第30章 Part I.(29)

I told you how I went into the carrying line,and took up a selection at Lahey's Creek --for a run for the horses and to grow a bit of feed --and shifted Mary and little Jim out there from Gulgong,with Mary's young scamp of a brother James to keep them company while I was on the road.The first year I did well enough carrying,but I never cared for it --it was too slow;and,besides,I was always anxious when I was away from home.The game was right enough for a single man --or a married one whose wife had got the nagging habit (as many Bushwomen have --God help 'em!),and who wanted peace and quietness sometimes.Besides,other small carriers started (seeing me getting on);and Tom Tarrant,the coach-driver at Cudgeegong,had another heavy spring-van built,and put it on the roads,and he took a lot of the light stuff.

The second year I made a rise --out of `spuds',of all the things in the world.It was Mary's idea.Down at the lower end of our selection --Mary called it `the run'--was a shallow watercourse called Snake's Creek,dry most of the year,except for a muddy water-hole or two;and,just above the junction,where it ran into Lahey's Creek,was a low piece of good black-soil flat,on our side --about three acres.

The flat was fairly clear when I came to the selection --save for a few logs that had been washed up there in some big `old man'flood,way back in black-fellows'times;and one day,when I had a spell at home,I got the horses and trace-chains and dragged the logs together --those that wouldn't split for fencing timber --and burnt them off.

I had a notion to get the flat ploughed and make a lucern-paddock of it.

There was a good water-hole,under a clump of she-oak in the bend,and Mary used to take her stools and tubs and boiler down there in the spring-cart in hot weather,and wash the clothes under the shade of the trees --it was cooler,and saved carrying water to the house.And one evening after she'd done the washing she said to me --`Look here,Joe;the farmers out here never seem to get a new idea:they don't seem to me ever to try and find out beforehand what the market is going to be like --they just go on farming the same old way and putting in the same old crops year after year.

They sow wheat,and,if it comes on anything like the thing,they reap and thresh it;if it doesn't,they mow it for hay --and some of 'em don't have the brains to do that in time.

Now,I was looking at that bit of flat you cleared,and it struck me that it wouldn't be a half bad idea to get a bag of seed-potatoes,and have the land ploughed --old Corny George would do it cheap --and get them put in at once.Potatoes have been dear all round for the last couple of years.'

I told her she was talking nonsense,that the ground was no good for potatoes,and the whole district was too dry.`Everybody I know has tried it,one time or another,and made nothing of it,'I said.

`All the more reason why you should try it,Joe,'said Mary.

`Just try one crop.It might rain for weeks,and then you'll be sorry you didn't take my advice.'

`But I tell you the ground is not potato-ground,'I said.

`How do you know?You haven't sown any there yet.'

`But I've turned up the surface and looked at it.It's not rich enough,and too dry,I tell you.You need swampy,boggy ground for potatoes.

Do you think I don't know land when I see it?'

`But you haven't TRIED to grow potatoes there yet,Joe.

How do you know --'

I didn't listen to any more.Mary was obstinate when she got an idea into her head.It was no use arguing with her.All the time I'd be talking she'd just knit her forehead and go on thinking straight ahead,on the track she'd started,--just as if I wasn't there,--and it used to make me mad.She'd keep driving at me till I took her advice or lost my temper,--I did both at the same time,mostly.

I took my pipe and went out to smoke and cool down.

A couple of days after the potato breeze,I started with the team down to Cudgeegong for a load of fencing-wire I had to bring out;and after I'd kissed Mary good-bye,she said --`Look here,Joe,if you bring out a bag of seed-potatoes,James and I will slice them,and old Corny George down the creek would bring his plough up in the dray and plough the ground for very little.

We could put the potatoes in ourselves if the ground were only ploughed.'

I thought she'd forgotten all about it.There was no time to argue --I'd be sure to lose my temper,and then I'd either have to waste an hour comforting Mary or go off in a `huff',as the women call it,and be miserable for the trip.So I said I'd see about it.She gave me another hug and a kiss.`Don't forget,Joe,'she said as I started.

`Think it over on the road.'I reckon she had the best of it that time.

About five miles along,just as I turned into the main road,I heard some one galloping after me,and I saw young James on his hack.

I got a start,for I thought that something had gone wrong at home.

I remember,the first day I left Mary on the creek,for the first five or six miles I was half-a-dozen times on the point of turning back --only I thought she'd laugh at me.

`What is it,James?'I shouted,before he came up --but I saw he was grinning.

`Mary says to tell you not to forget to bring a hoe out with you.'

`You clear off home!'I said,`or I'll lay the whip about your young hide;and don't come riding after me again as if the run was on fire.'

`Well,you needn't get shirty with me!'he said.`Idon't want to have anything to do with a hoe.'And he rode off.

I DID get thinking about those potatoes,though I hadn't meant to.

I knew of an independent man in that district who'd made his money out of a crop of potatoes;but that was away back in the roaring 'Fifties --'54--when spuds went up to twenty-eight shillings a hundredweight (in Sydney),on account of the gold rush.We might get good rain now,and,anyway,it wouldn't cost much to put the potatoes in.

If they came on well,it would be a few pounds in my pocket;if the crop was a failure,I'd have a better show with Mary next time she was struck by an idea outside housekeeping,and have something to grumble about when I felt grumpy.