Best Australian Yarns

by Haynes, Jim

  The sheep need shearing and all the local blokes are off with the big shearing teams and the bloke is desperate. Being a city bloke, he has no idea how to do the job himself.

  He is telling his problem to the local produce merchant and the bloke feels sorry for him and says, ‘Look, mate, Stewie Carmichael’s team have just finished shearing at Thurlow Downs and Stewie’s in the pub having a few before they move on to do a big run out near Hay. He might do you a favour and knock over your few sheep before he leaves town. Go and ask him.’

  So the city bloke heads to the pub and finds Stewie having a beer and yarning with some of his team of shearers.

  ‘Excuse me,’ says the hobby farmer politely, ‘but I have a mob of sheep that need shearing badly, could you help me out?’

  ‘Well,’ says Stewie, ‘if we’d known sooner we might have fitted ’em in. We have to be out near Hay on Monday to start doing a mob of 20,000. How many do you have?’

  ‘Only fourteen,’ the bloke replies.

  ‘Geez, mate,’ says Stewie, ‘fourteen thousand is gonna take us a few days, but if I rearrange a few things and keep a few blokes sober we might manage it!’ He puts his beer down on the bar and gets serious, ‘I better make a few phone calls.’

  ‘No,’ says the hobby farmer sheepishly, ‘ not fourteen thousand—just fourteen.’

  Stewie stops in his tracks, then picks up his beer again and relaxes, leaning on the bar. He smiles at the hobby farmer and pushes back his hat.

  ‘I might be able to manage that,’ he says, ‘what are their names?’

  JH

  THE SPIDER FROM THE GWYDIR

  ANONYMOUS

  By the sluggish River Gwydir

  Lived a vicious redback spider,

  He was just about as vicious as could be,

  And the place that he was camped in

  Was a rusty Jones’s Jam tin,

  In a paddock by the showground at Moree.

  Near him lay a shearer snoozing,

  He’d been on the grog and boozing

  All the night and half the previous day,

  And the ‘kooking’ of the kookas

  And the spruiking of the spruikers

  Failed to wake him from the trance in which he lay.

  Then a crafty looking spieler

  With a dainty little sheila

  Came along collecting wood to make a fire.

  Said the spieler, ‘Here’s a boozer,

  And he’s gonna be a loser,

  If he isn’t you can christen me a liar!

  ‘Stay here and keep nit, Honey,

  While I fan the mug for money,

  And we’ll have some little luxuries for tea.’

  Said the sheila, ‘Don’t be silly!

  You go home and boil the billy,

  You can safely leave this mug to little me.’

  So she circled ever nearer

  Till she reached the dopey shearer

  With his pockets bulging, still asleep and snug,

  But she never saw the spider

  That was creepin’ up beside her,

  ’Cos her mind was on the money and the mug.

  Now the spider needed dinner,

  He was daily growin’ thinner

  He’d been fasting and was empty as an urn,

  As she eyed the bulging pocket,

  He darted like a rocket,

  And he bit the spieler’s sheila on the stern.

  Well, the sheila raced off squealin’

  And her dress began unpeelin’.

  As she sprinted she was feelin’ quite forlorn.

  On the bite one hand was pressing

  While the other was undressing

  And she reached the camp the same as she was born.

  Now the shearer, pale and haggard

  Woke and back to town he staggered,

  Where he caught the train and gave the booze a rest,

  And he never knew that spider

  That was camped there by the Gwydir,

  Had saved him sixty smackers of the best!

  LATE FOR SCHOOL

  Little Johnny is late for school in the little one-teacher schoolhouse in the mixed farm district.

  ‘Why are you so late, Johnny?’ the prim and proper young school teacher asks.

  ‘I had to take the house cow down to McGregor’s farm to be mated to their bull, Miss,’ comes the reply. ‘It’s that time of the year when she needs to be serviced.’

  ‘Well, can’t your father do that?’ she asks sternly.

