Читать книгу Life in the Australian Backblocks - Edward S Sorenson - Страница 6

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Woman's sphere in the bush is defined according to the size of the old man's purse. On squattages, and on the better-class selections, she has time to bang the piano into a tuneless horror, to play tennis—with a rabbit-proof fence across the centre of the "lawn"—to spin into town behind a pair of good trotters to get the mail, to attend the flower show, the hospital ball, or the grass-fed races, to discuss the latest books and the prevailing fashions. Among her less fortunate sisters the change of fashion means remodelling the old dress. The cream decoration that was a feature of last year's ball will be resurrected for this year's whirl as a beautiful blush-pink, or some delicate shade of blue, subsequently turning saffron for the races. Whatever her station, Bella is an adept at "making a do of things."

It is no novelty to come upon her in the deep forests and trackless hills of big runs at mustering times, well mounted, and her pretty sun-kissed face glowing through the tunnel of a plain bonnet or a big straw hat tied down over her ears with a pink ribbon. She slides down into steep gorges and leaps over gullies and logs with easy seat and graceful movement; and she shoots round the wings of half-wild cattle with stock-whip in full blast. Her whip is a pearl, being mostly presented by some admiring Greenhide Jack; and when Jack makes anything for the pet creation, you can bet your bottom Cobar he will put all his ingenuity into it.

At many backblock stations the mustering troupe, riding off in the early morning, is delightfully picturesque, being composed of white men and black men, of black girls and white girls. On some Bulloo River runs I have seen black girls wearing trousers and riding astraddle on men's saddles; but Bella Bush, though she may use a man's saddle, sits in conventional fashion when the opposite sex is present. Otherwise she is capable of throwing her leg over, and riding with the gay abandonment of her black sisters. If you meet her on the run, she will probably pass you in frigid silence, but with the steady scrutiny of a tracker. When the cattle are in the yards, Bella loves to perch on a cap and handle a drafting gate.

At one time in the bush it was the ambition of every girl and woman to have a horse and side-saddle. When Jim went to see the girl she expected to be taken for a ride, and if she didn't possess the means herself he had to bring it with him. He is still met on many tracks on Sunday, leading a saddled horse for the girl; and when they are engaged the riding outfit is one of the most cherished presents. They ride to the races, to the show, and to the dance; and occasionally one is reminded of old days by seeing mother on a horse, with baby on her knee. She goes shopping on horseback then, with a white pillow-slip strapped in front of her, and she takes Bill's dinner to him likewise when he is splitting or fencing two or three miles from the house.

Nowadays the desideratum is a horse and trap, and there is more driving than riding, except among the young folk in the backblocks. The incursion of town-bred people into the closer-settled areas has wrought many changes, including, with the concomitant shortening of distances, the decadence of the equestrienne. The town person regards the wild nature-moods of Bella Bush as improper; but Bella is more broad-minded, and though she may be as free in her speech as in her actions, she is likely to be a better girl than many of those who are shocked by her wanton wiles.

I was one morning waiting at a station store with some stockmen when a slip of a girl in a tweed cap and satin shoes, and some diaphanous material between, came out of the house with a double-barrelled breech-loader in her hands. A hundred hawks were circling overhead. Standing in the garden, she put the gun to her shoulder and brought down two in quick succession. I had seen many a smart girl behind a gun; one was a governess in the north-west, who used to go rabbit-shooting with me among the rocks, carrying her own artillery; and in many homes there is a special light gun hanging on the wall for Bella's use when hawks, crows, or goannas make a raid on the poultry and eggs; but the vision in satin shoes surprised me.

With the poorer classes life in the bush is generally a compound of hard work and isolation. Here Bella has to perform many tasks that a city woman would rebel against. Yet they are always cheerful, always ready for a joke. After a long day's work, in and out of doors, they will walk or ride miles to a dance at night, returning about daylight to set to work again. In places when Bella Bush has to walk to the dance she goes rough-shod, carrying her dancing shoes in a handkerchief, but she changes when near the place of entertainment, and leaves the rough footgear tucked under a log.

Once, in a drought-time, I saw a woman and two girls lopping trees to keep a few sheep alive, climbing aloft and straddling the limbs like men; while another was drawing water with slide and cask from a lagoon three miles away. Hard, wiry, sun-browned women are these, with the hearts of gold that surmount the barriers of lonely lands.

Many carry water for domestic use in buckets, sometimes using a yoke or an iron hoop to keep the buckets clear of their skirts. A part of their laundry is a small bench on the bank of the creek, whither the clothes are carried on washing day. They seldom have a washing-board, never a wringer; and they stand, barefooted, for hours on a sloppy bank. An ordinary boiler, or a kerosene tin, takes the place of the usual copper, and fuel is collected in the favourite haunt of snakes, scorpions, centipedes, and other inimical livestock. Most of the wardrobe is spread out on the grass and bushes, on logs, and along the fence. There is no mangling, there is no mangle, but Bella can tell you precisely the merits of different woods for heating flat-irons, and which is the best for baking; also the most suitable to burn a white ash for whitewashing the fireplace, the hearthstone, and the front doorstep. Likewise she is familiar with the composition of tea-trees, the soft-leaf one providing the gigantic broom with which she sweeps the bare patches round the domicile and assaults the poultry when they hang around.

