and that the wife did the housework; which, of course, he
must have done himself.

When we reached him his knotted hands had fallen for the last time, and
they were at rest. I only took one quick look at his face, but could
have sworn that he was gazing at the blue fin of the range on the
horizon of the bush.

Up at the hut the table was set as on the first day I saw it, and
breakfast in the camp-oven by the fire.

Mitchell's Jobs

"I'm going to knock off work and try to make some money," said Mitchell,
as he jerked the tea-leaves out of his pannikin and reached for the
billy. "It's been the great mistake of my life--if I hadn't wasted all
my time and energy working and looking for work I might have been an
independent man to-day."

"Joe!" he added in a louder voice, condescendingly adapting his language
to my bushed comprehension. "I'm going to sling graft and try and get
some stuff together."

I didn't feel in a responsive humour, but I lit up and settled back
comfortably against the tree, and Jack folded his arms on his knees and
presently continued, reflectively:

"I remember the first time I went to work. I was a youngster then.
Mother used to go round looking for jobs for me. She reckoned, perhaps,
that I was too shy to go in where there was a boy wanted and barrack for
myself properly, and she used to help me and see me through to the best
of her ability. I'm afraid I didn't always feel as grateful to her as I
should have felt. I was a thankless kid at the best of times--most kids
are--but otherwise I was a straight enough little chap as nippers go.
Sometimes I almost wish I hadn't been. My relations would have thought
a good deal more of me and treated me better--and, besides, it's a
comfort, at times, to sit and watch the sun going down in the bed of the
bush, and think of your wicked childhood and wasted life, and the way
you treated your parents and broke their hearts, and feel just properly
repentant and bitter and remorseful and low-spirited about it when it's
too late.

"Ah, well!... I generally did feel a bit backward in going in when I
came to the door of an office or shop where there was a 'Strong Lad', or
a 'Willing Youth', wanted inside to make himself generally useful. I
was a strong lad and a willing youth enough, in some things, for that
matter; but I didn't like to see it written up on a card in a shop
window, and I didn't want to make myself generally useful in a close
shop i