ed.

Some one might ask her, 'How's your son Jack, Mrs Spicer?' or, 'Heard of
Jack lately? and where is he now?'

'Oh, he's somewheres up country,' she'd say in the 'groping' voice, or
'He's drovin' in Queenslan',' or 'Shearin' on the Darlin' the last time
I heerd from him.' 'We ain't had a line from him since--les' see--since
Chris'mas 'fore last.'

And she'd turn her haggard eyes in a helpless, hopeless sort of way
towards the west--towards 'up-country' and 'Out-Back'.*

* 'Out-Back' is always west of the Bushman, no matter how
far out he be.

The eldest girl at home was nine or ten, with a little old face and
lines across her forehead: she had an older expression than her mother.
Tommy went to Queensland, as I told you. The eldest son at home, Bill
(older than Tommy), was 'a bit wild.'

I've passed the place in smothering hot mornings in December, when the
droppings about the cow-yard had crumpled to dust that rose in the
warm, sickly, sunrise wind, and seen that woman at work in the cow-yard,
'bailing up' and leg-roping cows, milking, or hauling at a rope round
the neck of a half-grown calf that was too strong for her (and she was
tough as fencing-wire), or humping great buckets of sour milk to the
pigs or the 'poddies' (hand-fed calves) in the pen. I'd get off the
horse and give her a hand sometimes with a young steer, or a cranky old
cow that wouldn't 'bail-up' and threatened her with her horns. She'd
say--

'Thenk yer, Mr Wilson. Do yer think we're ever goin' to have any rain?'

I've ridden past the place on bitter black rainy mornings in June or
July, and seen her trudging about the yard--that was ankle-deep in black
liquid filth--with an old pair of Blucher boots on, and an old coat of
her husband's, or maybe a three-bushel bag over her shoulders. I've seen
her climbing on the roof by means of the water-cask at the corner, and
trying to stop a leak by shoving a piece of tin in under the bark. And
when I'd fixed the leak--

'Thenk yer, Mr Wilson. This drop of rain's a blessin'! Come in and have
a dry at the fire and I'll make yer a cup of tea.' And, if I was in a
hurry, 'Come in, man alive! Come in! and dry yerself a bit till the rain
holds up. Yer can't go home like this! Yer'll git yer death o' cold.'

I've even seen her, in the terrible drought, climbing she-oaks and
apple-trees by a makeshift ladder, and awkwardly lopping off boughs to
feed the starving cattle.

'Jist tryin' ter k