On Our Selection | Page 4

You who strove through the silences of the Bush-lands
and made them ours; to You who delved and toiled in loneliness
through the years that have faded away; to You who have no place in
the history of our Country so far as it is yet written; to You who have
done MOST for this Land; to You for whom few, in the march of
settlement, in the turmoil of busy city life, now appear to care; and to
you particularly, GOOD OLD DAD, This Book is most affectionately
dedicated.
"STEELE RUDD."

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
STARTING THE SELECTION
CHAPTER II.
OUR FIRST HARVEST
CHAPTER III.
BEFORE WE GOT THE DEEDS
CHAPTER IV.
WHEN THE WOLF WAS AT THE DOOR
CHAPTER V.

THE NIGHT WE WATCHED FOR WALLABIES
CHAPTER VI.
GOOD OLD BESS
CHAPTER VII.
CRANKY JACK
CHAPTER VIII.
A KANGAROO HUNT FROM SHINGLE HUT
CHAPTER IX.
DAVE'S SNAKEBITE
CHAPTER X.
DAD AND THE DONOVANS
CHAPTER XI.
A SPLENDID YEAR FOR CORN
CHAPTER XII.
KATE'S WEDDING
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SUMMER OLD BOB DIED
CHAPTER XIV.
WHEN DAN CAME HOME

CHAPTER XV.
OUR CIRCUS
CHAPTER XVI.
WHEN JOE WAS IN CHARGE
CHAPTER XVII.
DAD'S "FORTUNE"
CHAPTER XVIII.
WE EMBARK IN THE BEAR INDUSTRY
CHAPTER XIX.
NELL AND NED
CHAPTER XX
THE COW WE BOUGHT
CHAPTER XXI.
THE PARSON AND THE SCONE
CHAPTER XXII.
CALLAGHAN'S COLT
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE AGRICULTURAL REPORTER
CHAPTER XXIV.

A LADY AT SHINGLE HUT
CHAPTER XXV.
THE MAN WITH THE BEAR-SKIN CAP
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHRISTMAS

On Our Selection.
Chapter I.

Starting the Selection.
It's twenty years ago now since we settled on the Creek. Twenty years!
I remember well the day we came from Stanthorpe, on Jerome's
dray--eight of us, and all the things--beds, tubs, a bucket, the two cedar
chairs with the pine bottoms and backs that Dad put in them, some
pint-pots and old Crib. It was a scorching hot day, too--talk about thirst!
At every creek we came to we drank till it stopped running.
Dad did n't travel up with us: he had gone some months before, to put
up the house and dig the waterhole. It was a slabbed house, with
shingled roof, and space enough for two rooms; but the partition was n't
up. The floor was earth; but Dad had a mixture of sand and fresh
cow-dung with which he used to keep it level. About once every month
he would put it on; and everyone had to keep outside that day till it was
dry. There were no locks on the doors: pegs were put in to keep them
fast at night; and the slabs were not very close together, for we could
easily see through them anybody coming on horseback. Joe and I used
to play at counting the stars through the cracks in the roof.
The day after we arrived Dad took Mother and us out to see the

paddock and the flat on the other side of the gully that he was going to
clear for cultivation. There was no fence round the paddock, but he
pointed out on a tree the surveyor's marks, showing the boundary of our
ground. It must have been fine land, the way Dad talked about it! There
was very valuable timber on it, too, so he said; and he showed us a
place, among some rocks on a ridge, where he was sure gold would be
found, but we were n't to say anything about it. Joe and I went back that
evening and turned over every stone on the ridge, but we did n't find
any gold.
No mistake, it was a real wilderness--nothing but trees, "goannas," dead
timber, and bears; and the nearest house--Dwyer's--was three miles
away. I often wonder how the women stood it the first few years; and I
can remember how Mother, when she was alone, used to sit on a log,
where the lane is now, and cry for hours. Lonely! It WAS lonely.
Dad soon talked about clearing a couple of acres and putting in
corn--all of us did, in fact--till the work commenced. It was a delightful
topic before we started,; but in two weeks the clusters of fires that
illumined the whooping bush in the night, and the crash upon crash of
the big trees as they fell, had lost all their poetry.
We toiled and toiled clearing those four acres, where the haystacks are
now standing, till every tree and sapling that had grown there was
down. We thought then the worst was over; but how little we knew of
clearing land! Dad was never tired of calculating and telling us how
much the crop would fetch if the ground could only be got ready in
time to put it in; so we laboured the harder.
With our combined male and female forces