A Fortunate Life (Puffin story books)

by A B Facey

  In October one of Uncle’s neighbours offered me a job at five shillings per week and keep. He knew Uncle and Grandma and asked them before approaching me. He was a big single Irishman named Tom Moran, and he wanted a boy to look after his poultry. He had about two hundred fowls. So with Grandma’s blessing, I went, and at first I liked the job. My new boss was kind to me and the food was good and I was given new clothes.

  The first three months the boss used to go away on Monday morning and arrive back the following Saturday evening. He was building stockyards for a man who ran cattle, and the job was too far away for him to come home each day. He finished the job early in the New Year.

  From then on things changed for me. My boss expected me to work all day in the paddock and do the other chores around the house as well. This went on until the end of April and by then we had cleared, ready for the plough, sixty acres of land. I knew that he was getting twenty shillings from the Government for each acre cleared, and I had not yet asked him for any wages. ‘Tom,’ said to him, ‘could you let me have five pounds?’ I had more than this amount coming to me. He looked at me and said, ‘Who said that I was going to pay you wages?’ I said, ‘You told me, Uncle and Grandma that you would pay me five shillings a week and keep.’ He replied, ‘If you’re not satisfied you know what to do. There’s no money for you.’

  The boss then went over to a neighbour’s, and when he had been gone about an hour, I packed my few things together and cleared out. I was frightened now of this big Irishman and felt sure that he would have bullied me into staying.

  So off I went back to Uncle’s place. Grandma was disgusted with Tom Moran and his promise to pay me five shillings a week and keep. There was nothing that could be done as there was nothing in writing. Uncle said it was pretty low to take a kid down.

  I stayed at Uncle’s place for a few days and then I was offered a job with a French settler married to an Irish woman. They had no children. I asked Uncle and Grandma what they thought. Uncle said that the name of the people was Phillips and they used to be big condenser contractors on the Goldfields. They had plenty of money and didn’t have to worry about Government grants and possum skins to make a living.

  Uncle and Grandma drove me over to the Phillips’ place. They had a two-roomed iron house, several outbuildings, and about three hundred acres of cleared land. Most of their property was fenced. They also had two cows, six horses and a lot of pigs. The place gave me a feeling of security as we drove to the house, and the Phillips made us feel very welcome. Mr Phillips was about fifty years old and Mrs Phillips was about forty-five. Uncle asked about my wages and told them how unlucky I had been at Cave Rock and Moran’s. Mr Phillips said he would pay me five shillings a week and full keep; I could draw my wages once a month and that they would treat me as their own. He said, ‘Everywhere that we go, he will go. Mrs Phillips has been going to town alone, now she can take him with her for company.’ Then Grandma suggested that I take the job on trial for a month and if I liked it I could stay; if not I could come back to Uncle’s. This was agreed. We had some lunch, then Grandma and Uncle went home.

  So I settled into another job and wondered how this one would go. I was a quiet boy and never spoke unless spoken to. I had never been to school and it took me a long time to write my name. I didn’t have much confidence in myself and the previous two and a half years hadn’t helped.

  Mrs Phillips showed me around the place. She told me that my first job in the morning would be to light the kitchen fire and put the kettle on, then feed the pigs. She showed me the pigs, the layout of the paddocks, and how to bring the cows home at night and put them back into the paddock in the morning. After I had fed the pigs and fowls and put the cows out, my job was to go to where Mr Phillips was ploughing and pick up all the roots that had been pulled out by the plough and put them into small heaps and cart them to the house for firewood. I had to work hard for a boy not yet twelve years old, but I didn’t mind this as I wanted to stay with these people.

  Mrs Phillips asked me to call her Mum and Mr Phillips told me to call him Frank. I got along fine with these people and they treated me as if I was their own son. Plenty of food—Mum was a good cook, and she had a heart of gold. Frank was moody and had a bad temper, but was fair.

  Every fortnight Mum and I used to go to town for stores. Narrogin, twenty-nine miles away, was our nearest shopping centre. It took us one day to get there, then we would rest the horse the next day and do the shopping. On the third we would set off early for home. I used to look forward to these trips; they were fun and a break away from the farm. The prices at the places where we stopped were very cheap. A good meal cost one shilling and a bed for the night, one shilling and sixpence. We always stayed at a boarding-house or Coffee Palace. I don’t remember one single trip that Mum didn’t buy me some new clothes; sometimes a coat or a pair of pants. I was looked after fine. She would give me a couple of shillings to spend and none of these things were ever taken out of my wages.

