A Fortunate Life

by A B Facey

  While he was deciding what he was going to do, the pig was trying to get away. Frank let one of his fingers slip into the side of the pig’s mouth and the pig closed its jaw on it. That started something. Frank let out a yell and plunged the knife into the pig’s neck, a little to the left. Then he let go of the pig, expecting it to die. What a surprise he got when the pig got up and ran away. It was bleeding, running on three legs and squealing for its life. Frank took off after it, waving the bloody knife.

  We were in the paddock where Frank had had hay a week or so before. It had been a beautiful crop of oats and was all in stooks. So there was the wounded pig and Frank, dodging around these hay stooks. Frank ran after that pig until he was completely knocked out. Finally the pig ran into a large stook to try to hide, and Frank caught it.

  However, while Frank was chasing the pig he had lost the knife. So there he was, holding the pig by one of its back legs, so tired that he sat down on the ground, still holding the squealing pig, and yelling at me to find the knife.

  All this time Mum was waiting, with the water boiling, for us to bring the pig for scalding. We were at this time about half a mile from the house. I found the knife and brought it back to Frank, who was so mad he had been kicking the pig and belting it over the ears with his fists. Mum came to see what was going on and asked him what was wrong. He yelled what went wrong and what didn’t go wrong, and she said, ‘There’s no sense in knocking the pig about, it will be so badly bruised it will go bad.’ Frank replied, ‘Go away woman and look after your own work.’ With that he sat the pig on his back again and stuck it. Again it ran away. Mum called him a cruel madman, and with that he threw the knife as far away as he could and went home, leaving us to manage the best way we could.

  We gave chase to the poor devil of a pig and luckily it ran back to the pig-sty where we cornered it. I held it while Mum went and found the knife. Then we sat it up and she held its front legs while I stuck it as I had seen Jack do. The pig staggered a few yards, then fell over and bled to death in a few minutes. I went home and got the wheelbarrow and we lifted the pig in and wheeled it back to the house. Mum had left the fire stoked up and we found that the water was still boiling.

  Now to scald and clean the pig was a two-man job. Mum had a large tub near the fire and she had arranged a large board to put the pig on after this. The pig had to be placed bodily into the tub, with enough hot water at a temperature right for scalding (two buckets of boiling water to half a bucket of cold). The pig then had to be turned in this water until the outside skin and hair came off easily. Finally it had to be put onto the board and rubbed all over until the hair and outside skin came off. The body and legs of a pig are very white and clean when it’s washed down.

  Mum and I set about to try and clean this pig on our own, as Frank was nowhere to be found. Mum made the water right for scalding, and as the pig was nearly cold and getting stiff, she only put in a small part of cold water. She said it would be okay because the body heat had mostly left the pig.

  Just then Frank came to see what was happening. He was quite over his temper and he said that he and Mum would lift the pig into the water. Mum got hold of the back legs and Frank the front, and they lifted it up over the tub to let it down gently. But Frank suddenly let go of the front legs and the front part fell with a flop and splash, spilling hot water all over his legs and into his boots, badly scalding both his feet. He let out a yell and ran over to the house. Mum let go of her end of the pig and went to see how badly Frank was burnt.

  The pig was half in and half out of the water, a lot of which had been spilt. There was still one more tin of water boiling on the fire so I got a dipper and ladled the right proportions of hot and cold water into a bucket and poured this over the parts of the pig that weren’t already scalded. I kept rubbing the pig with a stick until the hair came off clean. I wasn’t strong enough to lift the pig out of the tub, and I knew that if it was left in the hot water too long the hair wouldn’t come off. So I turned the tub onto its side and let the hot water drain off and cleaned the hair and outer skin off the best I could.

  Mum fixed Frank and put him to bed, then joined me and helped finish cleaning the pig. We carried it to the shed nearby and fixed a small bar to its back legs. Then we tied a rope to the bar and put it over a rafter in the roof, and between the two of us we got the pig hung up, head downwards. Then Mum washed it all over and it looked good. She put the tub under the pig and cut the insides out, keeping the liver and the heart as they are good to eat. By the time we had finished (my first active part in killing a pig, and I hoped it would be the last), it was nearly eight o’clock.

