The Best Australian Bush Stories Read online

  The garden stretched out across the yard behind the house. There were a number of fruit trees along one side and the back verandah of the house was on the other side. There was a large pepper tree at one end and a dairy at the opposite end.

  The dairy was a concrete building, square in shape and fairly tall with a pair of galvanised iron water tanks on top. The water was pumped into the tanks from an underground tank and a nearby well. This was the water supply for the house.

  The lower part of the dairy was in fact two rooms. One room, known as the ‘meat house’, was where the carcasses of beef and hogget were hung, after being slaughtered on the property. The other room was the separating room, where the milk from each morning’s milking was separated and the cream was churned into butter. For some unknown reason it was serviced by two doors on opposing walls, each leading to and from the garden. It was the coldest room on the farm.

  Once inside the yard, it was no trouble to find the turkey. He was in the shade beneath the peppercorn tree, his back towards us. His head was turned back over his shoulder, giving us the eye.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with him!’ said Jim. ‘What’s wrong with him? What does he do?’

  ‘He chases ya,’ said Colin.

  ‘Well what makes him chase ya?’ asked Jim.

  ‘Flick a rock at him! You’ll see!’

  So Jim, the hero, picked up a white quartz pebble from the garden path and in true marbles fashion, fudged it in the direction of the gobbler. No results. He tried a couple more times.

  ‘He won’t hurt ya!’ gloated Jim.

  We each gathered up some white quartz stones, ‘cemetery stones’ we used to call them, and we all flicked and fudged and fumbled stones in the direction of the turkey.

  As brave as we were we didn’t get too close, so our ‘marbles’ shots were none too accurate.

  The big bird only stared and waited.

  Jim turned his back on the target and announced that it was a waste of time and that we should find something else to do. We agreed and turned to go.

  It was at that very moment that we heard a very loud and frightening hiss from the gobbler!

  We hardly had time to look back.

  ‘He’s coming!’ cried Colin. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

  Three pairs of skinny legs went bolting up the garden path before he’d finished speaking.

  The three of us bolted in the direction of the dairy, Jim and Colin out front and me not very far behind.

  A quick look over my shoulder, as a measure of safety, revealed the gobbler in pursuit, his wings outstretched downwards towards the ground making a sound like heavy boards dragging on the gravel path. His body was fully stretched out with his breast low to the ground and he looked enormous. He was hissing and was making a lot of noise, really going crook.

  I didn’t get a look at his eyes in that frightening fleeting moment, but I could tell that he meant business.

  ‘Go round the dairy!’ shouted Colin, ‘Go round the dairy!’

  Around the dairy we went full pelt. Then we turned back towards the peppercorn tree as fast as we could.

  Fright now gave my old blucher boots a new turn of speed and racing up between the house and the rows of cabbages I managed to overtake my cousin. Jim made a right-hand turn at the spinach and we followed. Up to the apricot tree and round to the right again we raced in procession—Jim, me, Colin and the turkey.

  ‘Go through the dairy!’ shouted Colin. ‘Go through the dairy!’

  We did. At a hundred miles an hour! In one door and out the other! The crazy gobbler was still running fourth but was not too far behind.

  Again we followed the same path around behind the house. Once again we turned right at the spinach and made another right turn at the apricot tree. We were fairly blowing by this time and Colin was still shouting advice.

  ‘Go through the dairy—go through the dairy.’

  It must have been in all our minds that we were travelling too fast to risk scaling the fence. Any slip was death! So, it was do as we were told, and back through the dairy we went.

  As Jim and I entered the first door of the building, our cousin, who was now some yards further behind, shouted further advice.

  ‘Out the other side and shut the door . . . shut the door . . . shut the door!’

  He sounded like he was getting further behind.

  Always ones to heed good advice in a tight situation, we shut the door, and locked Colin inside with the turkey.

  There was a terrible commotion.

  Uncle Roy quickly arrived on the scene and smartly rescued his youngster.

  What a row it was that followed.

  I’m not too sure exactly what happened after that, however, as I was too far from the house. All I could hear was them calling after me.