  In September, just after my twelfth birthday, Frank wanted a boar for his six breeding sows, and he borrowed a large black pig from his brother-in-law. This boar was very savage; every time I went to feed the pigs he tried to attack me. I had to be very careful; he had large tusks and used to froth at the mouth. I was scared stiff of this boar.

  One morning I was passing the pig pen to get the horses in. The boar never usually bothered me when I was just passing, but for some reason this morning he left the sows and ran down to the fence. He was making a kind of roaring sound and he tried to get at me through the fence. If the pig did get through my chances against him were nil, but being a boy, I couldn’t resist heaving a rock at him. When I did this he made one terrific charge at the fence and came straight through and after me. I ran for a large tree and, with the boar right on my heels, I bounded up it. I had never known such luck. I was just in time—another two yards and he would have had me.

  So there I was, up in this tree, pretty safe as long as I could stay where I was. The boar at first sat on his haunches looking up at me, then he rooted a furrow under the tree big enough for his body and lay down. I was trying to think of a way out of this pickle that I was in. The sun was getting well up into the sky. I broke off some small branches and used them as spears, but each time I prodded the boar he would get up, walk around the tree, let out a roar, then go back to his furrow and lie down again.

  I had been there about an hour when, looking down to the house, I saw Frank walking towards us. I wondered how I could warn him about the boar, and made up my mind to call out to him when he got within hearing distance. But Frank had other ideas, and took no notice of me, although I was yelling at the top of my voice. I heard him calling, ‘I’ll give you birdnesting when I send you to get the horses!’ Then all at once the boar got up and bounded towards him. As soon as Frank knew the danger he turned and ran for the house.

  If anyone had told me that Frank could run as fast as he did I wouldn’t have believed him, but Frank got inside the house and slammed the door shut. I got out of the tree and set off for the horses. Then I heard two loud gun shots almost together. When I returned to the house I saw the boar lying dead about ten feet from the door.

  Frank looked terribly upset and that morning he went over and told Jack Connor, Mum’s brother, what had happened. Then he harnessed the horses and took them out ploughing—he wouldn’t stop to have his lunch. When he came in that night he had got over the whole upset and was quite jolly. He said to me, ‘What went through your mind, Bert, when the boar was chasing me down the hill?’ I told him that my feelings had changed several times during the few minutes of the race between the pig and old Frank. At first amused, my feelings turned to fear as the boar was catching him, then relief when Frank dashed through the door and shut it. He laughed at this and said that he had never got to the house quicker.

  In the New Year of 1907 Frank started to harvest his crop. Growing wheat in those days was a gamble. The only method for harvesting was t
o 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, ready for the winnower, a machine for cleaning grain operated by a group of men who travelled around from farm to farm. It was hard work and the farmer paid the men so much per bag of clean wheat. Frank’s wheat crop covered five bags to the acre, and that was considered a good crop then. The bags held four bushels and it took all the strength I could muster to up-end one of those bags of wheat.

  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 fifty yards away when we heard Mum let out a terrible scream. She came running out of the lavatory yelling, ‘I’ve been bitten by a snake!’ Frank and I ran to help 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.

  Jack wasn’t long putting the horse in the sulky and we drove back. Frank told Jack that the snake bite was very distinct and he had cut it with his razor and sucked out as much blood as he could. Mum looked very pale and was badly shocked, and they set out quickly to get her to the doctor in Narrogin. The trip would take them all afternoon and well into the night.

  After they had gone I got a stick and went after the snake. The lavatory was made of galvanized iron and had a small hole cut out at the back to allow Mum to slide the pan in. A bag was hung on the back wall to cover the hole. 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 all at once I knew what had bitten Mum. 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 and Frank were away for nearly four days. When they came home Mum didn’t show any ill effects from the shock she’d had. She said that the doctor 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 I offered to show her the thing that had bitten her.

  We went to the lavatory and I lifted up the bag. She looked under and exclaimed, ‘Good gracious, no!’ She stood for a while and seemed to be working something out in her mind. Then she said, ‘Did you have any visitors while we were away?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘don’t you say anything about this, not even to Frank. If you do I’ll be the laughing stock of the district.’ I promised, and nothing more was said about the ‘snake bite’.

