up and down by the creek. I hated anything
that looked like injustice--I was so sensitive about it that it made
me unjust sometimes. I tried to think I was right, but I couldn't--it
wouldn't have made me feel any better if I could have thought so. I got
thinking of Mary's first year on the selection and the life she'd had
since we were married.

When I went in she'd cried herself to sleep. I bent over and, 'Mary,' I
whispered.

She seemed to wake up.

'Joe--Joe!' she said.

'What is it Mary?' I said.

'I'm pretty well sure that old Spot's calf isn't in the pen. Make James
go at once!'

Old Spot's last calf was two years old now; so Mary was talking in her
sleep, and dreaming she was back in her first year.

We both laughed when I told her about it afterwards; but I didn't feel
like laughing just then.

Later on in the night she called out in her sleep,--

'Joe--Joe! Put that buggy in the shed, or the sun will blister the
varnish!'

I wish I could say that that was the last time I ever spoke unkindly to
Mary.

Next morning I got up early and fried the bacon and made the tea, and
took Mary's breakfast in to her--like I used to do, sometimes, when we
were first married. She didn't say anything--just pulled my head down
and kissed me.

When I was ready to start Mary said,--

'You'd better take the spring-cart in behind the dray and get the tyres
cut and set. They're ready to drop off, and James has been wedging them
up till he's tired of it. The last time I was out with the children
I had to knock one of them back with a stone: there'll be an accident
yet.'

So I lashed the shafts of the cart under the tail of the waggon, and
mean and ridiculous enough the cart looked, going along that way. It
suggested a man stooping along handcuffed, with his arms held out and
down in front of him.

It was dull weather, and the scrubs looked extra dreary and endless--and
I got thinking of old things. Everything was going all right with me,
but that didn't keep me from brooding sometimes--trying to hatch out
stones, like an old hen we had at home. I think, taking it all round, I
used to be happier when I was mostly hard-up--and more generous. When I
had ten pounds I was more likely to listen to a chap who said, 'Lend me
a pound-note, Joe,' than when I had fifty; THEN I fought shy of careless
chaps--and lost mates that I wanted afterwards--and got the name of
being mean. When I got a good cheque I'd be as miserable as