Читать книгу Life in the Australian Backblocks - Edward S Sorenson - Страница 7

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About the first thing that impresses itself upon the stranger when he makes a casual call at a far-back bush home is the animal-like habits of the younger children. They cling to the skirts of the rough-shod, sunburnt woman, stealing timid glances from behind her, and nudging and whispering to one another between whiles. The bigger ones are inside, peeping through the cracks or round the door-post; and, looking round suddenly, the stranger might notice a smudgy face pop down behind a bush some twenty yards away, and another withdraw hurriedly behind the trunk of a tree. These are a couple who had been too far away when the alarm was given that "somebody's coming," and hadn't time to come in. They are often scattered about the bush along the creeks and water-holes, and particularly in scrubs, ever hunting like aborigines; but when the mother bangs a tin dish with a stick, or coo-ees for dinner, or the moment the alarm of "Somebody's coming!" is raised, they rush for the house as fowls run in for protection when menaced by hawks. This class is almost as wild as kangaroos; but others treat strangers and everything else with a stolid indifference.

Their clothing is of the scantiest, mostly ornamented with a host of patches, and ragged at that. "Anything does for the bush," the mother tells you. When you see them playing 'possum in the trees, and sliding down the straight poles, you quite agree with her that anything does. Hats, which have no longer any definite division between crown and brim, are worn till the head wears right through, and what remains drops round the neck; they are then patched with calico, bagging, or wallaby skin, and made "as good as new." Clothes last a long time in the bush. And boots? Look at the hard, blackened, prehensile-toed feet, scored with hundreds of lines and cracks that only the scrubbing brush can clean, and you will know they are strangers to boots. Indeed, some of them are twelve or fourteen years old before their feet are encased in their first leather coverings. You will notice one with a roll of dirty rag round the toe, tied on with a piece of twine or a wisp of kurrajong bark; another has a thorn in his foot, and limps on his heel; while a third has a daub of tar on his instep where there is a cracked sore. The soles of their feet are seldom pierced or bruised; they can race unflinchingly over rocks, and even walk over a bed of bindy-eyes. The sun never affects them, even though they are running about bareheaded in the heat of a midsummer's day; it only browns them. When naked, these children present a comical appearance, their bodies being white, while their legs, arms, necks, and faces are severely tanned.

Their food is plain, even rough, and very little varied. They augment it with much that grows around them; fruit they get occasionally in the scrubs, and, like the wild birds, they have a fine, discriminating sense of what is edible and what is poisonous. They hunt for birds' eggs, and they root turtle-eggs out of the sand and roast them in hot ashes. They climb to enormous heights after young birds and 'possums, and are skilled in all the native methods of catching fish. They bathe at all hours of the day; the dwellers along the rivers are almost amphibious.

In the great humming gum bush that is veined by coastal rivers, childhood is spent under the most pleasant and favourable conditions.

Winter is the hardest time for these little folk. At night they gather round the big fireplace, squatting in the ashes, and squabbling for choice places, while keeping a begrudging eye on the scanty wood pile. Their own little arms have to carry the sticks during the day; at best they have a horse and slide to draw it, or a box-cart drawn by a couple of goats. This, of course, is a boy's delight no matter where he is situated. Where goat races are held annually, their joy in training Billy and riding him in the Overland Cup is supreme. Here is a country paper's description of a billy-goat race which happened out Mackay (Queensland) way in July, 1903:—

"There were six entries—Barton, Kingston, Lyne, Deakin, Bamford, and Glassey. There was some trouble in getting a fair start. Barton, a fine, fat goat of the Angora type, appeared to require all the track. This Lyne resented, horns being freely used. Bamford, a jet-black animal, was hopelessly outclassed. Kingston, a fine grey goat, should have made the pace warmer, but he got at the clothes-line the night previous and gorged himself with a baby's flannelette nightdress. Glassey made a hard fight, but his horns appeared to be always in the way. A protest was lodged against Barton for wilful jostling, but after an exhaustive inquiry the committee disallowed it."

Hard-worked, horny-handed little mites they are, most of them, whose knowledge is of cattle and horses, of reptiles, beetles, birds, and animals, and their home and playground the trackless bush. They master the secrets and mysteries of life at an early age through constant association with the native fauna, flock, and herd, and hearing the talk of their elders. Their most admirable traits are their homeliness, courage, self-reliance, and mateship.

They can ride almost as soon as they can walk. You will see a little mite throw the bridle-rein over the neck of a big horse, and lead him thus to a log or stump, and there put on the bridle and mount; and presently you will see him cantering bare-back across the hills. I noticed a little fellow one day trying to mount a rogue. Time after time he brought him side-on to a log, and each time as he prepared to cross his back the old horse sidled away so that he stood at right angles to the log. At last the boy led him into a fork where he couldn't sidle away, and triumphantly mounted.

It is surprising how soon these children learn the bush, what clever little heads they have for working out the problems of their timbered world. I have met them, boys and girls, riding along mountain spurs, miles away from home, looking for cattle. And if you ask them at any time in what direction home lies, no matter how they have turned and twisted during the day, they will at once point to it like a compass. Fences do not stop them from going as straight as the crow flies either; they strap down the wires, with a stick across for the horse to see, and lead or ride him over. Rail fences give a little trouble; but when a loose top rail is found, they jump their cuddies over the bottom one. They can describe a beast minutely, even to a single white spot at the tip of its tail, or a tiny black streak on its off-side horn. They can recognise a beast or a horse at sight, though they may not have seen it for a couple of years or more; and they have a wonderful memory for brands and earmarks. Though they may be otherwise illiterate, they will squat on the road, and with a stick faultlessly portray the brands and earmarks of every station and selection for miles around them.

