Best Australian Short Stories by Douglas Stewart, Beatrice Davis Page A
Authors: Douglas Stewart, Beatrice Davis
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put to sleep, I was tempted to ask Jeans why he continued to live in that unhallowed, out-a-the-way corner, and to waste his energies upon a parched and blasted holding instead of settling somewhere within reach of a market and beyond the blight of tangible and visible despair that hung over Scrubby Gully and its vicinity.
“Dunno,” said Jeans, without interest, “’pears t’me t’be pretty much as bad in other places. Evans is the same, so’s Calder.”
I did not know either Evans or Calder, but I pitied both from the bottom of my heart. Jeans admitted that he had given up hope of getting the timber off his land, though he “suspected” he might be able to handle it somehow “when the boys grew up”. He further admitted that he didn’t know “as the land was good for anythin’ much” when it was cleared; but his pessimism was proof against all arguments, and I went sadly to bunk, leaving the man and his wife working with slow, animal perseverance, apparently unconscious of the fact that they had not slept a wink for over thirty hours.
The cow raided my room shortly after midnight. She managed to break down the door this time, but as her intentions were peaceful, and as it was preferable rather to have her for a roommate than to be kept awake by her pathetic complaints, I made no attempt to evict her, and we both passed an easy night.
I was up early next morning, but Mr and Mrs Jeans were before me. They were standing together down by the aimless dogleg fence, and the hypochondriacal horse lay between them. I walked across, suspecting further “unreasonableness” on the part of the horse. The animal was dead.
“Old man, how’ll you manage to haul those logs in now?” As Mrs Jeans said this I fancied I saw flicker in her face for a moment a look of spiritual agony, a hint of revolt that might manifest itself in tears and bitter complainings, but it passed in the instant.
Jeans merely shook his head, and answered something indicative of the complete destruction of his faith in “them skewbald horses”. We had bread and onions for breakfast.
When I last saw Jeans, as I was leaving Scrubby Gully that day, he was coming down the hill from the direction of the gum forest, struggling in the blinding heat, with a rope over his shoulder, towing a nine-foot sluice log.
We had a letter from Leen yesterday; he says the working shareholders are hurrying to get the sluice fixed over the wheel, and he (Leen) anticipates a heavy downfall of rain during the night.
James Edmond
THE DEEPLY POETIC ACCOUNT OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S IDYLL
IT was a dejected-looking little tropical town situated some forty miles or more up a hot muddy river that wound back and forward, and back again, and round about as no river ever wound and serpentined before. For eleven weary hours we had been crawling in a steamboat over the surface of this stream until even the shadow of it in the darkness became a weariness to the eye, and as we went along I had tramped monotonously about the deck, and wondered whether my legs would not presently get worn off right up to my chest through sheer exertion and disgust. There was nothing to be heard except the gurgle and swish of the thick, turbid water and the asthmatic snort of the steampipe, and nothing to be seen except now and then the dusky image of a bald and naked stump on the bank, and nothing to speculate about except the chance of climbing safely over the next snag, and the dim probability of crowding successfully round the next corner, for the river was low, and, as a consequence, it was even a shade more angular than usual. Even a bird flying across it would be likely to lose its way and find itself back on the shore it started from, and whether there was only one shore altogether, or whether there were two, and both of them were the other one, I never knew. Generally, we seemed to be plunging with a sough and a groan into the very middle of a dense black shadow that rose up like a
“Dunno,” said Jeans, without interest, “’pears t’me t’be pretty much as bad in other places. Evans is the same, so’s Calder.”
I did not know either Evans or Calder, but I pitied both from the bottom of my heart. Jeans admitted that he had given up hope of getting the timber off his land, though he “suspected” he might be able to handle it somehow “when the boys grew up”. He further admitted that he didn’t know “as the land was good for anythin’ much” when it was cleared; but his pessimism was proof against all arguments, and I went sadly to bunk, leaving the man and his wife working with slow, animal perseverance, apparently unconscious of the fact that they had not slept a wink for over thirty hours.
The cow raided my room shortly after midnight. She managed to break down the door this time, but as her intentions were peaceful, and as it was preferable rather to have her for a roommate than to be kept awake by her pathetic complaints, I made no attempt to evict her, and we both passed an easy night.
I was up early next morning, but Mr and Mrs Jeans were before me. They were standing together down by the aimless dogleg fence, and the hypochondriacal horse lay between them. I walked across, suspecting further “unreasonableness” on the part of the horse. The animal was dead.
“Old man, how’ll you manage to haul those logs in now?” As Mrs Jeans said this I fancied I saw flicker in her face for a moment a look of spiritual agony, a hint of revolt that might manifest itself in tears and bitter complainings, but it passed in the instant.
Jeans merely shook his head, and answered something indicative of the complete destruction of his faith in “them skewbald horses”. We had bread and onions for breakfast.
When I last saw Jeans, as I was leaving Scrubby Gully that day, he was coming down the hill from the direction of the gum forest, struggling in the blinding heat, with a rope over his shoulder, towing a nine-foot sluice log.
We had a letter from Leen yesterday; he says the working shareholders are hurrying to get the sluice fixed over the wheel, and he (Leen) anticipates a heavy downfall of rain during the night.
James Edmond
THE DEEPLY POETIC ACCOUNT OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S IDYLL
IT was a dejected-looking little tropical town situated some forty miles or more up a hot muddy river that wound back and forward, and back again, and round about as no river ever wound and serpentined before. For eleven weary hours we had been crawling in a steamboat over the surface of this stream until even the shadow of it in the darkness became a weariness to the eye, and as we went along I had tramped monotonously about the deck, and wondered whether my legs would not presently get worn off right up to my chest through sheer exertion and disgust. There was nothing to be heard except the gurgle and swish of the thick, turbid water and the asthmatic snort of the steampipe, and nothing to be seen except now and then the dusky image of a bald and naked stump on the bank, and nothing to speculate about except the chance of climbing safely over the next snag, and the dim probability of crowding successfully round the next corner, for the river was low, and, as a consequence, it was even a shade more angular than usual. Even a bird flying across it would be likely to lose its way and find itself back on the shore it started from, and whether there was only one shore altogether, or whether there were two, and both of them were the other one, I never knew. Generally, we seemed to be plunging with a sough and a groan into the very middle of a dense black shadow that rose up like a
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