  ‘No, Miss,’ Johnny replies, ‘it has to be the bull.

  JH

  SERVICE

  ANONYMOUS

  When I was a kid on my daddy’s farm,

  He sometimes used to say,

  ‘Take the house cow down to “service”

  To the farm along the way.’

  Each time I took the cow down there

  The farmer he would say,

  ‘Just leave the cow with me, me boy,

  Come back another day.’

  Now, it really had me puzzled,

  What did this ‘service’ mean?

  So, one day I decided,

  This ‘service’ must be seen.

  Through a knot-hole in the barn door,

  With me youthful naked eye,

  I seen what they was talking about,

  In all those times gone by.

  Now a lot of politicians say,

  ‘I serve my country true.’

  I don’t know what they mean by that,

  I’ll leave it up to you.

  ‘We’re hear to serve the people.

  Elect us just once more.

  For years we’ve tried to serve you

  And we’d love to serve you more.’

  So, at the next election,

  When you put your name on the dot,

  Make sure you vote for the right one . . .

  Or we’ll get what the house cow got!

  STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH

  LENNIE LOWER

  We judged the horses yesterday at the show. From what we could see from the grandstand, they seemed to be all right.

  Each one seemed to have the correct number of legs and looked to be wide enough to sit on without undue discomfort.

  Though how they get their tails knotted up like that beats us.

  Temperament, we suppose.

  On the other hand, after spending most of our lives among horses (we lived for twelve years with the one horse) we can state definitely that Nature provided horses with tails, not to show which end went into the cart first, but to whisk flies off.

  The knotted tail would, of course, not only whisk them, but so stun them that by the time they came to, the horse would be somewhere else.

  Clydesdales may be picked out by the uninitiated quite easily. Their feet—well, only a few of them are allowed into the ring at the same time. They have beards on their ankles. Mostly used for dragging brewer’s wagons, they are known as draught horses. The bottled horses are in a different section, the prices for the latter being exorbitant.

  We can say nothing authoritative about Suffolk Punches at the moment, as we haven’t tasted them.

  The withers of exhibited horses this year are a great improvement on last year.

  Probably this is accounted for by the excellent withering conditions now prevalent in our country districts.

  About the other breeds of horses in the fetlock and wither class, we are unable to go into details.

  It came on to rain, as a matter of fact, and we can’t bear to see horses standing in the rain, so we went to see Whatsitsname, ‘half man and half woman. She will disrobe for you!’

  Which is more than you can say for a horse.

  HOW McDOUGAL TOPPED THE SCORE

  THOMAS E. SPENCER

  This is the most famous Aussie sporting ‘tall tale’ in verse.

  A peaceful spot is Piper’s Flat. The folk that live around—

  They keep themselves by
keeping sheep and turning up the ground;

  But the climate is erratic, and the consequences are

  The struggle with the elements is everlasting war.

  We plough, and sow, and harrow—then sit down and pray for rain;

  And then we all get flooded out and have to start again.

  But the folk are now rejoicing as they ne’er rejoiced before,

  For we’ve played Molongo cricket, and McDougal topped the score!

  Molongo had a head on it, and challenged us to play

  A single-innings match for lunch—the losing team to pay.

  We were not great guns at cricket, but we couldn’t well say no,

  So we all began to practise, and we let the reaping go.

  We scoured the Flat for ten miles round to muster up our men,

  But when the list was totalled we could only number ten.

  Then up spoke big Tim Brady: he was always slow to speak,

  And he said—‘What price McDougal who lives down at Cooper’s Creek?’

  So we sent for old McDougal, and he stated in reply

  That he’d never played at cricket, but he’d half a mind to try.

  He couldn’t come to practise—he was getting in his hay,

  But he guessed he’d show the beggars from Molongo how to play.

  Now, McDougal was a Scotchman, and a canny one at that,

  So he started in to practise with a paling for a bat.

