Six dead rabbits strung on a piece of fencing-wire were fastened around Emmie’s waist. Deftly she skinned two kangaroos, tossed their carcasses into the scrub and carefully put their skins in the sugar-bag along with little Johnnie.
All her life Emmie had lived in the Lake District, helping first her father with his few sheep and his trapping, and now helping Sam.
Sam was all right, but he had promised to build her a house. Four rooms she wanted—no more, no less. She herself had helped split the timber, and they had lived in a tent while Sam built the first room. Then Johnnie was born, the cow got sick, the horse got lost in the marshes, and Sam got tired. Emmie made a bag sling for Johnnie, fastened him on to her back and resolutely went on with her trapping. There was nothing slack about Emmie!
Sam sat on a cushion of dried bracken, his back against a chock and log fence. The sun, the scent of the ti-tree and even the tangent smell of the marshes was good. He had first met Emmie, six scrubs back, on the slopes of Table Mountain. She had been helping her dad with kangaroo snares.
‘Too much for a slip of a girl carrying them heavy carcasses home for the dogs,’ Sam had thought, and each morning neglecting his own bit of trapping he had made it his business to appear in time to carry her catch for her.
Conversation came slowly, but this simple gesture formed an unspoken bond between them.
Sam altered his position, for even bracken after a time can become tedious. Funny how soft he had been, promising Emmie a house. It was that damn’ Moss with his quick-and-ready tongue and two empty rooms in his old man’s own house. Emmie was all right when Moss was away. Why couldn’t he stay at his fishing!
Moss Jones had two professions. In the summer he and some mates worked a trawler, filling big contracts with mainland fish markets, and in the winter he came home to live with the ‘old man’ and went trapping. A precarious income, but, with no responsibilities, what matter? The old man was happy enough. He had his pension.
Moss was small, energetic and quick-witted. He got drunk every Friday night and thought about Emmie.
The rabbits bobbed against Emmie’s knees as she trudged wearily around the edge of the marshes. Johnnie beat his fists incessantly on her back and her neck ached.
Then she met Moss. She didn’t altogether like being caught by Moss doing Sam’s job and, what’s more, wearing his old coat and hat. But Moss was waiting, sitting on his hunkers watching her pick her way between the sags and fallen timber.
‘Y’ back again?’ she inquired resentfully.
Moss nodded and unfastened the rabbits from around her waist.
‘I’ll carry these across to y’r new ’ouse.’
‘It’s not finished yet,’ she shuffled her feet uncomfortably. Mockingly Moss raised his bushy eyebrows.
‘The timber’s split,’ she went on hastily. ‘Sam’s waitin’ for it to season.’
‘It was seasoned last winter, afore I went fishin’,’ Moss laughed.
Emmie smiled indulgently, ‘I knew as soon as I seen you you’d be makin’ trouble agin.’
‘I’ll always make trouble until—’
‘Y’ still got y’r brushwood on, Moss,’ she broke in coyly.
Moss put his hand up to his tangle of beard.
‘It’s comin’ off tonight.’
Johnnie began to whimper and thumped her neck even harder.
‘’E’s hungry. Come in and find Sam, Moss?’
‘I seen ’im last night, when I got off the bus, didn’t ’e tell you I was ‘ome?’
‘’E must ’a’ forgot,’ said Emmie slowly. ‘It won’t ’urt to remind ’im.’
Sam was the mail-carrier. On Mondays and Thursdays he would collect the mailbag from the postmistress, walk two miles with it, and fasten it to a post on the edge of the Lyall Highway. The Hobart-bound bus would gather it up, and then on Tuesdays and Fridays Sam would walk out and collect the bag of incoming mail. He always felt he had been talked into this job by Emmie, who was so set on ‘steady money’ as she called it.
Not that he minded much, for he gathered up all the news as he went along. Much more than Emmie read in the papers. But he always felt uneasy about leaving Emmie alone. Especially when Moss was in the district.
Now the beggar was home again. Well, there was nothing for it but to finish the damn’ house. It would be a bit hard now that he had no horse.
‘These wimmen!’
Sam rose awkwardly from his bracken seat and rubbed gingerly those parts affected with pins and needles. Perhaps Moss’s old man would lend him his old crock of a horse; it would be better than nothing.
He gathered an armful of sticks and busied himself with a fire. Moss and Emmie were approaching. It wouldn’t do to be caught napping by Moss! Out of the corner of his eye he saw Moss help Emmie over a log. Carrying her rabbits, too! A cunning look spread over Sam’s face. Perhaps Moss would even give him a day or two’s work on the house. After all, he would be with Emmie!
Sam was a man of his word. Four rooms, no more, no less. Unlined and thatched with bark and leaking with the first thaw.
Moss helped odd days all through the winter, and then went back to his fishing.
Emmie managed to hammer the last nail into place before she was obliged to take the bus into Hamilton, where Maggie was born that night.
Sam reluctantly took over Emmie’s rabbit-run. It meant getting up early and going to bed late. What a pity Emmie had such fancy ideas for making a bit of extra money!
The house was horribly gloomy without her banging about; and he found himself dropping in more and more often on Moss’s old man. Dull-eyed and living in the past the old man shuffled about making pots of tea and muttering endlessly. He was lonely, too.
‘I won’t be ’ere much longer,’ droned the old man for the fiftieth time. ‘What’s gonna ’appen when I’m gorn? Who’s gonna milk the cow, feed the pig and look to me boy?’
A trickle of tea ran down his chin and dropped on to his already stained waistcoat.
Sam swigged his tea, rolled himself a cigarette with some of the old man’s fine-cut and thought uneasily about Emmie. Women were the devil with their naggin’!
‘Who’ll look to Moss?’ the old man inquired fretfully.
‘I dunno,’ said Sam. ‘Guess ’e’ll manage f’r ’iself; ’e seems t’ have a way with ’im.’
‘Yes, always knows what ’e wants and goes arter it—gets it, too,’ the old man nodded.
The next day Sam borrowed the old man’s best suit and went down to Hamilton to collect Emmie, Johnnie and Maggie.
‘Why, Sam!’ said Emmie, somewhat surprised. ‘I didn’t know you was comin’ down for us. Is anything the matter?’
Sam removed the old man’s hat and mopped his head. Rolling his eyes, he turned away from Emmie. Then like a shot burst from him.
‘It’s the old man…thinks ’e’ll peg out soon…Moss’ll take over. Won’t be able t’ go fishin’ then…’E might be wantin’ a missus…What about it?’
The flush on Emmie’s cheek shot down her neck. With amazed wonder she eyed Sam. Never had she heard him say so much before. And all because of her.
Nonchalantly she gathered Maggie and her few belongings up.
‘Well, what about it?’ Sam said sharply. ‘Can’t y’ speak up, woman? Pity t’ waste me trip down t’ Hamilton. Parson says he’ll marry us right away!’
‘’Ere, take me string-bag; I’m glad y’ didn’t let Moss beat y’ to it,’ said Emmie proudly.