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The Christmas Claim

Table of Contents

Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW), Sunday 23 December 1906

Table of Contents

When Joe Darby chucked his billet down in golden Ballarat,

And set out with many others for the rush at Hard-up Flat,

He was not exactly worried with those monetary cares

That accumulate like rabbits on the heads of millionaires;

His assets consisted mainly of three youngsters small and light,

Of an antiquated moke, one wife, and eke a miner's right.

So when Darby came to Hard-up he was rather hard up, too,

And was forced, as things were costly, to subsist on kangaroo.

But he had great expectations, for by many it was told,

Fully half-a-dozen diggers there were half their time on gold;

And although of ten arrivals nine departed in disgust,

He pegged out a claim and named it—from the prospect—"Yellow Dust."

Darby made him then a shanty ('twas of good old stringy-bark);

It was roomy, it was airy, and when all within was dark

He could see the planets winking through the sun-cracks overhead

As of nuggets he lay thinking after supper in his bed.

"Good enough," he said to Molly, "for the time that we'll be 'ere,

An' we won't get any poorer if we live for forty year."

Little Molly was a woman of the kind that's called a brick;

She could wield the long-tailed shovel, and could swing a digger's pick;

She could puddle dirt and cradle just as good as any man,

For they worked the claim together on the economic plan;

And there was no sound more cheery where the golden rivers flow,

Than the rattle of the windlass and her cry, "Look out, below!"

But the months went by, and Darby was still toiling on the flat,

And he wasn't growing richer, neither was he growing fat.

It was drawing near to Christmas, and his mercury going down,

For there'd be no spree for Joseph, nor a roaring time in town

'Mong the shearers and the drovers, hugging girls behind the slabs,

With the members of the Union talking loud against the "scabs."

Now, the good name of the diggings he no longer would uphold;

But explosive was his language when you mentioned Hard-up gold;

Yet the while that he was wilting 'neath the scourge of Rotten Luck,

Scotty Dalker had such fortune that he cackled like a duck;

And Good Molly was so happy, turning at the windlass, too,

You'd have thought she had the washings of all Hard-up in her shoe.

Little mattered it to Molly how her hubby took her whim,

She'll a card to play at Christmas that was not beknown to him.

She would pirouette and whistle when she'd empty out the drum,

Then she'd lower it down to Darby looking quite sedate and glum.

Just to play a lark on Joseph, she told Scotty, was her aim,

And she made some vague allusions to a certain Christmas claim.

She had patched him up till Joseph, in his pantaloons and shirt,

Was the queerest-looking digger that had ever puddled dirt;

He had wired his broken boots to keep the uppers on the soles,

And his hat was perforated till his hair grew through the holes;

Yet he might have been a scarecrow, an' 'twould not have made him grieve.

If he only had tobacco and a "drop" for Christmas Eve.

There's no cause to fret and worry in Australia when you're broke;

But the world is very awry when you're "dying for a smoke."

If you've bottomed on a duffer, while your neighbor's struck it rich,

And you feel so broken-hearted that your lips begin to twitch,

You can draw a lot of comfort from the old companion still—

But Joe Darby struck the duffer when he hadn't got a "fill."

Christmas came, and there was drinking and good cheer on Hard-up Flat;

Sounds of joy were borne to Darby, and he "couldn't suffer that";

So for want of some amusement to beguile the wretched day,

To the claim he said he'd toddle, and as usual peg away.

"You may please yourself," said Molly, with illuminated face,

"But I tell you plainly, Joseph, you'll be working on your ace."

"What with cleaning up and cooking in this stringyshack, 'tis clear,

There's enough to occupy me on this day of all the year."

Darby did not stop to argue, though the fact was evident

That he disagreed with Molly, for he muttered as he went:

"Half a day to boil a billy an' to roast some kangaroo—

With a wife an' such a dinner, what's a blessed man to do?"

All the long and lonely morning, where the ground was virgin yet,

Darby diligently fossicked for the value of a "wet;"

Till the sun was in the zenith, and he fizzled in its heat.

Till his appetite was awful, and he tottered on his feet;

But he didn't get a color, and at last he turned away,

The presentiment of mis'ry and of physical decay.

When he reached his humble residence he halted at the door,

For the first thing that he noticed was the children on the floor

Rolling round and making merry, while his partner welcomed him

With a "Merry Christmas, Darby," which made Darby very grim.

He threw down his tools in anger, banged his hat against the wall,

And declared that she was dotty who stood laughing at it all.

"Never mind, my precious Darby," said good Molly, pert and sweet

"I have raked you up a dinner that you will be glad to eat;

After all we've got a pudding, never mind how it was made—"

"So you had the plums an' currants all the time, you lyin' jade!"

"No, I hadn't, Mister. Darby, it was by good luck they came.

And you'll share the luck, I reckon, when you've worked the Xmas Claim."

Darby flopped upon a gin-case, and, disdaining kangaroo,

Tried to cut a junk of pudding just as you or I would do;

But he struck on solid bottom ere the knife was out of sight;

In bewilderment he prodded, sawed and thrust with all his might;

Still the carver ground and grated on some hard and gritty stuff.

"Lord o' Mercy!" cried Joe Darby, "What the devil's in the duff?"

He stood up and squared his elbows, and he made the pieces fly,

Which were pounced upon instanter by the children standing by;

With perspiring face he struggled with the something that was hard,

While he complimented Molly with endearments by the yard.

"Keep your hair on," she advised him; "strip the surface strata, Joe,

You might dislocate your molars if you try to bite below."

Then the irate Darby spinning sent his case across the floor,

And the pudding at the grinning head of Molly by the door.

"There, you sanguinary jackass, take your hyphenated stuff.

You would daub a rock with putty, an' then tell me it's a duff!

'Aven't I enough o' worry, dynamite you, without that!"

And he pointed to the pastry that had fallen on his hat.

Soon his wandering eye alighted on the thing that caused the row,

And he saw that it was yellow. Great was Darby's wonder now.

With a mighty stride he reached it, and with eager hands took hold,

Whereupon a yell escaped him: "Holy wars, it's solid gold!"

"Which you don't deserve," said Molly, "for you've thrown it twice away,

In the dirt at Yellow Dust an' in the pudding here to-day."

Then Joe Darby hugged his missus, and the best of fun began,

For she danced in pudding plasters, swung as only women can,

Knocked the 'stonished kiddies sprawling, nearly squashed grimalkin's pate,

Turned the table bottom upwards, crunched on broken cup and plate,

Till their yells. aroused the miners, who came rushing 'cross the mire,

And they burst into the shanty as the pair fell in the fire.

Panting, breathless Darby couldn't to their queries make reply,

But a woman's never beaten—she can always talk or cry;

And the wondering miners listened while good Molly told the tale—

Which she told full often after, for the telling's never stale

How from poverty to riches, which for years had been her aim,

They were lifted in a twinkling by Joe Darby's Christmas Claim.