  Frank’s feet were badly burnt and he wouldn’t be able to walk for a few days. He was laid up all that Christmas and into the New Year.

  14

  MUM’S SNAKE

  When Frank was well enough to work again he started to harvest his crop. The only method for harvesting was to strip the crop with a machine called a stripper. This had a comb arrangement that could be lowered or raised according to the height of the crop and it had to be kept just below the grain heads. The grain was carried up a broad elevator or chute. It was then beaten and threshed and ended up in a big box-like holder. When the box was full the driver would pull the machine out of the crop, and by opening a door at the back of the holder, he could rake the contents of the box out onto a large tarpaulin spread on level ground.

  Each time the box on the machine was emptied it was my job to shovel the grain up into as small a heap as possible and keep it heaped up. This went on until the whole of that patch or paddock was stripped.

  The reason for putting the strippings into one heap was to have the wheat ready for the winnower. This was a machine for cleaning grain and was operated by a group of men who travelled around from farm to farm. It usually took three or four men to operate it. One man turned a handle that worked the machine and another ladled the threshed wheat into it.

  The winnower had sieves and a fan; the sieves were on rockers that worked from side to side like a dryblower, and the fan blew the chaff and straw away as the wheat fell through the sieves. There were generally three sieves – the two top ones cleaned the wheat enough for market, and the bottom one, which was shorter than the others, caught the small grain and cracked wheat, which ran down a chute to be bagged for stock feed. The good wheat was also bagged by the machine. The man turning the handle worked the blowers and sieves and the elevator all at once. It was hard work and the farmer paid the men so much per bag of clean wheat.

  The wheat bags held four bushels in those days. Frank and I had to sew the tops of the wheat bags up when they were taken off the winnower. They were then ready to take to the nearest siding. In this case the nearest railway station was twenty miles away. A man with a team of eight horses hitched to a large boxed wagon carted the wheat for Frank at so much per bag. It took all the strength I could muster to up-end one of those bags of wheat.

  Growing wheat in those days was a gamble. The only fertiliser they had was Thomas’s cereal fertiliser (‘Thomas’s manure’). This came in one hundredweight bags and had to be used very sparingly because it was so costly.

  Frank’s wheat crop turned out to be extra good. It covered five bags to the acre, and that was a good crop in those days.

  After harvest, with the hay and wheat all carted, the burning season was getting near. Frank and I had about eight acres left to clear; the big timber had been burnt down the previous winter and all the small timber and scrub had been chopped to ground level. While waiting for the burning season to open, we were busy clearing a firebreak around the land we intended to burn and clear. This was about half a mile from the house.

  Mum had an arrangement to give us an idea when it was lunchtime. She would peg a white tea towel on the clothes line near the house at ten minutes to midday. By the time we got home and had a clean up, lunch would be ready.

  One day, at the signal, we started walking towards the house. We were about fifty ya
rds away when we heard Mum let out a terrible scream. She came running out of the lavatory holding up her dress with one hand and clutching her bottom with the other. She was yelling out loudly, ‘I’ve been bitten by a snake!’ Frank and I ran to her and helped her inside the house. Frank took her into the bedroom and told me to run over to the Connors’ place and get Jack to bring his horse and sulky to take Mum to the doctor. It was a little over two miles to Jack’s and I ran all the way. It was a very hot day and I was done in when I got there. It took me a few minutes before I could explain what had happened.

  Jack wasn’t long putting the horse in the sulky and we drove back. Mum was crying when we got there. Frank told Jack that the snake bite was very distinct and he had cut it with a razor and sucked out as much blood as he could.

