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Updated: June 18, 2025
For hours we pitched near the restful green of the melon-beds, and as we pitched the Maluka ran fencing wires through two sides of the garden fence, while Tiddle'ums and Bett-Bett, hovering about him, adapted themselves to the new order of things, finding the line the goats had to stop at no longer imaginary.
And in a jargon of pidgin-English he swept aside all moon discussions, and fixed the date of "Bunday" for the twenty-eighth of March, "which," as Dan wisely remarked, "proved that somebody was right," but whether the Maluka or the Dandy, or the moon, he forgot to specify. "The old heathen to beat us all too," he added, "just when it had got us all dodged."
The lubras' methods of washing had proved most disastrous to my meagre wardrobe; and the resources of the homestead were taxed to the utmost to provide sufficient patching material to keep the missus even decently clothed. Cheon openly disapproved of this state of affairs, and was inclined to blame the Maluka.
All around the hole, as far as the head could reach, the turf was eaten, bare, and although it was standing in a couple of feet of water it could not get at it. While the Maluka went for help I brought handfuls of grass, and his hat full of water, again and again, and was haunted for days with the remembrance of those pleading eyes and piteous, nickering lips.
But in vain the Maluka explained and entreated: the sick man was "all right where he was." His mate was worth "ten women fussing round," he insisted, ignoring the Maluka's explanations.
Then the introductions over, the Maluka said: "Ann, now I suppose she may consider herself just 'One of Us." The homestead, standing half-way up the slope that rose from the billabong, had, after all, little of that "down-at-heels, anything'll-do" appearance that Mac had so scathingly described.
Then Darwin came in twos and threes to discuss the situation, and while the men offered every form of service and encouragement, the women-folk spoke of a woman "going bush" as "sheer madness." "Besides, no woman travels during the Wet," they said, and the Maluka "hoped she would prove the exception."
"But she'll be bored to death if she does reach the homestead alive," they prophesied; and I told them they were not very complimentary to the Maluka. "You don't understand," they hastened to explain. "He'll be camping out most of his time, miles away from the homestead," and I said, "So will I." "So you think," they corrected.
"And had all the false veneer of civilisation peeled off long ago," the Maluka said, adding, with a sly look at my discarded gloves and gossamer, "It's wonderful how quietly the Territory does its work."
That walk about with the Maluka and "Gadgerrie" lived like a red-letter day in old Goggle-Eye's memory; for did he not himself strike a dozen full boxes of matches? Dan was away beyond the northern boundary, going through the cattle, judging the probable duration of "outside waters" for that year, burning off too as he rode.
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