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It pleased Joanna to talk of Socknersh and herself as "we," though she would bitterly have resented any idea of joint responsibility in the days of Fuller. The rites of lambing and shearing had not dimmed her faith in the high priest she had chosen for Ansdore's most sacred mysteries. Socknersh was a man who was automatically "good with sheep."
When they had thrashed the whole campaign over from start to finish, making maps on my bed with hair brushes, razors and things, they got to talking of Australia; and that was all about fighting too: dog fights, fist fights between bullockies on the long road from Northern Queensland, riots in Perth when the pearlers came in off the Barrier Reef to spend their pay, rows in the big shearing sheds when the Union men objected to unskilled labour you'd have thought Australia was one big battlefield, with nothing else but fights worth talking of from dawn till dark.
Just as a shock of corn remains in the field to dry and ripen after the shearing, so our old friend remained in his place here for a short time, ripening for the heavenly garner.
There was only one of each, or thereabouts, and they were generally old enough to be my mothers. I was but a child, Jim a guileless, merry, high-hearted boy, and innocent as the lamb unshorn." "You were that, and the shearing did you a lot of good. O, you can be easy; I'll not bring up the sins of your youth." "They were no sins, only follies.
While it lasted, that is, while the shearing of the flock was proceeding, it was very uncomfortable. Those same joyous, winning stock-gamblers, with beaming faces, of the week before, were fear-clutched, losing stock-gamblers, with livid faces, on what they afterward called the day of the panic. It really was only a slump; rather sharper than usual. Too many lambs had been over-speculating.
"They put me in mind somehow of Shenstone's pastorals. How humanizing a pastoral life is, to be sure! On the whole, I admire their way of not shearing their sheep alive. It isn't stupidity, but goodness of heart. A most amiable people!" "Jest so," assented Glover. "How it must go ag'in the grain with 'em to take a skelp when it comes in the way of dooty!
This comes from hunger and exposure to rain. Their health depends on it. After shearing, anoint all the flock with this mixture, and let them sweat profusely for two or three days. Then dip them in the sea. If you have no sea water, make salt water and dip then in that. If you will do this they will suffer no scab, they will have more and better wool and they will not be molested by ticks.
When John saw the nature of his loss, knowing there was no use in complaining, he made the best of his mishap by determining to ride over in the morning to Strawberry Hill, and see if he could not borrow some from his neighbour there until the receipt of his further supplies for shearing.
He looked after Sandal and his daughter with a grave, but not unhappy wistfulness; and when a belt of larches hid them from his view, he turned towards the house, saying softly, "It is like to be my last shearing. Very soon this life will have been, but through Christ's mercy I have the over-hand of the future."
At the far end of the barn, close by the doors, I stood a minute or two before shifting up to watch the shearing.
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