rush set in, and everyone bought cows and sold butter, and creameries and factories took shape and the price of cattle 'went iip. And when last I saw Talty he was despondent. "Nothin' in wheat,” he said, “nothin’A* Then after reflection—" Cows is the only thing, now, though Tom Ryan up there was tellm’ tlr ol’ woman that a boardin’house in town’s a good thing, but Pm d d if I know."