k Dad came back. He arrived at night, and the lot of us
had to get up to find the hammer to knock the peg out of the door and
let him in. He brought home three pounds--not enough to get the wire
with, but he also brought a horse and saddle. He did n't say if he
bought them. It was a bay mare, a grand animal for a journey--so Dad
said--and only wanted condition. Emelina, he called her. No mistake,
she was a quiet mare! We put her where there was good feed, but she
was n't one that fattened on grass. Birds took kindly to her--crows
mostly--and she could n't go anywhere but a flock of them accompanied
her. Even when Dad used to ride her (Dan or Dave never rode her) they
used to follow, and would fly on ahead to wait in a tree and "caw" when
he was passing beneath.

One morning when Dan was digging potatoes for dinner--splendid potatoes
they were, too, Dad said; he had only once tasted sweeter ones, but
they were grown in a cemetery--he found the kangaroos had been in the
barley. We knew what THAT meant, and that night made fires round it,
thinking to frighten them off, but did n't--mobs of them were in at
daybreak. Dad swore from the house at them, but they took no notice;
and when he ran down, they just hopped over the fence and sat looking
at him. Poor Dad! I do n't know if he was knocked up or if he did n't
know any more, but he stopped swearing and sat on a stump looking at a
patch of barley they had destroyed, and shaking his head. Perhaps he
was thinking if he only had a dog! We did have one until he got a
bait. Old Crib! He was lying under the table at supper-time when he
took the first fit, and what a fright we got! He must have reared
before stiffening out, because he capsized the table into Mother's lap,
and everything on it smashed except the tin-plates and the pints. The
lamp fell on Dad, too, and the melted fat scalded his arm. Dad dragged
Crib out and cut off his tail and ears, but he might as well have taken
off his head.

Dad stood with his back to the fire while Mother was putting a stitch
in his trousers. "There's nothing for it but to watch them at night,"
he was saying, when old Anderson appeared and asked "if I could have
those few pounds." Dad asked Mother if she had any money in the house?
Of course she had n't. Then he told Anderson he would let him have it
when he got the deeds. Anderson left, and Dad sat on the edge of the
sofa and seemed to be counting the grains on a corn-co