Of the building was up, the completion of the contract was impossible.
With philosophical indifference, however, he finished one room
completely; left a second a mere outline of uprights and tye-beams;
apparently forgot all about the bathroom and office; covered the whole
roof, including verandahs, with corrugated iron; surveyed his work with a
certain amount of stolid satisfaction; then announcing that "wood bin
finissem," applied for his cheque and departed; and from that day nothing
further has been done to the House, which stood before us "mostly
verandahs and promises."
Although Mac's description of the House had been apt, he had sadly
underrated the furniture. There were FOUR chairs, all "up" to my weight,
while two of them were up to the Maluka's. The cane was all gone,
certainly, but had been replaced with green-hide seats (not green in
colour, of course, only green in experience, never having seen a
tan-pit). In addition to the chairs, the dining-table, the four-poster
bed, the wire mattress, and the looking glass, there was a solid deal
side table, made from the side of a packing-case, with four solid legs
and a solid shelf underneath, also a remarkably steady washstand that had
no ware of any description, and a remarkably unsteady chest of four
drawers, one of which refused to open, while the other three refused to
shut. Further, the dining-table was more than "fairly" steady, three of
the legs being perfectly sound, and it therefore only threatened to fall
over when leaned upon. And lastly, although most of the plates and all
the cups were enamel ware, there was almost a complete dinner service in
china. The teapot, however, was tin, and, as Mac said, as "big as a
house."
As for the walls, not only were the "works of art" there, but they
themselves were uniquely dotted from ceiling to floor with the muddy
imprints of dogs' feet - not left there by a Pegasus breed of winged dogs,
but made by the muddy feet of the station dogs, as the, pattered over the
timber, when it lay awaiting the carpenter, and no one had seen any
necessity to remove them. Outside the verandahs, and all around the
house, was what was to be known later as the garden, a grassy stretch of
hillocky ground, well scratched and beaten down by dogs, goats, and
fowls; fenceless itself, being part of the grassy acres which were
themselves fenced round to form the homestead enclosures. Just inside
this enclosure, forming, in fact, the south-western barrier of it, stood
the "billabong," then a spreading sheet of water; along its banks
flourished the vegetable garden; outside the enclosure, towards the
south-east, lay a grassy plain a mile across, and to the north-west were
the stock-yards and house paddock - a paddock of five square miles, and
the only fenced area on the run; while everywhere to the northwards, and
all through the paddock, were dotted "white-ant" hills, all shapes and
sizes, forming brick-red turrets among the green scrub and timber.
"Well!" Mac said, after we had completed a survey. "I said it wasn't a
fit place for a woman, didn't I?"
But the Head-stockman was in one of his argumentative moods. "Any place
is a fit place for a woman," he said, "provided the woman is fitted for
the place. The right man in the right place, you know. Square people
shouldn't try to get into round holes."
"The woman's SQUARE enough!" the Maluka interrupted; and Mac added, "And
so is the HOLE," with a scornful emphasis on the word "hole."
Dan chuckled, and surveyed the queer-looking building with new interest.
"It reminds me of a banyan tree with corrugated-iron foliage," he said,
adding as he went into details, "In a dim light the finished room would
pass for the trunk of the tree and the uprights for the supports of the
branches."
But the Maluka thought it looked more like a section of a mangrove swamp,
piles and all.
"It looks very like a house nearly finished," I said severely; for,
because of the verandah and many promises, I was again hopeful for
something approaching that commodious station home. "A few able-bodied
men could finish the dining-room in a couple of clays, and make a mansion
of the rest of the building in a week or so."
But the able-bodied men had a different tale to tell.
"Steady! Go slow, missus!" they cried. "It may look like a house very
nearly finished, but out-bush, we have to catch our hares before we cook
them."
"WE begin at the very beginning of things in the Never-Never," the Maluka
explained. "Timber grows in trees in these parts, and has to be coaxed
out with a saw."
"It's a bad habit it's got into," Dan chuckled; then pointing vaguely
towards the thickly wooded long Reach, that lay a mile to the south of
the homestead, beyond the grassy plain, he "supposed the dining-room was
down there just now, with the rest of the House."
With fast-ebbing hopes I looked in dismay at the distant forest
undulating along the skyline, and the Maluka said sympathetically, "It's
only too true, little un'."
But Dan disapproved of spoken sympathy under trying circumstances. "It
keeps 'em from toeing the line" he believed; and fearing I was on the
point of showing the white feather he broke in with: "We'll have to keep
her toeing the line, Boss," and then pointed out that "things might be
worse." "In some countries there are no trees to cut down," he said.
"That's the style," he added, when I began to laugh in spite of my
disappointment, "We'll soon get you educated up to it."
But already the Sanguine Scot had found the bright side of the situation,
and reminded us that we were in the Land of Plenty of Time.
