PTER XXVI. CHRISTMAS

On Our Selection.

Chapter I.

Starting the Selection.

It's twenty years ago now since we settled on the Creek. Twenty years!
I remember well the day we came from Stanthorpe, on Jerome's
dray--eight of us, and all the things--beds, tubs, a bucket, the two
cedar chairs with the pine bottoms and backs that Dad put in them, some
pint-pots and old Crib. It was a scorching hot day, too--talk about
thirst! At every creek we came to we drank till it stopped running.

Dad did n't travel up with us: he had gone some months before, to put
up the house and dig the waterhole. It was a slabbed house, with
shingled roof, and space enough for two rooms; but the partition was
n't up. The floor was earth; but Dad had a mixture of sand and fresh
cow-dung with which he used to keep it level. About once every month
he would put it on; and everyone had to keep outside that day till it
was dry. There were no locks on the doors: pegs were put in to keep
them fast at night; and the slabs were not very close together, for we
could easily see through them anybody coming on horseback. Joe and I
used to play at counting the stars through the cracks in the roof.

The day after we arrived Dad took Mother and us out to see the paddock
and the flat on the other side of the gully that he was going to clear
for cultivation. There was no fence round the paddock, but he pointed
out on a tree the surveyor's marks, showing the boundary of our ground.
It must have been fine land, the way Dad talked about it! There was
very valuable timber on it, too, so he said; and he showed us a place,
among some rocks on a ridge, where he was sure gold would be found, but
we were n't to say anything about it. Joe and I went back that evening
and turned over every stone on the ridge, but we did n't find any gold.

No mistake, it was a real wilderness--nothing but trees, "goannas,"
dead timber, and bears; and the nearest house--Dwyer's--was three miles
away. I often wonder how the women stood it the first few years; and I
can remember how Mother, when she was alone, used to sit on a log,
where the lane is now, and cry for hours. Lonely! It WAS lonely.

Dad soon talked about clearing a couple of acres and putting in
corn--all of us did, in fact--till the work commenced. It was a
delightful topic before we started,; but in two weeks the clusters of
fires that illumined the whooping bush in the night, and the crash up