She is doctor and nurse when sickness comes and accidents happen; many a long night journey she has ridden for the doctor; many a flooded stream she has swum to save the stock; and when the bush fire is threatening home and crops and fences you will find her, with skirts tied up behind, and not infrequently wearing pants for safety, half blinded with smoke, scorched and blackened, fighting the flames side by side with Bill and Jim. She can tell of floods that crept up in the night till the beds were awash, how they piled the furniture on the table, and mounted higher and higher, till ultimately they were driven out on to the roof; how one rode eighty miles in a night when sickness called, and of long tramps undertaken as light-heartedly as a city woman goes on a tram ride.

Neighbours live miles away, and when they call on one another they start away immediately after breakfast, driving or riding, and often walking, returning about sundown. Even mother, who has grown portly with years, thinks nothing of walking five or six miles to see her neighbour, and besides carrying a baby she has the care of half a dozen other progeny, who are excitedly chasing around her in the grass.

As wife of the poorer digger on small alluvial fields she does a good deal of hard graft with pick and shovel, turning at the windlass, and rocking the golden cradle or the dry-blower. Her sun-browned progeny who are too young to work amuse themselves meanwhile among the gullies and in the bush; or else they are tethered like poddy-calves near by the residence to keep them from rambling; and the baby is left to roll on a bag in the shade of a tree. At smoke-o time she gives baby a drink, while the old man pulls at his pipe. Her lot is a hard one, and yet she is happy in a way if there are a couple of "weights" to clean out of the black sand by the slush lamp at night. She has to sit there, too, long hours into the night, patching the children's clothes and doing other home duties that have been neglected in the interests of the more important work at the claim. She seldom has a sewing machine to lighten her labours; nearly all the clothing, including Bill's flannels, and sometimes the family head-gear—as cabbagetree hats, holland hats and bonnets—are laboriously made and mended by hand. In many instances the husband does the baking, and helps in other ways to equalise things.

At times, too, to supplement the inadequate earnings of the bread-winner, and to save the meat bill, she takes a hand at parrot-trapping, rabbit-catching, and 'possum-snaring; and, in her spare time—if she has any—she trudges off to favourite fishing-holes, carrying rod and line and pickle-bottle, and catching grasshoppers and crickets on the way for bait. It falls to her lot also, in dry times when the men are on the roads with teams, shearing, or rouseabouting on stations, to cut scrub for the stock, and to pull out bogged sheep and cattle. Once or twice a week she takes eggs and butter into town, carrying them in a bucket on horseback or in a two-wheeled trap that has strong claims to individuality.

In juxtaposition to this many farmers and selectors, as on the Richmond River, start on their new holdings in model houses that cost £400 and over, and are even provided with a callers' bell on the front door, and set in a garden plot as pretty as one could look upon. The callers' bell does not ring very often. In many parts of the bush there is a casual visitor once a week, or once a month, according to the state of remoteness, and his approach is announced by the familiar sound of the sliprails as they are let down or put up. If there are no sliprails to act as knocker, there is bound to be a canine bell lying about the veranda somewhere, which considers it his duty to bark at everybody who comes in sight. This brings the inmates to the door, but in many cases the stranger is studied through a telescope before he has got within coo-ee. By the time he arrives the place is ready for inspection. Bella Bush has hitched up her stockings and put on a clean apron, the ragged urchins have been called in and stowed away in the skillion, and the others have washed their faces.

Some of her travel about, and live in tents, as wives of tank-sinkers, fencers, and teamsters. She hasn't much to do beyond cooking—under difficulties; but she misses the companionship of her own sex, and at night, when the men foregather on the grass or before an open fire, she sits by, listening, with her chin resting on her palm, occasionally taking a modest part in the conversation.

When her lot is cast with drovers and shearers, who are absent for many months in the year, she bears the responsibility of homestead manager, and has a lonely time.

A woman on the Richmond River, many years ago, on opening the door one morning was horrified to see thirty or forty blacks standing still and silent before her. All were armed with boomerangs and spears and in a state of seminudity. They only wanted to be rowed across the river, knowing she had a punt moored to the bank below. To get rid of them, and fearing to give offence, she went down to the river and ferried them over in five trips. The last one to step ashore said, " Tank yer, mithus; you berry good woman. Mine get it yo' sugarbag byneby. Good day."

In the far north and north-west blacks mingle much in her every-day life. The gins are requisitioned for scrubbing and washing; often there is no better hand in the neighbourhood at making a batch of bread or a sponge-cake than old "Mammy" from the camp. Mrs. Potts Point would turn up her nose at Mammy, but Bella likes to have her about the place. Lying back in a canvas chair, she has long talks at times with Mammy, who sits on the veranda floor, enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke; and when the sky pilot calls on his long round Mammy &. Co. form part of the congregation in the drawing-room. But Mammy is not permanent. She leaves the station with her followers pretty frequently for a "walk-about," for the call of the wild comes irresistibly, no matter how long she has mixed with the whites.

In her average home, which is neat, clean, and comfortable, Bella Bush is a full-bosomed, broad-hipped, plump specimen of femininity of the sort that make good mothers. She is plainly dressed, but her healthy surroundings have given her such a charm and beauty that anything becomes her. She is a little shy at first, perhaps, but she is more at ease with men than Bill is with women; and no one can take a rise out of a man quicker than Bella Bush. You see mischief in her eyes, humour in the smile on her kissable lips. She is jolly, big-hearted, and constant; and nowhere is she prettier than on the tablelands of New England and on the Richmond River.