A Fortunate Life

by A B Facey

  Charlie worked hard on the chopping and burning down for two and a half months, and in that time the two of us had one hundred and thirty acres ready for firing in February. We had cleared a strip around it, and Charlie ploughed a fire-break so that when the fire was put through, it could be controlled. Charlie was so pleased with the work that we had done, he would skite about it to the neighbours when they came to visit.

  Besides the chopping and burning down, we had to look after the stock morning and night. When I got out of bed in the morning at six o’clock, I would light the kitchen fire and put the kettle on, then call Mrs Bibby. Then I would feed the fowls and the pigs and let the sheep out. All the fowls had to be locked up and the sheep yarded at night, on account of the dingoes and native cats. We had to put the sheep where they could be seen during the day. Mrs Bibby spent a lot of time with the sheep when Charlie and I were working where we couldn’t see them. The dingoes were very bad and the Bibbys had lost quite a few fowls and sheep during the daylight, so if we went away for the day, they had to be locked away.

  I bought a 44 Winchester rifle from a travelling man. Charlie gave me permission to buy the rifle and some cartridges for twenty-five shillings. The man showed me how to use it. At first I was nervous, but it didn’t take long to be able to hit a small jam tin at a one hundred yard distance.

  One day Charlie and I took the two kangaroo dogs out for a run. There were plenty of kangaroos around so I took my rifle. We hadn’t been gone for long when the dogs startled some kangaroos on the run and scattered them in all directions. One big boomer came towards us when the dogs were after the others. It was about a hundred yards away when I had my first shot, the first time I had shot at anything other than a target. Charlie said, ‘You missed him.’ Then the boomer slackened his pace and crouched as he was hopping, and finally fell. Charlie called, ‘You got him, Bert.’ And that was so. My first shot had killed the boomer.

  Charlie’s dogs never caught many ’roos. The undergrowth was thick and the ’roos could beat the dogs unless they got them out in the open. Charlie was very excited. The boomer had been hit through the chest and was dead when we ran to him. It was as much as Charlie and I could do to carry the body, even after Charlie had taken its insides out. Mrs Bibby was also delighted. It meant that they would have plenty of meat for their dogs and domestic cats. They had four cats; one was a lovely black-and-white, and he followed me all around when I was near the house.

  It was now near the end of November 1907. In the slack two or three weeks until hay-cutting time, Charlie and I went out kangarooing many times and got quite a few. I shot several; some I only wounded but the dogs caught them and killed them. Charlie insisted that I keep the skins of all I shot or wounded. Mrs Bibby would take the skins into town when she went for stores and sell them for me (she always gave me the exact amount she received for them). Sometimes this would amount to several pounds. A large boomer skin was worth about three shillings, so I did quite well out of kangaroo skins. Nearly every evening, near dark, I used to take up a position in some scrub near the edge of a crop and wait for the ’roos to come to the crop for feed. I got a lot this way.

  One day, in the second week of December, Charlie and I were putting down a foundation for a haystack big enough to hold about fifty tons of hay. (The foundation was made with logs laid one against the other on the ground creating a space large enough for the estimated stack.) Suddenly we heard Mrs Bibby’s geese making a loud terrified noise some two hundred yards away from us. Charlie said, ‘Sounds like something is after them.’ I grabbed my rifle and ran towards the geese. A dingo had killed one and was in the act of dragging it away. The dingo kept stopping as the goose was heavy and it had to keep spelling itself.

  I waited my chance and when I got a clear view, I fired and shot the dingo dead. As I was about to run to the spot where it lay, I spotted another one in some scrub looking at me. It appeared to think I was unable to see it because it never moved, although I shifted my position. I moved over a few yards, then fired. The dingo sprang into the air, and for a second or two, I thought my shot had missed. Then, to my surprise, the dingo was bounding towards me. At first it was covering some six to seven yards with each bound. I was scared and unable to move for a few moments, then my fear turned to joy. After the dingo had covered some forty or fifty yards it fell into a heap, dead.

