"Not too bad, though," he said, reviewing the years work, after fixing up
a sleeping camp for the Wet.
The camp consisted of a tent-fly, extended verandah-like behind the
Quarters, open on three sides to the air and furnished completely with a
movable four-legged wooden bunk: and surveying it with satisfaction, as
the Willy-Willys danced about it, Dan reckoned it looked pretty
comfortable. "No fear of catching cold, anyway," he said, and meant it,
having got down to the root of hygiene; for among Dan's pet theories was
the theory that "houses are fine things to catch cold in," backing up the
theory by adding: "Never slept in one yet without getting a cold."
The camp fixed up, Dan found himself among the unemployed, and, finding
the Maluka had returned to station books and the building of that garden
fence, and that Jack had begun anew his horse-breaking with a small mob
of colts, he envied them their occupation.
"Doing nothing's the hardest job I ever struck," he growled, shifting
impatiently from shade to shade, and dratting the flies and dust; and
even sank so low as to envy the missus her house.
"Gives her something to do cleaning up after Willy-Willys," he growled
further, and in desperation took to outracing Willy-Willys - "so the
missus 'ull have a bit of time for pitching," and was drawn into the
wood-heap gossip, until Jack provided a little incidental entertainment
in the handling of a "kicker."
But Jack and the missus had found occupation of greater interest than
horse-breaking, gossiping, or spring cleaning - an occupation that was
also affording Dan a certain amount of entertainment, for Jack was
"wrestling with book-learning," which Dan gave us to understand was a
very different thing from "education."
"Still it takes a bit of time to get the whole mob properly broken in,"
he said, giving Jack a preliminary caution. Then, the first lesson over,
he became interested in the methods of handling the mob.
"That's the trick, is it? You just put the yearlings through the yard,
and then tackle the two-year-olds." he commented, finding that after a
run through the Alphabet we had settled down to the first pages of
Bett-Bett's discarded Primer.
Jack, having "roped all the two-year-olds" in that first lesson, spent
all evening handling them, and the Quarters looked on as he tested their
tempers, for although most proved willing, yet a few were tricky or
obstinate. All evening he sat, poring over the tiny Primer, amid a
buzzing swarm of mosquitoes, with the doggedness all gone from his face,
and in its place the light of a fair fight, and, to no one's surprise, in
the morning we heard that "all the two-year-olds came at his call."
Another lesson at the midday spell roped most of the three-year-olds, and
another evening brought them under the Quiet Stockman's will, and then in
a few more days the four-year-olds and upwards had been dealt with, and
the Primer was exhausted.
