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Updated: May 17, 2025
"He was awfully good about it, and the supply of just-what-you-want timber on Billabong seemed inexhaustible." "No, you really used very little good stuff," David Linton said. "It's chiefly packing cases, truly, Jim. But we had plenty of time to plane it up and make it look decent. Bob ran an electric light into the workshop and we worked every night.
"Too much bloomin' argument about this camp; I'm off ter bed." "So you think he'll do, Jim?" "Yes, I certainly do," Jim answered. He was sitting with his father in the smoking-room at Billabong, his long legs outstretched before the fire, and his great form half-concealed in the depths of an enormous leather armchair.
Ten years ago the Grimes family had come to live in Waterloo, when the Bank of New Guinea had finally dispensed with Dad's services as manager at Billabong. His wife had picked on this obscure suburb of working men to hide her shame, and Dad who could make himself at home on an ant-hill, had cheerfully acquiesced.
On the metalled road the rubbered tyres spun silently, and only the flying hoofs clattered and soon they had left the made road and turned on to the hard-beaten track that led to Billabong, where progress was even smoother. The tongues flew almost as swiftly as the wheels. The hot sun sank gradually, and the evening breeze sprang up. It was a time for quick questions and answers.
Mitchell got up, re-lit his pipe at the fire, and mooned round for a while, with his hands behind him, kicking sticks out of the road, looking out over the plain, down along the Billabong, and up through the mulga branches at the stars; then he comforted the pup a bit, shoved the fire together with his toe, stood the tea-billy on the coals, and came and squatted on the sand by my head. "Joe!
It was one of Norah and Jim's favourite rides; they never failed to take it when holidays brought the boy back to Billabong. They pushed along it for some time, eventually finding the slip rails, through which they got into the Swamp Paddock so called because of a wide marsh in one corner, where black duck and snipe used to come freely. The new cattle had taken to the paddock like old hands.
There were no memories to wake in the happy young hearts in the loft at Billabong that night. But Andy looked over the heads of the dancers at his master, meeting his eyes as man to man, and each knew that the mind of the other had gone back to days long dead.
"Why, of course you will," Norah said, laughing down at the earnest face. "You're the kind of people who must do well, because you are so keen. And Billabong has adopted you, and we're going to see that you make a success of things. You're our very own immigrants!" "It's nice to be owned by some one who isn't my step-mother," said Tommy happily.
I camped at the head of the Billabong where the track branched, one branch running to Bourke, up the river, and the other out towards the Paroo and hell. About ten o'clock the third morning Mitchell came along with his cheque and his swag, and a new sheep-pup, and his quiet grin; and I wasn't too pleased to see that he had a shearer called "the Lachlan" with him.
They were getting ready for bed, and Norah was wielding a hair-brush vigorously. "No, but I really believe I feel like one at least, I do whenever I am with Jim and Wally," Norah had answered. "And when we get back to Billabong it will be just as it always was we'll be three boys together. You know, it's the most ridiculous thing to think of Jim and Wally as grown-ups.
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