for the house, we built our own shearing shed. It was built of Oregon pine and galvanized iron, by an eccentric and talented carpenter named Obecue. Mr. Obecue, my parents said, was a secret ladykiller, who had had a series of young and wealthy wives. This information made me gaze at him with more than usual curiosity. I could not fathom his attractions, but I admired intensely the way his fingers flew about, appearing to fabricate things so fast the result seemed to be achieved by sleight of hand. I would sit on the frame for the woolshed floor watching as he laid it, his mouth full of long nails, his hammer striking home exactly right each time, and the result a smooth floor with nails driven in in an unwavering straight line. He was an excitable man, easily upset if anyone appeared to criticize his work, and equally easily made happy by praise. He was a fast worker. The shed was up before we knew it, changing our skyline permanently.
Once the shed was built, a new excitement came into life because instead of our sheep being driven overnight to the woolshed at Mossgiel Station, our neighbor to the northeast, to be shorn, the shearing team came to Coorain. There would be six or eight shearers, a “rouseabout”—the odd-job boy perpetually being set in action by the shouts for the shearers’ needs: disinfectant for a cut sheep, a count-out for a full pen of shorn animals (anything that would speed the shearers at their piece work), a wool classer and his assistant, and a cook. I had never seen so many people on Coorain before, and I never tired of watching thethrobbing bustle of the woolshed operating at full speed, the shearer’s blades powered by an impressive black engine. Everyone’s movements were so stylized that they might have been the work of a choreographer. A really good shearer knew just how to touch a sheep so that it relaxed and didn’t kick. Bodies bent over the sheep, arms sweeping down the sides of the animal in long graceful strokes to the floor, the shearers looked like participants in a rite. The rouseabout would pick up each fleece as it finally lay in a pure white heap on the floor, walk with it to the classer’s table, then he would fling his arms wide as if giving benediction, and let it fall. The fleece would descend to the table, laid perfectly flat, and the classer, hardly lifting his eyes from the table, would begin dividing it into sections, throwing it into bins organized by spinning classifications. Everyone’s hands looked fresh and pink because of the lanolin in the wool. The shed was permeated by the smell of engine oil, from the engine which powered the shearers’ blades, and by the smell of lanolin.
Beyond the classer’s bins were the wool press and the storage area, where the bales of wool would be pressed to reduce the wool’s bulk, carefully weighed, numbered, branded, and then piled to await the contractor who hauled it to the nearest railroad station. Large woolsheds had mechanical presses, but ours, being small, had a hand press operated by an athletic giant of a man, naturally nicknamed Shorty. Shorty was six feet six, weighed one hundred and ninety pounds, all of it muscle; there was no spare flesh on his body. He pressed the wool into bales by sheer muscle, operating the system of weights and ratchets which could compress four hundred and fifty pounds of wool into the size of a small bale. Then he would take metal grappling hooks and fling the bales about the storage area as though they were weightless. I loved to watch him work, and whenever I wasn’t needed in the sheepyards outside, I would come into the shed, climb to the highest point on the pile of bales, and talk to Shorty. He had a wife and family of his own, farther south, whom he missed terribly, since his team began shearing in Queensland in Januaryand worked its way south until it got to us in June. Each year when he came back, he would exclaim over how I had grown, look purposely blank for a moment, and
Once the shed was built, a new excitement came into life because instead of our sheep being driven overnight to the woolshed at Mossgiel Station, our neighbor to the northeast, to be shorn, the shearing team came to Coorain. There would be six or eight shearers, a “rouseabout”—the odd-job boy perpetually being set in action by the shouts for the shearers’ needs: disinfectant for a cut sheep, a count-out for a full pen of shorn animals (anything that would speed the shearers at their piece work), a wool classer and his assistant, and a cook. I had never seen so many people on Coorain before, and I never tired of watching thethrobbing bustle of the woolshed operating at full speed, the shearer’s blades powered by an impressive black engine. Everyone’s movements were so stylized that they might have been the work of a choreographer. A really good shearer knew just how to touch a sheep so that it relaxed and didn’t kick. Bodies bent over the sheep, arms sweeping down the sides of the animal in long graceful strokes to the floor, the shearers looked like participants in a rite. The rouseabout would pick up each fleece as it finally lay in a pure white heap on the floor, walk with it to the classer’s table, then he would fling his arms wide as if giving benediction, and let it fall. The fleece would descend to the table, laid perfectly flat, and the classer, hardly lifting his eyes from the table, would begin dividing it into sections, throwing it into bins organized by spinning classifications. Everyone’s hands looked fresh and pink because of the lanolin in the wool. The shed was permeated by the smell of engine oil, from the engine which powered the shearers’ blades, and by the smell of lanolin.
Beyond the classer’s bins were the wool press and the storage area, where the bales of wool would be pressed to reduce the wool’s bulk, carefully weighed, numbered, branded, and then piled to await the contractor who hauled it to the nearest railroad station. Large woolsheds had mechanical presses, but ours, being small, had a hand press operated by an athletic giant of a man, naturally nicknamed Shorty. Shorty was six feet six, weighed one hundred and ninety pounds, all of it muscle; there was no spare flesh on his body. He pressed the wool into bales by sheer muscle, operating the system of weights and ratchets which could compress four hundred and fifty pounds of wool into the size of a small bale. Then he would take metal grappling hooks and fling the bales about the storage area as though they were weightless. I loved to watch him work, and whenever I wasn’t needed in the sheepyards outside, I would come into the shed, climb to the highest point on the pile of bales, and talk to Shorty. He had a wife and family of his own, farther south, whom he missed terribly, since his team began shearing in Queensland in Januaryand worked its way south until it got to us in June. Each year when he came back, he would exclaim over how I had grown, look purposely blank for a moment, and
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