  It was a long hot day sitting on the strainer post at the front gate from where I could keep an eye on our car ’til my folks were ready to go home.

  Perhaps they could see me too, but nobody bothered to come and get me for dinner.

  I missed out on my favourite too, baked dinner; and watermelon, of which Jim had two slices.

  Maybe it would have been worth a good kick in the pants.

  Fancy missing out on two slices of watermelon!

  THE HOTEL IN

  MARYBOROUGH

  MARK TWAIN

  (EXCERPT FROM FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR)

  SOMEWHERE ON THE WAY to Maryborough I changed for a while to a smoking-carriage. There were two gentlemen there; both riding backward, one at each end of the compartment. They were acquaintances of each other. I sat down facing the one that sat at the starboard window. He had a good face, and a friendly look, and I judged from his dress that he was a dissenting minister. He was along toward fifty. Of his own motion he struck a match, and shaded it with his hand for me to light my cigar. I take the rest from my diary:

  In order to start conversation I asked him something about Maryborough. He said, in a most pleasant—even musical voice, but with quiet and cultured decision:

  ‘It’s a charming town, with a hell of a hotel.’

  I was astonished. It seemed so odd to hear a minister swear out loud. He went placidly on:

  ‘It’s the worst hotel in Australia. Well, one may go further, and say in Australasia.’

  ‘Bad beds?’

  ‘No, none at all. Just sand-bags.’

  ‘The pillows, too?’

  ‘Yes, the pillows, too. Just sand. And not a good quality of sand. It packs too hard, and has never been screened. There is too much gravel in it. It is like sleeping on nuts.’

  ‘Isn’t there any good sand?’

  ‘Plenty of it. There is as good bed-sand in this region as the world can furnish. Aerated sand—and loose; but they won’t buy it. They want something that will pack solid, and petrify.’

  ‘How are the rooms?’

  ‘Eight feet square; and a sheet of iced oil-cloth to step on in the morning when you get out of the sand-quarry.’

  ‘As to lights?’

  ‘Coal-oil lamp.’

  ‘A good one?’

  ‘No. It’s the kind that sheds a gloom.’

  ‘I like a lamp that burns all night.’

  ‘This one won’t. You must blow it out early.’

  ‘That is bad. One might want it again in the night. Can’t find it in the dark.’

  ‘There’s no trouble; you can find it by the stench.’

  ‘Wardrobe?’

  ‘Two nails on the door to hang seven suits of clothes on if you’ve got them.’

  ‘Bells?’

  ‘There aren’t any.’

  ‘What do you do when you want service?’

  ‘Shout. But it won’t fetch anybody.’

  ‘Suppose you want the chambermaid to empty the slop-jar?’

  ‘There isn’t any slop-jar. The hotels don’t keep them. That is, outside of Sydney and Melbourne.’

  ‘Yes, I knew that. I was only talking. It’s the oddest thin
g in Australia. Another thing: I’ve got to get up in the dark, in the morning, to take the five o’clock train. Now if the boots—’

  ‘There isn’t any.’

  ‘Well, the porter.’

  ‘There isn’t any.’

  ‘But who will call me?’

  ‘Nobody. You’ll call yourself. And you’ll light yourself, too. There’ll not be a light burning in the halls or anywhere. And if you don’t carry a light, you’ll break your neck.’

  ‘But who will help me down with my baggage?’

  ‘Nobody. However, I will tell you what to do. In Maryborough there’s an American who has lived there half a lifetime; a fine man, and prosperous and popular. He will be on the lookout for you; you won’t have any trouble. Sleep in peace; he will rout you out, and you will make your train. Where is your manager?’

  ‘I left him at Ballarat, studying the language. And besides, he had to go to Melbourne and get us ready for New Zealand. I’ve not tried to pilot myself before, and it doesn’t look easy.’

  ‘Easy! You’ve selected the very most difficult piece of railroad in Australia for your experiment. There are twelve miles of this road which no man without good executive ability can ever hope—tell me, have you good executive ability? First-rate executive ability?’

