iskers.

"You must find it slow work with a hoe?" he said.

"Well-yes-pretty," replied Dad (just as if he was n't quite sure).

After a while Dwyer walked over the "cultivation", and looked at it
hard, then scraped a hole with the heel of his boot, spat, and said he
did n't think the corn would ever come up. Dan slid off his perch at
this, and Dave let the flies eat his leg nearly off without seeming to
feel it; but Dad argued it out.

"Orright, orright," said Dwyer; "I hope it do."

Then Dad went on to speak of places he knew of where they preferred
hoes to a plough for putting corn in with; but Dwyer only laughed and
shook his head.

"D--n him!" Dad muttered, when he had gone; "what rot! WON'T COME UP!"

Dan, who was still thinking hard, at last straightened himself up and
said HE did n't think it was any use either. Then Dad lost his temper.

"No USE?" he yelled, "you whelp, what do you know about it?"

Dan answered quietly: "On'y this, that it's nothing but tomfoolery,
this hoe business."

"How would you do it then?" Dad roared, and Dan hung his head and tried
to button his buttonless shirt wrist-band while he thought.

"With a plough," he answered.

Something in Dad's throat prevented him saying what he wished, so he
rushed at Dan with the hoe, but--was too slow.

Dan slept outside that night.

No sooner was the grain sown than it rained. How it rained! for
weeks! And in the midst of it all the corn came up--every grain-and
proved Dwyer a bad prophet. Dad was in high spirits and promised each
of us something--new boots all round.

The corn continued to grow--so did our hopes, but a lot faster.
Pulling the suckers and "heeling it up" with hoes was but child's
play--we liked it. Our thoughts were all on the boots; 'twas months
months since we had pulled on a pair. Every night, in bed, we decided
twenty times over whether they would be lace-ups or bluchers, and Dave
had a bottle of "goanna" oil ready to keep his soft with.

Dad now talked of going up country--as Mother put it, "to keep the wolf
from the door"--while the four acres of corn ripened. He went, and
returned on the day Tom and Bill were born--twins. Maybe his absence
did keep the wolf from the door, but it did n't keep the dingoes from
the fowl-house!

Once the corn ripened it did n't take long to pull it, but Dad had to
put on his considering-cap when we came to the question of getting it
in. To hump it in bags seemed inevita