told upon me
and made my physical burdens harder for me than for other children of my
years around me. That third was the strongest part of me. In it I lived a
dream-life with writers, artists, and musicians. Hope, sweet, cruel,
delusive Hope, whispered in my ear that life was long with much by and
by, and in that by and by my dream-life would be real. So on I went with
that gleaming lake in the distance beckoning me to come and sail on its
silver waters, and Inexperience, conceited, blind Inexperience, failing
to show the impassable pit between it and me.

To return to the dairying.

Old and young alike we earned our scant livelihood by the heavy sweat of
our brows. Still, we _did_ gain an honest living. We were not ashamed to
look day in the face, and fought our way against all odds with the
stubborn independence of our British ancestors. But when 1894 went out
without rain, and '95, hot, dry, pitiless '95, succeeded it, there came a
time when it was impossible to make a living.

The scorching furnace-breath winds shrivelled every blade of grass, dust
and the moan of starving stock filled the air, vegetables became a thing
of the past. The calves I had reared died one by one, and the cows
followed in their footsteps.

I had left school then, and my mother and father and I spent the days in
lifting our cows. When our strength proved inadequate, the help of
neighbours had to be called in, and father would give his services in
return. Only a few of our more well-to-do neighbours had been able to send
their stock away, or had any better place to which to transfer them. The
majority of them were in as tight a plight as ourselves. This cow-lifting
became quite a trade, the whole day being spent in it and in discussing
the bad prospect ahead if the drought continued.

Many an extra line of care furrowed the brows of the disheartened bushmen
then. Not only was their living taken from them by the drought, but there
is nothing more heartrending than to have poor beasts, especially dairy
cows, so familiar, valued, and loved, pleading for food day after day in
their piteous dumb way when one has it not to give.

We shore ourselves of all but the bare necessaries of life, but even they
for a family of ten are considerable, and it was a mighty tussle to get
both ends within cover of meeting. We felt the full force of the heavy
hand of poverty--the most stinging kind of poverty too, that which still
holds up its head and keeps