I was one day travelling towards Bourke with a mob of Queensland cattle when a boy rode up and asked me where they were from. I named a squattage south of the border. He grinned.

"You can't stuff me with that," he said. "Them's Queensland brands."

"How do you know a Queensland brand from a New South Wales brand?" I asked him.

"Why," he said, "a Queensland brand has letters an' a number; New South Wales brands ain't got no number."

Another day I was trying to catch up to a man who was riding a day in front of me, and asked a boy at a wayside hut if he had seen him pass. He didn't remember him according to my descriptions; but he had seen a person go by wearing a straw hat and riding a brown horse branded H.P., with a star on its forehead, off fetlock white, and carrying its tail a little aside as though it had been broken, and it had cast its near fore-shoe. This was correct in every particular; yet that boy had never seen the horse before in his life, and had just leaned lazily on a rail as it was ridden past him.

In regard to ordinary school tasks they are poor scholars, principally through lack of opportunity. The bush school is often a small, isolated building standing among the trees, with no fence around it and no house in sight of it. But little tracks, winding through the bush in many directions, show where the children come from. Some of them walk four or five miles to school, starting away at daylight on winter mornings, and returning in the twilight or after dark. When grass is white with frost or wet with dew, when rains have left pools and sheets of surface water along the track and set the creeks and gullies running, the bush kiddies carry their boots in their hands or over their shoulders to keep them dry, putting them on when they reach the school. In the dry interior regions, besides the usual dinner-bags and books, they carry bottles and water-bags. They get over rivers in flat-bottomed punts, and any creek that is too deep to ford is crossed on the trunk of a tree that has been felled across from bank to bank; they pass through mobs of half-wild cattle, and at times through miles of burnt and burning grass; but they very seldom come to any harm. Some drive to and fro in light traps; others ride—at times three and four on a horse—and have races, jumping contests over logs, humiliating busters, and all sorts of adventures along the road. Many a coat is peeled off on the school track, too, and many a punched nose goes bleeding to the waterhole. Frequently half a dozen are seen running through the bush, the big ones in front, the little ones, flushed and panting, in the rear. They have been playing on the road, or have started late, and are making up for it. Some have to run part of the way home, so as to be in time to put the calves up or to change their clothes and carry an armful of wood or a bucket of water for the morning; and if they live on a farm they have to join the parents after tea in the barn, husking corn. Preparing for examination under these circumstances is pretty stiff work for Bushman Junior.

Religious duties absorb little of his time. Many are grown up and married before they are christened. A good shepherd, missioning in the west of Queensland, related that he visited a secluded hut one day, after an accidental meeting with the owner of a neighbouring cattle station, and on informing the woman of his purpose was left standing for nearly half an hour while they discussed the problem inside. Then a youth about sixteen came out and reported progress: "Mother says I can hold th' moke for yer while yer christen father, an' then he'll hold him while you christen me." As he took the bridle a couple of hens started fighting behind the horse, and the animal nearly jumped on him. "Whey, yer cranky, church-bred mule, where yer jumpin' ter!" he cried. Then he turned to the horrified owner. "Better hit out an' fix th' ole feller up, mister—this wobbly-eyed cow's got the fidgets."

Like his elders, the budding bushman shows commendable grit and extraordinary endurance under trying circumstances. Out west of Broken Hill in October, 1902, a boy named Barraclough, aged twelve, while riding alone in the bush, was thrown from his horse and broke his leg. He dragged himself along the ground until he obtained a forked stick, and, using that as a crutch, he recovered his horse, which he mounted by pulling himself on by the mane. Then he rode twelve miles home, and was subsequently driven to White Cliffs, a long, rough journey, for medical treatment. Very young children sometimes wander away and get bushed, and these, too, show remarkable endurance. A little girl, named Evelyn Harris, two and a half years old, was lost in August, 1902, near Bollon (Queensland), and was found the following day walking along Mitchell Road, having covered a distance of twenty miles. A two-and-a-half-year-old son of Chris Connors, of Packsaddle Bore, between Broken Hill and Milparinka, wandered among the mulga and sandhills from Thursday afternoon till Sunday afternoon in the bitter cold weather of June, 1904. When discovered he was still trudging along, though pretty well done up from starvation and exposure. In August, 1901, Linden Culnane, aged nine, and Alfred Collins, aged seven, lost their way while rabbiting at Reno, near Gundagai, and wandered about the bush for thirty-six hours in bitterly cold and rainy weather. Eventually they reached a settler's hut on Cooba Creek, having travelled thirty miles. On the other hand, a little girl named Edith Liddle, aged two and a half years, was lost at Mulya, near Louth, some time in 1902, and no trace of her was ever found. Such a happening is among the most bitter experiences in bush life.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about bush children is that they are very rarely bitten by snakes. They roam the day long about creeks and billabongs with bare feet and bare legs, playing in scrubs, wading through long grass and ferns, turning over bark and logs, thrusting their hands into hollows and burrows, and almost invariably come off unscathed. When I was going to school we used to think it fun to kill a snake by jumping on it. If it was a green or whip snake, one of us would pick it up quickly by the tail, and, keeping it swinging around, chase the other children with it, finally cracking its head off with a sudden jerk. It is only in districts where snakes are rare that they are dreaded by children; where they are plentiful they are generally treated with contempt—except at night. The average bush youngster has a horror of darkness, and talks in awe-struck whispers of hairy men, ghosts, and bunyips. This fear is inculcated from babyhood. The mother can't always be watching in a playground that is boundless, and she knows the horrors that wait the bushed youngster. So she tells them there is a bunyip in the lagoon, and gigantic eels in the creek; and beyond that hill there, and in yonder scrub, there is a "bogey-man." Those fairy tales keep the children within bounds—until they are old enough to know better. Then they can take care of themselves.