  Mum looked very pale and was badly shocked. After giving me some quick instructions as to what to do while they were away, they set out to get Mum to the doctor in Narrogin as soon as possible. Jack’s sulky horse was a beauty, one of the best in the district, and although Frank and Jack were at loggerheads over the boar, they had forgotten about it with the crisis in hand. The trip to Narrogin would take them all afternoon and well into the night.

  After they had gone I got a nice handy stick, about four feet long, and went into the lavatory after the snake. This lavatory was mainly used by Mum; I never used it and Frank only sometimes. It was made of galvanised iron and had a small hole cut out at the back to allow Mum to slide the pan in. (The pan was an old kerosene tin cut off to fit.) A bag was hung onto the back wall to cover the hole. With the stick I approached the lavatory, carefully looking in and around, but I couldn’t see any sign of the snake. I lifted the bag up very slowly (I was scared stiff), then I heard something move. Quickly I dropped the bag and jumped back. Then all was quiet again. I lifted the bag once more. This time I noticed some feathers, and as I lifted the bag further, more feathers came into view. All at once I knew what had bitten Mum. It wasn’t a snake and all my fears turned to mirth. In fact, I almost lost control of myself with laughing.

  Mum’s snake was a hen. The hen had made a nest close to the pan to lay her eggs and Mum hadn’t noticed her. She didn’t mind Mum sitting on the lavatory at first, but when she went broody – a hen can be placid while laying and vicious when broody – she had decided to peck Mum on the bottom.

  Mum was very frightened of snakes and also terribly frightened of dingoes. She wouldn’t venture outside on her own, except in special circumstances.

  They were away for nearly four days. When they came home Mum seemed jolly and didn’t show any ill effects from the shock she’d had. I asked her how she was and she said that the doctor had said that he didn’t think it was a snake that had bitten her and if it was it wasn’t poisonous. She asked if I’d looked around the lavatory for the snake and I said that I had and that I had found the thing that had bitten her. I said that it was still in the lavatory and I offered to show it to her.

  We went to the lavatory and I lifted up the bag. She looked under and exclaimed, ‘Good God. No!’ She said that the doctor had said it looked like beak marks but it never occurred to her that a hen might have done it. She stood for a while and seemed to be thinking, or working something out in her mind. Then suddenly she said, ‘Did you have any visitors while we were away or see anyone?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘don’t you say anything, not even to Frank or anybody, about this. If you do I’ll be the laughing stock of the district.’ She said, ‘Bert, I love you, but if you tell anyone about this I’ll kill you.’ I promised not to tell anyone. Nothing more was said about the ‘snake bite’.

  15

  A PROPOSITION

  Frank and I finished the fire-breaks, and Frank ploughed around the fallen timber that we were going to burn up as soon as the fire season opened and the first still day came. We would set it alight all around the outside of the eighty acres, and let it burn quietly inwards. That was the correct way to burn off in the wheat-belt in those days. If a fire got away into virgin bush it could do untold damage to neighbouring properties.

  Some of the neighbours, and Jack Connor, who was friendly with Frank again, came and helped put the fire through. One very hot day, at about eleven in the morning, they set it alight. We kept walking around the burning patch all day, throwing lighted pieces of wood back from the edge into the burnt part so a spark wouldn’t set alight the outside dry grass. This went on until evening. When the danger of a spark had gone, the neighbours and Jack went home.

  This helping was the usual neighbourly co-operation between new and old settlers in the early days of the great wheat-belt of Western Australia. Nobody expected payment or gave any payment for any help no matter what the problem.

  We commenced the clearing the day after the fire went through. I liked this work – it was very dirty. My job was picking up all the small pieces of wood that hadn’t completely burnt, packing them into heaps around stumps, and keeping the heaps stacked and burning until the stumps were burnt down to ground level.

  When the clearing was finished we had to go back over the cleared ground and fill in all the stump holes. Some of the stumps were from highly inflammable trees and burnt down into the ground and into the large roots under ground for several feet.

  Mum used to come and help with the clearing nearly every afternoon. She always put on a bag apron when doing things that were dirty to handle. Clearing was dirty work as all the wood was blackened from the fire.