  He got Mrs Mac to bowl to him, but she couldn’t run at all,

  So he trained his sheep-dog, Pincher, how to scout and fetch the ball.

  Now, Pincher was no puppy; he was old, and worn, and grey;

  But he understood McDougal, and—accustomed to obey—

  When McDougal cried out ‘Fetch it!’ he would fetch it in a trice,

  But, until the word was ‘Drop it!’ he would grip it like a vice.

  And each succeeding night they played until the light grew dim:

  Sometimes McDougal struck the ball—sometimes the ball struck him.

  Each time he struck, the ball would plough a furrow in the ground;

  And when he missed, the impetus would turn him three times round.

  The fatal day at last arrived—the day that was to see

  Molongo bite the dust, or Piper’s Flat knocked up a tree!

  Molongo’s captain won the toss, and sent his men to bat,

  And they gave some leather-hunting to the men of Piper’s Flat.

  When the ball sped where McDougal stood, firm planted in his track,

  He shut his eyes, and turned him round, and stopped it—with his back!

  The highest score was twenty-two, the total sixty-six,

  When Brady sent a yorker down that scattered Johnson’s sticks.

  Then Piper’s Flat went in to bat, for glory and renown,

  But, like the grass before the scythe, our wickets tumbled down.

  ‘Nine wickets down, for seventeen, with fifty more to win!’

  Our captain heaved a heavy sigh, and sent McDougal in.

  ‘Ten pounds to one you’ll lose it!’ cried a barracker from town;

  But McDougal said, ‘I’ll tak’ it, mon!’ and plonked the money down.

  Then he girded up his moleskins in a self-reliant style,

  Threw off his hat and boots and faced the bowler with a smile.

  He held the bat the wrong side out, and Johnson with a grin

  Stepped lightly to the bowling crease, and sent a ‘wobbler’ in;

  McDougal spooned it softly back, and Johnson waited there,

  But McDougal, crying ‘Fetch it!’, started running like a hare.

  Molongo shouted ‘Victory! He’s out as sure as eggs,’

  When Pincher started through the crowd, and ran through Johnson’s legs.

  He seized the ball like lightning; then he ran behind a log.

  And McDougal kept on running, while Molongo chased the dog!

  They chased him up, they chased him down, they chased him round and then

  He darted through the slip-rail as the scorer shouted ‘Ten!’

  McDougal puffed; Molongo swore; excitement was intense;

  As the scorer marked down twenty, Pincher cleared a barbed-wire fence.

  ‘Let us head him!’ shrieked Molongo. ‘Brain the mongrel with a bat!’

  ‘Run it out! Good old McDougal!’ yelled the men of Piper’s Flat.

  And McDougal kept on jogging, and then Pincher doubled back,

  And the scorer counted ‘Forty’ as they raced across the track.

  McDougal’s legs were going fast, Molongo’s breath was gone—

  But still Molongo chased the dog—McDougal struggled on.

  When the scorer shouted ‘Fifty’ then they knew the chase could cease;

  And McDougal gasped out ‘Drop it!’ as he dropped within his crease.

  Then Pincher dropped the ball, and as instinctively he knew

  Discretion was the wiser plan, he disappeared from view;

  And as Molongo’s beaten men exhausted lay around

  We raised McDougal shoulder-high, and bore him from the ground.

  We bore him to McGinniss’s where lunch was ready laid,

  And filled him up with whisky-punch, for which Molongo paid.

  We drank his health in bumpers and we cheered him three times three,

  And when Molongo got its breath, Molongo joined the spree.

  And the critics say they never saw a cricket match like that,

  When McDougal broke the record in the game at Piper’s Flat;

  And the folks were jubilating as they never did before;

  For we played Molongo cricket—and McDougal topped the score!

