Читать книгу Newspaper Articles - Edward Sylvester Sorenson - Страница 3

"

Sunday in the Bush

Table of Contents

Sunday in the bush to young people is an important day, a day that atones for all the little annoyances of the week, giving opportunities for the storage of happy memories. To the “old folks” it is a day of rest and relaxation. They put on their “Sunday clothes”—which have lain in the box all the week—and walk round the farm or the selection, inspecting the crops and the cattle and the pigs. It is surprising, too, what a lot they can find to say about Dolly and her foal, or Strawberry and her calf. These old people can stand and talk about Strawberry and her calf for two solid hours at a stretch.

The fowls also claim a good deal of attention, and are called up for the weekly review. Speculation as to where the black hen and the white pullet are laying leads to a general egg-hunt in the scrub and the long grass. Bandicoots and kangaroo-rats are flushed from their nests, and the dogs, with much barking, give chase.

A snake is killed, and then an old “gohanna,” which has been “sucking all the eggs,” is either run down, or run up a tree—mostly up a tree. Native cats, that nightly rob the fowl-roosts, are rooted out of hollow logs, and caught by the dogs waiting at the end. In this way the old people spend a pleasant afternoon with very little exertion. The old people don’t like exertion.

* * * * * *

There are so many ways of enjoying Sunday in the Australian bush that the day can never drag. Going to church, I must admit, is not a pleasure to the average bushman. It is a sacred performance which most of them contrive to avoid when the opportunity offers by playing hide-and-seek with the peregrinating parson. It interferes with sport and other things. There is nothing attractive, exciting or sensational about it. It is too solemn and dreary for those who yard their herds of brumbies on Sunday morning; or race like the wind in the afternoon by the side of a fluttering skirt and a mass of waving hair.

In the wake of the wild kangaroo.

* * * * * *

Kangarooing has from the earliest days held a foremost place, and is as thrilling and exciting to-day as it was when the “old man” ‘roos roamed the bush in thousands. Still it is not much indulged in now. The rifle has played such havoc among them in the settled districts that it is a long ride to-day to find an old man worthy of the chase. Those awkward wire fences, too, crop up too frequently for most women to indulge freely in the sport; and, when all is said and done, half the attraction and pleasure are gone when you miss the sparkling eyes and the fascinating countenance of lovely woman.

In the wilds of Western Queensland, and the backblocks of New South Wales, where ‘roos, dingoes, and brumbies are still plentiful, scattered stations occasionally turn out little troops of enthusiasts on Sunday mornings for “the life-stirring chase” across the wooded hills and grassy flats.

They carry home a tail or two for soup, and, perhaps, the scalps and brush for trophies. It is always a wild run home, a go-as-you-please to the stock yard rails, with shouting, cheering, and peals of laughter. The day’s outing invariably affords food for lively chatter at dinner and through the long evening, particularly if one of the company chanced to be a new chum. This very often happens, for the new chum is at all times an incentive to such an outing.

* * * * * *

Duck shooting is another Sunday pastime; also fishing and boating; more favoured now by the rivers and lakes, though less exciting than ‘rooing. I have seen men, after shooting round a swamp till the game had disappeared, gather on the slope, and shoot at sheets of paper pinned to a tree with the blades of their pocket-knives. This is done to ascertain the merits of the different guns by the number of shot put through the paper. A “close throwing” gun has the advantage over a gun that “scatters” in a contest of this kind. Several rounds are fired, the guns changing hands each time to show that it is not the aim of the man that is at fault in respect to guns that throw but a few pellets into the paper. The sportsmen mostly require new pocket knives when the contest is over.

* * * * * *

Some prefer cricket played with a home-made bat and a stump, box, or kerosene tin for wicket. The test is to see who can stay in the longest, the game being considered closed when the ball goes crash through the old woman’s window or hits somebody in the eye.

Some are fond of quoits, which they play with horseshoes; whilst others pin their faith to cards, playing all day and half into the night for matches and tobacco, or else it is a rubber for somebody’s girl, who is mostly black.

There are always a certain energetic few with colts to try, and consequently races are arranged through the week for Sunday afternoon. Some intermediate place is chosen for the meet, where racing along some level track or straight bit of road and jumping over “the big gum log” are indulged in. This sport not infrequently attracts a good crowd, among which gaffing schools are formed as a side attraction.

