Children of the Bush | Page 8

I know two as married little
girls."
He seemed a hopeless case.
"Sometimes," he said, "sometimes I wish that I wasn't so blessed long."
"There's that there deaf jackaroo," he reflected presently. "He's
something in the same fig about girls as I am. He's too deaf and I'm too
long."
"How do you make that out?" I asked. "He's got three girls, to my
knowledge, and, as for being deaf, why, he gasses more than any man
in the town, and knows more of what's going on than old Mother
Brindle the washerwoman."
"Well, look at that now!" said the Giraffe, slowly. "Who'd have thought
it? He never told me he had three girls, an' as for hearin' news, I always
tell him anything that's goin' on that I think he doesn't catch. He told me
his trouble was that whenever he went out with a girl people could hear
what they was sayin'--at least they could hear what she was sayin' to
him, an' draw their own conclusions, he said. He said he went out one
night with a girl, and some of the chaps foxed 'em an' heard her sayin'
`don't' to him, an' put it all round town."
"What did she say `don't' for?" I asked.
"He didn't tell me that, but I s'pose he was kissin' her or huggin' her or
something."
"Bob," I said presently, "didn't you try the little girl in Bendigo a
second time?"

"No," he said. "What was the use. She was a good little girl, and I
wasn't goin' to go botherin' her. I ain't the sort of cove that goes hangin'
round where he isn't wanted. But somehow I couldn't stay about
Bendigo after she gave me the hint, so I thought I'd come over an' have
a knock round on this side for a year or two."
"And you never wrote to her?"
"No. What was the use of goin' pesterin' her with letters? I know what
trouble letters give me when I have to answer one. She'd have only had
to tell me the straight truth in a letter an' it wouldn't have done me any
good. But I've pretty well got over it by this time."
A few days later I went to Sydney. The Giraffe was the last I shook
hands with from the carriage window, and he slipped something in a
piece of newspaper into my hand.
"I hope yer won't be offended," he drawled, "but some of the chaps
thought you mightn't be too flush of stuff--you've been shoutin' a good
deal; so they put a quid or two together. They thought it might help yer
to have a bit of a fly round in Sydney."
I was back in Bourke before next shearing. On the evening of my
arrival I ran against the Giraffe; he seemed strangely shaken over
something, but he kept his hat on his head.
"Would yer mind takin' a stroll as fur as the Billerbong?" he said. "I got
something I'd like to tell yer."
His big, brown, sunburnt hands trembled and shook as he took a letter
from his pocket and opened it.
"I've just got a letter," he said. "A letter from that little girl at Bendigo.
It seems it was all a mistake. I'd like you to read it. Somehow I feel as
if I want to talk to a feller, and I'd rather talk to you than any of them
other chaps."
It was a good letter, from a big-hearted little girl. She had been
breaking her heart for the great ass all these months. It seemed that he
had left Bendigo without saying good-bye to her. "Somehow I couldn't
bring meself to it," he said, when I taxed him with it. She had never
been able to get his address until last week; then she got it from a
Bourke man who had gone south. She called him "an awful long fool,"
which he was, without the slightest doubt, and she implored him to
write, and come back to her.
"And will you go back, Bob?" I asked.

"My oath! I'd take the train to-morrer only I ain't got the stuff. But I've
got a stand in Big Billerbong Shed an' I'll soon knock a few quid
together. I'll go back as soon as ever shearin's over. I'm goin' to write
away to her to-night."
The Giraffe was the "ringer" of Big Billabong Shed that season. His
tallies averaged a hundred and twenty a day. He only sent his hat round
once during shearing, and it was noticed that he hesitated at first and
only contributed half a crown. But then it was a case of a man being
taken from the shed by the police for wife desertion.
"It's always that way," commented Mitchell. "Those