  In the paddock we were clearing, Frank had found a damp patch of ground on the surface a year before. He dug a hole there and it filled with good fresh water. This was what they called a soak. Water would sometimes seep up like this through a crack or thin spot in the layer of clay and make the surface damp. By digging down through the clay to let the water come up, a soak was formed.

  Frank had made a large hole about five feet deep and eight feet across and laid large stones inside the hole for a wall. This hole filled up to the surface with beautiful fresh water. We watered all the horses and cows at this soak, and carted water for the house, and all the other uses. Many settlers had trouble getting permanent water on their properties and had to cart water from Government wells miles away, so a soak like that one was a blessing to a farmer.

  One windy day we were working near the soak. Mum and I were packing wood onto stumps and lighting it, and Frank was about one hundred yards away rolling some heavy logs together to burn into smaller pieces for handling. The wind was blowing at about thirty miles an hour, away from Frank towards us.

  Suddenly I heard Mum scream. I looked up and saw that she was almost enveloped in flames. She was about fifteen yards away from the soak and I was about twenty yards away from her. I ran to her and pushed her bodily into the soak. She fell from my push, almost head first, and went under water. Then she stood up and called to me, ‘Look out!’ And in almost the same breath, ‘No Frank no! No, he saved my life. I was on fire.’ Frank had seen me push her into the soak but hadn’t seen why. He had picked up a stick about four feet long and one and a half inches thick, and intended to wooden me out. He would have too if Mum hadn’t called out. He apologised to me and said that when he heard the scream and looked up, he thought I was attacking Mum.

  My hands were badly burnt because I had pushed Mum in front of me for about ten yards, and the back portion of her clothing had been blazing. Poor Mum was sopping wet to the skin but wasn’t burnt. They hadn’t noticed my burnt hands in the excitement. Frank took Mum home to change her clothes and came back a little while later. He had a cup of tea with Mum, then brought me a jug of tea and sat on a large stone while I had it. It wasn’t until then that he noticed my burnt hands. They had several large blisters. Frank had a look at them and straight away took me to the house, and Mum washed them and put some ointment on them and bandaged them up. I was unable to use my hands for over a week.

  This incident made both Frank and Mum take a greater liking to me, and the next day Frank said he was raising my w
age to ten shillings a week and full keep. This thrilled me and made me very pleased with myself. He also told me that they were going to put a proposition to me, and if I liked it they would go ahead and make it a reality. He said Mum would tell me about it later.

  The next day Mum was talking to me in the kitchen. She suddenly looked at me and said, ‘You will be thirteen years old next August, Bert, and you haven’t had any schooling have you?’ I said, ‘That’s true.’ Then she said, ‘How would you like to be our son? We haven’t any children of our own and Frank and I would like to adopt you. Would you like that?’ She continued, ‘You don’t have to answer me straight away. We are very sincere about this and of course we would have to see your grandma and uncle, and your mother would have to consent. We feel sure that the authorities will agree. If you would like to be our son and the adoption can be arranged, we will send you away to a boarding-school and have you properly educated so you will be able to read and write and get to know all about what is going on in the world. You think it over and let us know later.’

  It didn’t take me long to decide. Here were two lovely people who had treated me better than anyone, except Grandma, so of course I agreed. I told them my decision that evening. They were delighted and Mum went crazy and kissed me and Frank hugged me. A few days later we drove over to Uncle’s to talk it over with Grandma, as she was the only one that mattered as far as I was concerned.

  We arrived at Uncle’s place at about ten o’clock in the morning. Grandma, Aunt Alice and the girls were home but Uncle Archie and cousin Bill were out working in one of the paddocks, and we had to wait until they came home for lunch. While waiting, Frank and Mum had a long talk with Grandma and Aunt Alice, and the girls asked me all sorts of questions about the farm, what work I had to do, the wages I was getting and all about Mum and Frank.