  ‘I—well, I think so, but—’

  ‘That settles it. The tone of—oh, you wouldn’t ever make it in the world. However, that American will point you right, and you’ll go. You’ve got tickets?’

  ‘Yes—round trip; all the way to Sydney.’

  ‘Ah, there it is, you see! You are going in the five o’clock by Castlemaine—twelve miles—instead of the seven-fifteen by Ballarat—in order to save two hours of fooling along the way. Now then, don’t interrupt—let me have the floor. You’re going to save the government a deal of hauling, but that’s nothing; your ticket is by Ballarat, and it isn’t good over that twelve miles, and so—’

  ‘But why should the government care which way I go?’

  ‘Goodness knows! Ask of the winds that far away with fragments strewed the sea, as the boy that stood on the burning deck used to say. The government chooses to do its railway business in its own way, and it doesn’t know as much about it as the French. In the beginning they tried idiots; then they imported the French—which was going backwards, you see; now it runs the railways itself—which is going backwards again, you see. Why, do you know, in order to curry favour with the voters, the government puts down a track wherever anybody wants it, anybody that owns two sheep and a dog; and by consequence we’ve got, in the colony of Victoria, 800 railway stations, and the business done at eighty of them doesn’t foot up twenty shillings a week.’

  ‘Five dollars? Oh, come!’

  ‘It’s true. It’s the absolute truth.’

  ‘Why, there are three or four men on wages at every station.’

  ‘I know it. And the station-business doesn’t pay for the sheep-dip to sanctify their coffee with. It’s just as I say. And accommodating? Why, if you shake a rag the train will stop in the midst of the wilderness to pick you up. All that kind of politics costs, you see. And then, besides, any town that has a good many votes and wants a fine station, gets it.

  ‘Don’t you overlook that Maryborough station, if you take an interest in governmental curiosities. Why, you can put the whole population of Maryborough into it, and give them a sofa apiece, and have room for more. You haven’t fifteen stations in America that are as big, and you probably haven’t five that are half as fine. Why, it’s perfectly elegant. And the clock! Everybody will show you the clock. There isn’t a station in Europe that’s got such a clock. It doesn’t strike—and that’s one mercy. It hasn’t any bell; and as you’ll have cause to remember, if you keep your reason, all Australia is simply bedamned with bells.

  ‘On every quarter-hour, night and day, they jingle a tiresome chime of half a dozen notes—all the clocks in town at once, all the clocks in Australasia at once, and all the very same notes; first, downward scale: mi, re, do, sol—then upward scale: sol, si, re, do—down again: mi, re, do, sol—up again: sol, si, re, do. Then the clock—say at midnight clang–clang–clang–clang–clang–clang– clang–clang–clang–clang—and, by that time you’re . . . hello, what’s all this excitement about?

  ‘Oh I see, a runaway, scared by the train; why, you wouldn’t think this train could scare anything. Well, of course, when they build and run eighty stations at a loss and a lot of palace-stations and clocks like Maryborough’s at another loss, the government has got to economise somewhere hasn’t it?

  ‘Very well, look at the rolling stock. That’s where they save the money. Why, that train from Maryborough will consist of eighteen freight-cars and two passenger-kennels; cheap, poor, shabby, slovenly; no drinking water, no sanitary arrangements, every imaginable inconvenience; and slow? Oh, the gait of cold molasses; no air-brake, no springs, and they’ll jolt your head off every time they start or stop.

  ‘That’s where they make their little economies, you see. They spend tons of money to house you palatially while you wait fifteen minutes for a train, then degrade you to six hours’ convict-transportation to get the foolish outlay back. What a rational man really needs is discomfort while he’s waiting, then his journey in a nice train would be a grateful change. But no, that would be common sense—and out of place in a government. And then, besides, they save in that other little detail, you know—repudiate their own tickets, and collect a poor little illegitimate extra shilling out of you for that twelve miles, and . . .’

  ‘Well, in any case . . .’

  ‘Wait, there’s more. Leave that American out of the account and see what would happen. There’s nobody on hand to examine your ticket when you arrive. But the conductor will come and examine it when the train is ready to start. It is too late to buy your extra ticket now; the train can’t wait, and won’t. You must climb out.’