  HOW WE LOST HOPKINS

  FRANK DANIEL

  About a hundred years ago now, or thereabouts, give or take a few (years, not hundreds), the Daniel brothers were busy in their sawmill working long hours to fill a big order for delivery by horse teams to Queanbeyan—located 47 miles away—that is to say, 75.6 kilometres to the west.

  With all the rush and bother that was going on, a young employee by the name of Hopkins was working the docking saw when he tripped and fell across the blade, severing his left arm below the elbow.

  Not having time to waste on such a trivial matter, the older brother, Charlie, dressed the wounded stump with an old flannelette shirt and some padding made up of an old singlet and a couple of socks, then wrapped it all in hessian and tied it tightly with binder twine while another brother shook the sawdust off the severed arm and wrapped it in some newspaper and a towel and shoved it into a sugar bag to keep the flies away while he waited about an hour and a half for the mail truck to arrive from Captains Flat.

  The mail contractor was asked to deliver the patient to the Queanbeyan hospital—located 47 miles away—that is to say, 75.6 kilometres to the west.

  Many weeks later, the mail truck, on one of its bi-weekly runs, pulled up at the front gate and young Hopkins alighted. He walked up to the mill from the roadway with the mail in his hands and some parcels under his arm. If you discounted the roughness and red scarring left by the repair, he looked as good as new and, after a short welcome back, Charlie put him straight back to work on the docking saw, replacing another useless, inexperienced bloke from up the bush.

  It was always safer to use experienced labour in a sawmill.

  Charlie was pleased to have Hopkins back as the work load had increased and the pressure for urgent deliveries was still on in earnest.

  Shortly after his return, young Hopkins had the misfortune to fall into the whirring saw blade again, this time losing his right arm. It was a clean cut and so the men got to work bandaging the poor bloke in readiness for the mail truck which was due within the hour.

  Hopkins was extremely lucky to have these accidents on mail days, especially when the nearest hospital was located 47 miles away—that is to say, 75.6 kilometres to the west.

  The same story again. Hopkins returned several we
eks later with the repair job looking as good as gold but still with some redness and slight swelling after such a major operation.

  For safety’s sake, Charley moved him from the docking saw and set him to work on the breaking down bench where a huge blade, six-feet in diameter broke the big logs down to a more manageable size.

  He must have been a clumsy bugger, because within a week he tripped in some deep sawdust, fell across the bench and the massive blade cut his head off—as clean as a whistle.

  By now Charlie was sick of this useless young fellow and swore that he would give him the sack when he came back, and so, doing the best they could, they packed the stump where his head came from with another old shirt, another sugar bag and two pillow cases from Mrs Daniel’s clothesline, and sat a brick on top to keep it all in place.

  Charlie’s brothers took the head, shook the sawdust off and wrapped it in calico, and placed the parcel in one of those new fangled plastic shopping bags to keep it clean.

  Because they reckoned the mailman may have thought they were becoming a nuisance, they drove Hopkins in their T-model Ford truck to the Queanbeyan Hospital located 47 miles away—that is to say, 75.6 kilometres to the west.

  Not having time to hang about, they left him and his head at the front door of the hospital in the charge of a very young trainee nurse and bolted back to the sawmill located 47 miles away—that is to say, 75.6 kilometres to the east.

  Three months went by with plenty of work coming in and never a thought of Hopkins, no messages about his condition, no word at all; so with no real concern for such trivialities, they waited another couple or three weeks before ringing the hospital to make enquiries about his condition.

  The matron responded rather haughtily that ‘whoever delivered the poor chap left no forwarding address, not even his name, and, to make matters worse,’ she was very sorry to say, ‘some silly oaf put his head in an air-tight plastic bag and he suffocated.’

  HOLUS BOLUS

  E.G. MURPHY

  Anyone who works with camels deserves all the sympathy we can muster, and there are many good camel yarns. Now, I have it on very good authority that this old yarn is true. How do I know? Well, I’ve heard so many different versions of it that one of ’em must be true!