it, Anderson was very sorry he had n't got it just then, but promised
to let him have it as soon as he could sell his chaff. When Mother
heard Anderson could n't pay, she DID cry, and said there was n't a bit
of sugar in the house, nor enough cotton to mend the children's bits of
clothes.

We could n't very well go without tea, so Dad showed Mother how to make
a new kind. He roasted a slice of bread on the fire till it was like a
black coal, then poured the boiling water over it and let it "draw"
well. Dad said it had a capital flavour--HE liked it.

Dave's only pair of pants were pretty well worn off him; Joe had n't a
decent coat for Sunday; Dad himself wore a pair of boots with soles
tied on with wire; and Mother fell sick. Dad did all he could--waited
on her, and talked hopefully of the fortune which would come to us some
day; but once, when talking to Dave, he broke down, and said he did
n't, in the name of the Almighty God, know what he would do! Dave
could n't say anything--he moped about, too, and home somehow did n't
seem like home at all.

When Mother was sick and Dad's time was mostly taken up nursing her;
when there was nothing, scarcely, in the house; when, in fact, the wolf
was at the very door;--Dan came home with a pocket full of money and
swag full of greasy clothes. How Dad shook him by the hand and
welcomed him back! And how Dan talked of "tallies", "belly-wool", and
"ringers" and implored Dad, over and over again, to go shearing, or
rolling up, or branding--ANYTHING rather than work and starve on the
selection.

That's fifteen years ago, and Dad is still on the farm.

Chapter V.

The Night We Watched For Wallabies.

It had been a bleak July day, and as night came on a bitter westerly
howled through the trees. Cold! was n't it cold! The pigs in the sty,
hungry and half-fed (we wanted for ourselves the few pumpkins that had
survived the drought) fought savagely with each other for shelter, and
squealed all the time like--well, like pigs. The cows and calves left
the place to seek shelter away in the mountains; while the draught
horses, their hair standing up like barbed-wire, leaned sadly over the
fence and gazed up at the green lucerne. Joe went about shivering in
an old coat of Dad's with only one sleeve to it--a calf had fancied the
other one day that Dad hung it on a post as a mark to go by while
ploughing.

"My! it'll be a stinger to-night," Dad remarked to Mrs. Brown--w