* * * * * *

A favourite pursuit among many bushmen is “sugar-bagging,” that is cutting wild honey out of trees, which combines business with pleasure, and often misery. The nests are generally discovered during the week whilst timber-getting or cattle hunting and noted for “Sunday.” Everything that is not included in the actual routine of everyday work is left for Sunday. If a man has a horse to shoe, a boot to mend, a button to sew on his pants, or a splinter to take out of his finger he “must do it on Sunday,”

A couple, sometimes three or four, and occasionally the whole family, will sally forth in the morning armed with buckets and axes for the bees’ nest. It is seldom nearer than two miles; at times it is as much as 10 miles away. In the latter case horses are the means of locomotion, and sometimes a pleasant drive is enjoyed in the farm dray with Bowler m the shafts.

Cutting down the tree, which is seldom a small one, is the hardest part of the performance. Once down the rest is easy, providing the bees are not too vicious. I have seen them so bad as to drive all and sundry away from the neighbourhood. In such cases smoking with green leaves is resorted to. Whilst the dogs and youngsters are busy hunting for ‘possums and cats among the branches, the axes again get to work on the fallen trunk. A long strip is cut out at the nest, the comb extracted, brushed of dead bees and particles of wood, and dropped into the buckets.

The quantity varies considerably. I once saw 200lb. of honeycomb taken out of a single tree. In the same vicinity two of us worked half a day cutting down a red gum, which was 6ft. in diameter, and gnarled and knotted at that; and when we cut it open there wasn’t as much honey in it as would fill a pickle bottle. It was a new nest. We called it several other kinds of nest.

Another time we cut down a big tree on the river bank, which we knew had been “inhabited” for three months past. It caught in another tree and hung. We left it there for two months, and one Sunday we went out and chopped down the other. It fell into the river, and the nest was buried two fathoms under water.

The worst of it was the two trees formed an obstruction, preventing the steamers from plying up and down the river. There was a £50 fine attached to this, and the only way we could get out of it was to swear each other to secrecy.

The steamer passed down stream late at night, and unless warned a disastrous wreck was certain. In great trepidation my accomplice ran down and informed the captain of the place where the trees had been felled “by somebody unknown.” She hove-to till morning, when we went down and assisted to cut them away. We were glad to get out of it so easily.

Our last sugar bag on the Richmond panned out two ordinary sized tubs of comb-honey, which restored our good opinions of sugar bags generally. It was out of a tall ironbark on Bungawalbyn run.

* * * * * *

Sunday for station hands is a busy day. Everyone shaves and gets his hair cut, pares his corns and cuts his toe-nails on that day; he also half-soles his old boots, washes and patches his clothes, has a full wash himself, and writes letters. The rest of the day—if there’s any rest about it—is spent in card-playing, spinning lies, or yarning and reading “Deadwood Dicks.”

One or two may ride away “to see the girl,” or to drop a letter in the bush post-office—a hole in the trunk of a tree concealed by the roadside. If the girl dwells far away the letter is dropped into a little box nailed to a tree, which the mailman clears en passant. These mail-boxes are a feature of every bush road and convenience many station hands and selectors’ daughters.

Some of my happiest Sunday afternoons were spent in wanderings about the banks of the Richmond River gathering bluebells and violets, which grew on the shaded slopes in rich profusion. Of course I didn’t gather them for myself.

Woram—a few miles below Casino—was once a fruit lover’s paradise, but is now all cut up into farms. The scrub trees were covered with passion fruit vines, and the ground strewn with fallen fruit. Cherries, wild figs, tomatoes, strawberries, blackberries, lilli-pillies, and gooseberries, grew there by the cart load. Every Sunday we rowed down the river in an old punt and filled her with fruit, feasted in the scrubs, and made merry.

What could one wish for better than this, with some little flower of Eden beside him, pulling an oar with dainty hands, and pausing now and again to gather the luscious fruit by the river side; to float down on the ebbing tide, husking gooseberries, or shaking the cherry branches till the boat was blood red with fruit; plucking the beautiful water-lilies along the edge, and landing anon to gather ferns for the hearth at home?

Aye, give me the girl and the boat in a place like this, and you may have all the sport that game in the bush can afford. Under the circumstances I could wish that every week contained six Sundays and a public holiday.