  ‘But can’t I pay the conductor?’

  ‘No, he is not authorised to receive the money, and he won’t. You must climb out. There’s no other way. I tell you, the railway management is about the only thoroughly European thing here. Continentally European I mean, not English. It’s the continental business in perfection; down fine. Oh, yes, even to the peanut-commerce of weighing baggage.’

  The train slowed up at his place. As he stepped out he said:

  ‘Yes, you’ll like Maryborough. Plenty of intelligence there. It’s a charming place, with a hell of a hotel.’

  Then he was gone. I turned to the other gentleman:

  ‘Is your friend in the ministry?’

  ‘No—studying for it.’

  DOWN AMONG THE

  WOMBATS

  LENNIE LOWER

  PEOPLE WHO THINK THERE are no more thrills to be had in our wide-open spaces have not heard anything. Why, only the other day a man was attacked by a six-foot kangaroo in the bush near Corinda, and fought with it for ten minutes.

  I have had similar experiences with wombats. Not dingbats—wombats!

  While camped on the edge of a small nullah-nullah or waterhole I was startled by a loud roar. With true bushman’s instinct I fell into the waterhole, and, on looking around, observed a huge wombat devouring one of my dogs. From tip to tip its antlers were about eight feet across.

  My rifle was on the bank, and I had broken my sheath-knife off at the hilt trying to cut a damper I had made. I knew I was safe so long as I stayed up to my neck in the water. Unfortunately I had not foreseen the cunning of this wombat.

  Stamping its feet with rage, it approached the edge of the waterhole and commenced to drink. Rapidly the water level went down, from my neck to my armpits, then down to my waist.

  Every now and then it would pause and glare at me with its little red eyes. This gave me an idea. Next time it glared at me I glared back at it. This seemed to disconcert the beast and it looked away and hiccuped.

  It resumed drinking after a while but without any great enthusiasm.

&nb
sp; The water was down to my ankles when the wombat gave me one last pitiful, frustrated look and rolled over on its side—full.

  I splashed towards it. ‘Come on now,’ I said, ‘pull yourself together. I’ll get you a taxi. Where do you live?’

  (This, of course, was sheer force of habit.)

  ‘Brr-hup! Groo,’ he answered.

  ‘Don’t give in to it,’ I said. ‘Do you think you can walk? Lean against me. That’s the way.’

  Well, it was just the sort of thing you would do for anybody, but you wouldn’t believe how grateful that wombat was when next I met it. Of course, things don’t always work out that way. I could never get on with goannas—or iguanas, as you city folk say. They have a nasty habit of turning up at the wrong time. This would not be so bad if it were not for their penchant for climbing up trees.

  I recall the time I was leaning against a gum tree talking to the squatter’s daughter. We were getting along famously, and I had even got to the point of shyly asking her what she thought about the price of fat lambs at the saleyards.

  I could see the faint glow in her cheeks, her dewy, downcast eyes and tremulous lips as she replied, ‘You really want to know? You are not one of those . . . those men who, oh you wouldn’t understand.’

  It was then that the goanna missed his footing and fell down the back of my shirt. If I had been wearing a belt all might have been well, but as I was wearing braces the thing went right down my left trouser leg. Its beady eyes looked out from just above my left boot and its tail waved frantically about the back of my neck.

  ‘Are you in the habit of indulging in this horseplay?’ she asked in icy tones. All the spirit of her ancestors—both of them—was in that steely glance.

  I tried to explain. ‘You see,’ I said. ‘I’m wearing braces . . .’

  ‘I see,’ she said haughtily, ‘you usually keep your trousers up by sheer willpower, I suppose?’

  I wanted to tell her that if I had been wearing a belt the goanna wouldn’t have gone all the way down. But she spurned me. She wheeled her horse with a look of utter loathing and gave it a slash with the whip. Surprised and indignant, the horse leapt in the air and the squatter’s daughter landed on a hard portion of one of her father’s many acres of grazing property.