THE EVENIN’ BEFORE
LEAVIN’ HOME

STEELE RUDD

IT WAS DRAWING CLOSE to New Year when Sam Condle sent me word to get ready to go shearin’ down the rivers with him an’ some other chaps.

I was ready to go anywhere with anyone, not because there weren’t plenty work about Vinegar Hill, but because Connie told me straight out one evenin’ that she didn’t want me comin’ to see her any longer. An’ after all th’ conversation-lollies I bought her, an’ all th’ wood I chopped for her too! By cripes, it made me furious.

‘I’m off in th’ mornin’,’ I sez to th’ old lady. ‘An’ might never come back to these parts again.’

‘Frankie, if I was you I wouldn’t,’ she sez, with a terrible sad look on her.

Ah, an’ when I think of how she coaxed an’ coaxed me to stay, brings the tears to me eyes!

‘Me boy, you are not strong enough to shear beside men as old as your father,’ she would say, ‘so wait till you get set an’ have more practice.’

Of course I didn’t tell her about Connie, but I quoted Jack Howe shearin’ his three hundred a day to her, an’ reckoned if I couldn’t hack me way through a couple o’ hundred I’d eat me hat.

‘An’ th’ terrible floods they have in them rivers,’ she went on, ‘carries horses an’ men away; an’ th’ wild blacks. Oh, they’ll massacre you all in th’ night!’

I never heard anythin’ before about blacks bein’ down th’ rivers, an’ it made me hair stand up when she mentioned them.

‘We’ll give them all th’ massacrin’ they want, mother,’ I sez, treatin’ it lightly, but at th’ same time makin’ up me mind to ask Sam how many there was down there.

‘An’ y’ can’t go without seein’ your father,’ th’ old lady continued, ‘there he is not over his birthday yet. Oh, th’ terrible fool of a man that he is, an’ gettin’ worse instead of better every year. Where he’ll find th’ money to pay Dollar his wine bill when it’s all over, I’m sure I don’t know. This is no life for me an’ your sisters to be livin’, Frankie, an’ if you’re goin’ to go away it will be far worse.’

‘He’s been down there too jolly long, no doubt about that,’ I said, waggin’ me head in agreement with her, and appearin’ wise at th’ old man’s expense. ‘An’ if he ain’t home be eight o’clock tonight I’m goin’ down to bring him.’

‘He might come for you,’ the old lady answered with a sigh, ‘but if I go near him there’ll only be words, an’ then he won’t come at all.’

When eight o’clock arrived, o’ course th’ old man wasn’t home, an’ down I goes to Dollar’s.

Near Codlin’s corner I sees a light comin’ along th’ road, an’ hears a wheel squeakin’, then a cove starts singin’ loud an’ another chap tells him to ‘hold his tongue’. For a while I couldn’t make out what sort of a trap they was drivin’, but I could tell it was th’ old man who was singin’ by th’ sort of ‘cooee’ he used to begin th’ lines with. He always sung like a dingo howlin’. But when we got close together an’ I sings out, ‘Hello!’ they stopped. An’ there was th’ old man squattin’ as comfortable as you like in a wheelbarrow with his back to th’ wheel an’ his legs danglin’ over the back an’ a lighted candle stuck on each side of him, an’ a big square bottle o’ wine in his arms, an’ old ‘Scottie’ nearly as screwed as himself in th’ handles of th’ barrow.

‘By cripes!’ I sez to them, ‘this is a nice sort o’ thing.’

‘Thash you, Frankie?’ sez th’ old man.

‘Of course it’s me,’ I growled at him. ‘This is a nice sort of business; an’ them sittin’ up waitin’ for y’ at home.’

‘Yer needn’t go down to (hic) Dollar’s for me. I’m comin’ home (hic) meself. Ain’t we, Scot-(hic)-tie?’

‘Aye, comin’ home in (hic) Dollar’s motor car, d’ y’ see, Frankie.’ An’ raisin’ th’ handles of th’ barrow, Scottie proceeded to propel th’ old man over stones an’ ruts at a vigorous and reckless speed again.

I trotted along beside them actin’ as a guide, an’ thinkin’ of the reception they would get from th’ old lady when they reached home, an’ silently wonderin’ if all the horrors of drink wasn’t more than compensated for by th’ humours of it.

Every hundred yards or so Scottie would stop an’ puff hard, an’ tell th’ old man he was as ‘heavy as yon German lassie i’ th’ wine (hic) shop’.

‘Take another drink,’ an’ th’ old man would hold out th’ bottle to him. ‘An’ make me a bit (hic) lighter for yourself.’

Then Scottie would drink, an’ off again.

Arrivin’ at th’ house th’ old man broke into fresh song, an’ th’ dorgs begun barkin’ an’ th’ old lady followed by th’ girls come runnin’ out. I knew they’d get a surprise when they saw him in th’ barrow between th’ candles like a blitherin’ Chinese god. An’ they got one too.

‘I’ve brought him home to y’ in a (hic) motor car, d’ y’ see,’ Scottie said to them, stickin’ to th’ handles to keep himself from fallin’.

But they just stood starin’ as if they had no tongues to talk with.

Last th’ old man who kept blinkin’ an’ hiccupin’ at them, an’ thinkin’ of th’ blokes he saw givin’ up their seats to ladies in th’ tram th’ time he took Fogarty’s bull to th’ exhibition, opens his mouth an’ sez:

‘You’ll (hic) ’scuse me, ladies, for keepin’ me (hic) seat.’

Th’ girls an’ me bust out laughin’, but th’ old lady lost her block.

‘You beast!’ she shouted, an’ grabbin’ one of th’ candles nearly burnt off his whiskers with it. Then she kicked the barrow over, an’ th’ other candle went out an’ old Scottie fell on top of th’ old man an’ they both started roarin’ an’ bitin’ each other, an’ I got ready to run. But seein’ th’ others wasn’t frightent I waited too.

‘A lovely pair! Two beautiful specimens of men! Come away, girls, come inside an’ leave th’ brutes.’

An’ carryin’ what was left of th’ bottle o’ wine which she rescued when th’ barrow went over, th’ old lady bounced inside an’ I after her.

Next mornin’ first thing I rolled me swag up an’ strapped it on th’ pack horse along with a jackshay an’ a pair o’ greenhide hobbles that I made on purpose about three months before.

Soon as breakfast was over I grabs me hat an’ sez, ‘Well, I got to meet th’ rest of th’ chaps at Hodgson’s Creek in about an hour.’

Then th’ hand shakin’ an’ th’ cryin’ commenced, which was always the worst part o’ goin’ away. Anyone who’s never left a home in th’ bush don’t know what that means.

‘Look after y’self Frankie while you’re away,’ th’ old man who was the last to shake sez, ‘an’ if ever ye see any drinkin’ or gamblin’ goin’ on, keep away from it.’