And yet we were always out of meat!
Dad was up the country earning a few pounds — the corn drove him up when it didn’t bring what he expected. All we got out of it was a bag of flour — I don’t know what the storekeeper got. Before he left we put in the barley. Somehow, Dad didn’t believe in sowing any more crops, he seemed to lose heart; but Mother talked it over with him, and when reminded that he would soon be entitled to the deeds he brightened up again and worked. How he worked!
We had no plough, so old Anderson turned over the six acres for us, and Dad gave him a pound an acre — at least he was to send him the first six pounds got up country. Dad sowed the seed; then he, Dan and Dave yoked6 themselves to a large dry bramble each and harrowed it in. From the way they sweated it must have been hard work. Sometimes they would sit down in the middle of the paddock and “spell” but Dad would say something about getting the deeds and they’d start again.
A cockatoo-fence was round the barley; and wire-posts, a long distance apart, round the grass-paddock. We were to get the wire to put in when Dad sent the money; and apply for the deeds when he came back. Things would be different then, according to Dad, and the farm would be worked properly. We would break up fifty acres, build a barn, buy a reaper7, ploughs, cornsheller, get cows and good horses, and start two or three ploughs. Meanwhile, if we (Dan, Dave and I) minded the barley he was sure there’d be something got out of it.
Dad had been away about six weeks. Travellers were passing by every day, and there wasn’t one that didn’t want a little of something or other. Mother used to ask them if they had met Dad? None ever did until an old grey man came along and said he knew Dad well — he had camped with him one night and shared a damper. Mother was very pleased and brought him in. We had a kangaroo-rat (stewed) for dinner that day. The girls didn’t want to lay it on the table at first, but Mother said he wouldn’t know what it was. The traveller was very hungry and liked it, and when passing his plate the second time for more, said it wasn’t often he got any poultry8.
He tramped on again, and the girls were very glad he didn’t know it was a rat. But Dave wasn’t so sure that he didn’t know a rat from a rooster, and reckoned he hadn’t met Dad at all.
The seventh week Dad came back. He arrived at night, and the lot of us had to get up to find the hammer to knock the peg9 out of the door and let him in. He brought home three pounds — not enough to get the wire with, but he also brought a horse and saddle. He didn’t say if he bought them. It was a bay mare10, a grand animal for a journey — so Dad said — and only wanted condition. Emelina, he called her. No mistake, she was a quiet mare! We put her where there was good feed, but she wasn’t one that fattened11 on grass. Birds took kindly12 to her — crows mostly — and she couldn’t go anywhere but a flock of them accompanied her. Even when Dad used to ride her (Dan or Dave never rode her) they used to follow, and would fly on ahead to wait in a tree and “caw” when he was passing beneath.
One morning when Dan was digging potatoes for dinner — splendid potatoes they were, too, Dad said; he had only once tasted sweeter ones, but they were grown in a cemetery13 — he found the kangaroos had been in the barley. We knew what THAT meant, and that night made fires round it, thinking to frighten them off, but didn’t — mobs of them were in at daybreak. Dad swore from the house at them, but they took no notice; and when he ran down, they just hopped14 over the fence and sat looking at him. Poor Dad! I don’t know if he was knocked up or if he didn’t know any more, but he stopped swearing and sat on a stump15 looking at a patch of barley they had destroyed, and shaking his head. Perhaps he was thinking if he only had a dog! We did have one until he got a bait. Old Crib! He was lying under the table at supper-time when he took the first fit, and what a fright we got! He must have reared before stiffening16 out, because he capsized the table into Mother’s lap, and everything on it smashed except the tin-plates and the pints17. The lamp fell on Dad, too, and the melted fat scalded his arm. Dad dragged Crib out and cut off his tail and ears, but he might as well have taken off his head.
Dad stood with his back to the fire while Mother was putting a stitch in his trousers. “There’s nothing for it but to watch them at night,” he was saying, when old Anderson appeared and asked “if I could have those few pounds.” Dad asked Mother if she had any money in the house? Of course she hadn’t. Then he told Anderson he would let him have it when he got the deeds. Anderson left, and Dad sat on the edge of the sofa and seemed to be counting the grains on a corn-cob that he lifted from the floor, while Mother sat looking at a kangaroo-tail on the table and didn’t notice the cat drag it off. At last Dad said, “Ah, well! — it won’t be long now, Ellen, before we have the deeds!”
