`Oh, very well, thank you, Mr Wilson,' she said. Then she asked,
`How did you enjoy yourself, Mr Wilson?'

I puzzled over that afterwards, but couldn't make anything out of it.
Perhaps she only said it for the sake of saying something.
But about this time my handkerchiefs and collars disappeared from the room
and turned up washed and ironed and laid tidily on my table.
I used to keep an eye out, but could never catch anybody near my room.
I straightened up, and kept my room a bit tidy, and when my handkerchief
got too dirty, and I was ashamed of letting it go to the wash,
I'd slip down to the river after dark and wash it out, and dry it next day,
and rub it up to look as if it hadn't been washed, and leave it on my table.
I felt so full of hope and joy that I worked twice as hard as Jack,
till one morning he remarked casually --

`I see you've made a new mash, Joe. I saw the half-caste cook
tidying up your room this morning and taking your collars and things
to the wash-house.'

I felt very much off colour all the rest of the day,
and I had such a bad night of it that I made up my mind next morning
to look the hopelessness square in the face and live the thing down.


It was the evening before Anniversary Day. Jack and I had put in
a good day's work to get the job finished, and Jack was having
a smoke and a yarn with the chaps before he started home.
We sat on an old log along by the fence at the back of the house.
There was Jimmy Nowlett the bullock-driver, and long Dave Regan the drover,
and big Jim Bullock the fencer, and one or two others.