  Charlie saw this and ran to me. He threw his arms around me and yelled, ‘You’re wonderful, Bert. Two shots, two dingoes. How about that!’ After the excitement, he ran to Mrs Bibby who had heard the shots and had come out to see what was happening. Charlie called out, ‘The dingoes got one of your geese but what do you think of our boy, he shot two of them.’ By this time I had gone to make sure the dingoes were dead, and I noticed that the goose was still alive, though badly bitten. Charlie and Mrs Bibby examined it and said we would kill it and it would be all right to eat.

  Charlie was a terrific skite and he told everyone about the incident, and I got many words of praise about my shooting. Charlie used to say to his neighbours and friends, ‘The kid’s only thirteen years old.’

  Dingo scalps were worth twenty shillings each from the Government. This was paid as a bounty to encourage people to destroy the pests. It cost farmers a lot of money protecting their stock, especially sheep. It was a horrible sight to see what a dingo could do to a sheep in a few minutes.

  Charlie had three paddocks fenced in for the sheep, but as these were not dog-proof, he set man traps outside the fence-lines. The man traps were wide apart – six to seven traps were set around at intervals. Charlie put a notice close to the fence to warn people that man traps were set at or near that spot. An old trapper had shown him and told him all about the dingoes’ cunning.

  Charlie caught many kangaroos but only part of a dingo’s leg. The traps worked though because, although Charlie didn’t catch any, the dingoes were scared of them and stayed away.

  Soon after this we started hay-cutting. A neighbour purchased a reaping binder and he and Charlie came to an understanding that Charlie could use the binder if he later lent the neighbour the harvester he had on order. The reaping binder was a machine that would cut the hay, pack it into sheaves, tie it with twine and drop the sheaves in rows. This made the hay much easier to stook, ready for carting. The harvester was a new invention that took the place of the stripper and the winnower. It stripped the wheat, then threshed it and cleaned it in one operation as it travelled through the crop. The clean wheat was elevated up into a large container where it could be fed into bags ready for market. We finished the hay-cutting Christmas Eve.

  18

  AN EVENTFUL CHRISTMAS

  The Bibbys were very good Christmas caterers and put on a lovely Christmas dinner. Charlie invited Mrs Bibby’s sister and her family down from the Goldfields for Christmas. The sister’s name was Mrs Mutton and she was a very nice lady. She had two children – a boy four years old and a six-month-old baby girl.

  After Christmas dinner, I asked Charlie if I could go over to Uncle’s place in the afternoon to see Grandma. The Bibbys often gave me this pleasure and always lent me the sulky and horse for the trip. Their place was only seven miles from the McCalls. Charlie asked Mrs Bibby and they agreed that I should stay the night and come back the next day. This suited me fine, as it gave me lots of time to see and talk with the grand old lady. It was good of the Bibbys because it meant that they would have to look after the stock and do my chores while I was away.

  I got away about two o’clock in the afternoon and arrived at Uncle’s two hours later. They were all pleased to see me. Grandma’s face always told me that she was pleased to see me, and she always wanted to know how I was being treated. Uncle Archie said, ‘You have quite a name for shooting dingoes and ’roos.’ Aunt Alice and my cousins wanted to know all about the shooting.

  We all had a cup of tea, then I helped with the evening chores. Cousin Bill was anxious to get me alone to ask all about the rifle and how I came by it, and why I d
idn’t bring it with me. He said to me, ‘Do you think my dad would buy me one? There are plenty of ’roos and dingoes around here.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you ask him. You’re only two months younger than I am.’ I told him that, with a little instruction, he should be able to shoot as good as anyone.

  Bill’s father didn’t like firearms much and didn’t like them being about, that’s why I didn’t bring my rifle with me on that day. Bill said, ‘I’ll ask Mum to ask him. I’m not game. You are lucky in a way, Bert. You haven’t any father or mother to boss you around and you can do as you like.’ I replied, ‘Don’t you worry about that, Bill. You have a home and loved ones, a father and mother to care for you. I wish I was like you many times.’ I told him that the people I had been working for were not like my own – ‘Most of them have no feeling for you and some can be very cruel – remember the flogging I got.’ I said that the Phillips were all right and that the Bibbys were lovely people. ‘They treat me just like I was their own son. It’s just like my own home only it isn’t. That’s the difference, Bill. Sometimes I feel very lonely.’

  And that’s the way it was. On Sundays, when we didn’t work much, I would often go into the bush and watch the birds and they were lovely. In some ways they were like me – they had to fend for themselves as soon as the mother bird thought that they were old enough. And there were always other birds and animals trying to catch them to eat them. That’s how the bird and animal life goes, one cannot live without the other, from the largest bird right down to the smallest – the animals are the same.

  We had our evening meal that night, all very happy, and later in the evening Grandma and I had a long talk. She told me that my mother had written to her saying that she may be going to Subiaco to live (Subiaco is a suburb of Perth), and when she did she would like the boys (meaning my brothers and I) to go and see her. Grandma said, ‘Be careful Albert. She may only want your money, so don’t tell her how much you have.’ I told Grandma that I had promised the Bibbys that I would stay with them through the harvest and burning season and next year’s cropping period, so I wouldn’t be able to leave until next September. Grandma and I talked together until well after the others had gone to sleep. As we retired, I asked Grandma to call me early the next morning as I wanted to leave early.

  At about five o’clock the next morning Grandma woke me. She had cooked me breakfast. She was always an early riser no matter what the weather was and had been down to the stable and watered and fed my horse. The rest were still in bed when I left. Grandma gave me a loving hug and kiss and made me promise to come to see her as often as I could. So after a short but pleasant visit, I left Uncle’s at six in the morning.

  It’s strange, but although I have been earning my living since I was nine years old, I get a kind of knowing when something is wrong, and after I left Uncle’s that morning that feeling came over me. It had come over me so many times before and had been true. I just couldn’t think what could go wrong, or what had gone wrong, but there it was – something wasn’t as it should be. I went along thinking along these lines. The pony knew she was going home and trotted along accordingly.

  I arrived back at about eight o’clock and everybody seemed to be still in bed; the pigs hadn’t been fed, the cows were waiting to be milked. Then I noticed that the sheep-yard gate was knocked down and I realised that something was wrong. I put the pony in the stable and ran to the house. The back door was open. I knocked and called out, but the only reply was the Muttons’ baby crying. Then Mrs Mutton came out and told me that the men had taken more drink than they should and were very drunk and that Mrs Bibby had also had too much. Then she said, ‘What is wrong Bert?’ I said, ‘The sheep have broken out of their yard. I’ll have to try and find them.’ So I got my rifle and set out to find the sheep.

  It wasn’t long before I found out what was wrong. I could see that something had frightened the sheep so that they crowded up against the gate and caused it to collapse. Then I noticed dog tracks following the sheep tracks and could see that dingoes had made them. (The dingo makes a track very different from a tame dog. The claws of the feet of the dingo dig deep into the ground and an ordinary dog’s are more of a smoothing nature. It’s as if a dingo runs on his claws.)

  Within one hundred yards of the sheep-yard I found two dead sheep – they had been killed by dingoes. Their insides were ripped out and pieces of flesh were ripped out all over their bodies. A few yards further on were four more, one dead, and the other three so badly savaged I had to finish them. I followed the other sheep tracks and found more dead and many badly bitten. Then I found about sixteen, huddled in a heap in the corner of a twenty-five acre paddock. I drove all the sheep that could walk back to the yard and did the gate up, then went to the house to see if I could get help. Mrs Mutton didn’t understand much about stock, and the others were too drunk and wouldn’t wake up, so I had to do the best I could.

  The dingoes had killed eleven sheep and twelve lambs, and eight more were badly bitten. I had to kill four that were too badly injured to save, and then doctor some of the others. Charlie had a mixture of castor oil, kerosene and whale oil that he put on the sheep to keep away the blow-flies. Blow-flies were bad on the sheep in the hot summer. I used some of this mixture on the injured sheep and lambs. As well as keeping blow-flies off, the kerosene in the mixture stopped infection and the castor oil stopped any chill. I wasn’t strong enough to lift the big sheep up into the cart so I treated them where they lay. I managed to get the lambs home into the shed near the house.

  By now it was midday. I milked the cows and turned them out. Mrs Bibby had sobered up enough to know what was wrong, and she managed to get Charlie awake although he seemed to be in a daze. At first he didn’t seem to understand. I wanted him to come with me to help get the injured sheep home. I said, ‘I can’t shift them up into the cart,’ and drove him down to where several of them lay. All of a sudden Charlie exclaimed, ‘What in the hell went wrong!’ I told him and that made him sober up quickly.

  Later Mr Mutton joined us and we got all the injured sheep home. Then we carted the dead ones and put them in a heap near the inside of the house fence. The three of us set about skinning the sheep as the skins not too badly torn would be worth a few shillings when dried out ready for market. All the carcases were put into a copper to be cooked for the pigs.

  So, taking count of the damage the dingoes had done that night, it was an expensive Christmas for the Bibbys, and the whole cause was booze. It wasn’t until the next day that Charlie realised the full effect of the dingo attack. He estimated his loss at fifty pounds.

  19

  MY WILD LIFE

  Two days later, Charlie got a letter advising him that his Sunshine harvester had been forwarded to Cuballing, the nearest railway siding. This siding, on the Great Southern railway running from Perth to Albany, was twenty-four miles away.

  The following day Charlie and I started on our way to bring the harvester home. We put a horse in the sulky, and loaded on all the harness and gear we would require to haul the harvester. It took four horses to pull it while it was working stripping the crop, but two could pull it easily at other times. We took all of one day to get to Cuballing, then rested the horses for a day before setting off for home. Charlie drove the harvester and I drove the sulky, keeping just a few yards behind.

  New Year came and went; the Muttons returned home to the Goldfields and Charlie and I were busy carting hay. Charlie was the stack builder. He said he hadn’t learnt how they built stacks in Australia, but when he was a boy in England he worked on a farm and knew how the stacks were built there. He said the only difference was that the hay over there was loose and had to be packed in rows whereas here it was in sheaves and should be easier to handle. He built a beautiful haystack.

  Carting hay was very hard work for me. I had to pitch the hay sheaves up to Charlie, one at a time, while he stacked them on the cart. When we got the cart loaded and into the haystack yard, I had to pitch the sheaves from the
cart down to Charlie who put them into position on the stack. This knocked me out and on hot days it was worse. It took us two weeks to cart the hay.

  Then Charlie started harvesting. He had one hundred acres to strip, and as his harvester was one of the first to come to the district, there were many farmers coming to see how it worked. Some of the farmers were amazed at the results of this method, which was wonderful compared with the older way of harvesting. Charlie drove the harvester and it took him a little over two weeks, working Sundays as well, to harvest the hundred acres of wheat. He was delayed a lot having to stop and show the many interested farmers how it worked. Charlie got just over four hundred bags from the one hundred acres, which was a good return because a lot of the wheat had been eaten by parrots, jays, kangaroos and other bush animals.

  I had to sew the wheat bags up when they were filled by the harvester. A man with eight horses and a large box-wagon carted the wheat to Cuballing. He charged one and sixpence a bag and he used to cart sixty bags each load. This was the first year that wheat bag sizes had been reduced from four bushells to three bushells, so sixty bags would be near enough to five tons.

  The contractor would bring back a load of superphosphate after delivering each load of wheat. He could bring sixty bags back each time and charged one shilling a bag. The superphosphate (‘super’ it was commonly called) was a new kind of artificial fertiliser subsidised by the Government and delivered to the settler’s nearest railway siding. The freight was only five shillings per ton. It was a boon to the settlers, in some instances improving the crop by forty percent.

  In the evenings, after dinner, I usually helped Mrs Bibby to wash the dishes, then went to my room. One night as I was saying goodnight, Charlie said, ‘Wait Bert, I want to tell you something. Sit down. I’ve been thinking about you and how you have worked and looked after the stock, and we haven’t forgotten Boxing Day. We look like getting a good price for our wheat, so we have decided to raise your wages to fifteen shillings a week and full keep, starting one week before Christmas.’ This thrilled me and I felt so pleased I didn’t know what to say.