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Updated: June 25, 2025
Then acting on a hint from Cheon, we took him to the banana clump. During the evening another five-minutes' deluge gladdened our hearts, as the "lavender" bugs and other sweet pests of the Territory insect pest saddened our bodies.
As we sat sipping tea, after doing our best with the cakes and water-melons, we heard strange gurgles in the kitchen, and then Cheon appeared choking and coughing, but triumphantly announcing that he had found the wealth in his first mouthful. "My word! Me close up gobble him," he chuckled, exhibiting the pudding-coated threepence, and not one of us grudged him his good omens.
On and on through mince pies, sweets, cakes, and fruits, went the monotonous chant, the Maluka and the missus standing gravely at attention, until a triumphant paeon of "Plum-m-m Poo-dinn!" soared upwards as Cheon waddled off through the decorated verandah extension for his soup tureen.
Everything was exactly what Cheon most needed, and he accepted everything with gleeful chuckles everything excepting a kerosene Primus burner for boiling a kettle. That he refused to touch. "Him go bang," he explained, as usual explicit and picturesque in his English.
In a flash I knew all I had once been, and quailing before the awful proof before me, presented Cheon with the whole collection of tin and enamel ware, and packed him off to the kitchen before the Maluka had time to lose interest in the books.
Some could see about taking the Vealer down from the gallows; six lubras were "rounded up" for the plucking of the pullets, while the rest of us were sent out, through wet grass and thicket, into the cold, grey dawn, to gather in "big, big mob bough and mistletoe," for the beautifying of all things. How we worked! With Cheon at the helm, every one was of necessity enthusiastic.
The Fizzer smiled amiably after the retreating figures, and then went to be entertained by Cheon. He expected nothing else. He provided feasts all along his route, and was prepared to stand aside while the bush-folk feasted.
After that the Maluka gravely proposed "Cheon," and Cheon instantly became statuesque and dignified, to the further diversion of Brown of the Bulls gravely accepting a thimbleful for himself, and, as gravely, drinking his own health, the Maluka just as gravely "clinking glasses" with him.
For four days the Maluka argued with Chinese slimness before he felt satisfied that his cash was in safe keeping while the Wag and others did as they wished with our spare time. Then, four days later, again Cheon and Tiddle'ums were hailing us in welcome at the homestead.
Also the fringe of birds was back at the billabong, having returned with as little warning as it had left, and once more its ceaseless chatter became the undertone of the homestead. At sun-up Cheon had us in his garden, sure now that Pine Creek could not possibly outdo us in vegetables and the Dandy coming in with every commission fulfilled we felt ham was a mere detail.
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