  Frank ploughed around the fallen timber that we were going to burn up as soon as the fire season opened. One very hot day, about eleven in the morning, we set it alight around the outside of the eighty acres, and let it burn quietly inwards. Some of the neighbours and Jack Connor came and helped put the fire through and we kept walking around the burning patch all day, making sure that a spark didn’t set alight the outside dry grass. This went on until evening, then 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 clearing the day after the fire went through, and Mum used to come and help us nearly every afternoon. She always put on a bag apron; clearing was dirty work as all the wood was blackened from the fire.

  In one paddock we were clearing, Frank had found a damp patch of ground on the surface. We dug a large 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 thin spot in the day layer and make the surface damp. We watered all the horses and cows at this soak, and carted water for the house.

  One windy day we were working near the soak. Mum and I were packing wood on to stumps and lighting it and Frank was about one hundred yards away rolling some heavy logs together. 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. I ran to her and pushed her bodily into the soak. She fell head-first into the water. Frank saw me push her into the soak but hadn’t seen why. He had picked up a stick intending to belt me. ‘No, Frank, no! He saved my life. I was on fire,’ Mum called. He said that when he heard the scream and looked up, he thought I was attacking Mum.

  Poor Mum was sopping wet but wasn’t burnt. Frank took her home to change her clothes and came back a little while later. It was then that he noticed that my hands were badly burnt because I had pushed Mum in front of me for about ten yards. Frank had one look at them and straight away took me to the house 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 wages to ten shillings a week. This made me very pleased with myself.

  The next day Mum 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? Frank and I would like to adopt you. Would you like that?’ She continued, ‘Of course, we would have to see your grandma and uncle, and your mother would have to consent. If the adoption can be arranged, we will send you away to boarding-school and have you properly educated. You think it over.’

  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. They were delighted and Mum kissed me and Frank hugged me. A few days later we drove over to Uncle’s to talk it over with Grandma; she was the only one that mattered as far as I was concerned.

  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. When Uncle came in he insisted that we all stay to lunch. I had my lunch with the girls and Bill in the kitchen. Uncle Archie, Aunt Alice, Grandma, Mum and Frank had theirs in another room so they could discuss the adoption without us kids hearing what was going on. After lunch I was called into the room where Uncle and the others were. Uncle told me they had talked the adoption over and he, Grandma and Aunt had agreed to meet in Narrogin where they would talk the matter over with the authorities.

  On the set date, we all met in Narrogin, and Mum and Frank, Grandma and Uncle Archie went to see someone at the Police Station. I waited outside until Frank came out and called me in. Uncle, Grandma and Mum were all sitting around a large table and an official-looking man was sitting at the far end. There was a policeman there also, with three stripes on his sleeve.

  The official-looking man said to me, ‘Is your name Albert Barnett Facey?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ He then said, ‘Mr and Mrs Phillips want to adopt you. Do you agree to this adoption?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir, very much.’ He then said, ‘So you know what this would mean to you?’ I said that I believed that I would be their son and would be bound to them for the rest of my life. He then said that if I did anything wrong against their wishes they could punish me or give me a whipping. This stunned me for a few seconds. I knew what a whipping
was like. My hesitation made the official look up and then Grandma told him what had happened to me at Cave Rock and said that I still carried the scars. With that I was told by the official to take off my coat and shirt. I did this and Grandma pointed out the scars. The official said, ‘Not that kind of whipping, son, that is shocking. We’ll cut out the word whipping. Do you still want these people to adopt you?’ I replied, ‘Yes sir.’ A few minutes later we left the Police Station for home. Uncle had a large blue paper which was something to do with the adoption.

  It was not until early in May that a large letter came with O.H.M.S. on the top. This letter had something to do with the adoption, because Mum and Frank were both quiet after reading it. They filled in a large white form, and the next day, sent me over to the spot on the road about four miles away where the mailman passed, to give him two letters to post. One was to my mother and the other was to the Government.

  Mum called me in and told me that there was some hitch about the adoption and that they wouldn’t know the outcome until they got a reply from my mother, who had refused to sign the adoption paper. Mum said, ‘We wrote her a letter explaining what we were prepared to do for you and asking her to give you a chance, and to ask why she didn’t give her consent.’

  It was in June that a letter came back from my mother. When this was opened, Mum looked at Frank and said nothing. We had been so happy up to this point. They never read the letter to me but they said that the adoption was off. My Mother wouldn’t give her consent.

  All my hopes of a permanent home were dashed because of the actions of an unworthy mother. I never found out what happened, but I think she probably asked for money in exchange for me.