We took it in turns to watch the barley. Dan and the two girls watched the first half of the night, and Dad, Dave and I the second. Dad always slept in his clothes, and he used to think some nights that the others came in before time. It was terrible going out, half awake, to tramp round that paddock from fire to fire, from hour to hour, shouting and yelling. And how we used to long for daybreak! Whenever we sat down quietly together for a few minutes we would hear the dull THUD! THUD! THUD! — the kangaroo’s footstep.
At last we each carried a kerosene18 tin, slung19 like a kettle-drum, and belted it with a waddy — Dad’s idea. He himself manipulated an old bell that he had found on a bullock’s grave, and made a splendid noise with it.
It was a hard struggle, but we succeeded in saving the bulk of the barley, and cut it down with a scythe20 and three reaping-hooks. The girls helped to bind21 it, and Jimmy Mulcahy carted it in return for three days’ binding22 Dad put in for him. The stack wasn’t built twenty-four hours when a score of somebody’s crawling cattle ate their way up to their tails in it. We took the hint and put a sapling fence round it.
Again Dad decided23 to go up country for a while. He caught Emelina after breakfast, rolled up a blanket, told us to watch the stack, and started. The crows followed.
We were having dinner. Dave said, “Listen!” We listened, and it seemed as though all the crows and other feathered demons24 of the wide bush were engaged in a mighty25 scrimmage. “Dad’s back!” Dan said, and rushed out in the lead of a stampede.
Emelina was back, anyway, with the swag on, but Dad wasn’t. We caught her, and Dave pointed26 to white spots all over the saddle, and said —“Hanged if they haven’t been ridin’ her!”— meaning the crows.
Mother got anxious, and sent Dan to see what had happened. Dan found Dad, with his shirt off, at a pub on the main road, wanting to fight the publican for a hundred pounds, but couldn’t persuade him to come home. Two men brought him home that night on a sheep-hurdle, and he gave up the idea of going away.
After all, the barley turned out well — there was a good price that year, and we were able to run two wires round the paddock.
One day a bulky Government letter came. Dad looked surprised and pleased, and how his hand trembled as he broke the seal! “THE DEEDS!” he said, and all of us gathered round to look at them. Dave thought they were like the inside of a bear-skin covered with writing.
Dad said he would ride to town at once, and went for Emelina.
“Couldn’t y’ find her, Dad?” Dan said, seeing him return without the mare.
Dad cleared his throat, but didn’t answer. Mother asked him.
“Yes, I FOUND her,” he said slowly, “DEAD.”
The crows had got her at last.
He wrapped the deeds in a piece of rag and walked.
There was nothing, scarcely, that he didn’t send out from town, and Jimmy Mulcahy and old Anderson many and many times after that borrowed our dray.
Now Dad regularly curses the deeds every mail-day, and wishes to Heaven he had never got them.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
scant
|
|
| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
barley
|
|
| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
calves
|
|
| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
steers
|
|
| n.阉公牛，肉用公牛( steer的名词复数 )v.驾驶( steer的第三人称单数 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
yoked
|
|
| 结合（yoke的过去式形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
reaper
|
|
| n.收割者，收割机 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
poultry
|
|
| n.家禽，禽肉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
peg
|
|
| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
mare
|
|
| n.母马，母驴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
fattened
|
|
| v.喂肥( fatten的过去式和过去分词 )；养肥（牲畜）；使（钱）增多；使（公司）升值 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
cemetery
|
|
| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
hopped
|
|
| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
stump
|
|
| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
stiffening
|
|
| n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
pints
|
|
| n.品脱( pint的名词复数 )；一品脱啤酒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
kerosene
|
|
| n.(kerosine)煤油，火油 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
slung
|
|
| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
scythe
|
|
| n. 长柄的大镰刀，战车镰； v. 以大镰刀割 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
bind
|
|
| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
binding
|
|
| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
demons
|
|
| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |