The Book of the Bush - Containing Many Truthful Sketches Of The Early Colonial - Life Of Squatters, Whalers, Convicts, Diggers, And Others - Who Left Their Native Land And Never Returned by George Dunderdale
page 71 of 391 (18%)
page 71 of 391 (18%)
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wall of loose rocks, infested with snakes. The track to the cemetery
was near, and it soon began to be in very frequent use. One day during recess the boys had a snake hunt, and they tied their game in one bunch by the heads with string, and suspended them by the wayside. I counted them, and there were twenty-seven snakes in the bunch. The year '49 was the 'annus mirabilis' of the great rush for gold across the plains, and it was also an 'annus miserabilis' on account of the cholera. In three weeks fourteen hundred waggons bound for California crossed one of the bridges over the canal. I was desirous of joining the rush, but was, as usual, short of cash, and I had to stay at Joliet to earn my salary. I met the editor of the 'True Democrat' nearly every day carrying home a bucket of water from the Aux Plaines river. He did his own chores. He sent two young men who wished to become teachers to my school to graduate. One was named O'Reilly, lately from Ireland; I gave him his degree in a few weeks, and he kept school somewhere out on the prairie. The other did not graduate before the cholera came. He was a native of Vermont, and he played the clarionet in our church choir. The instrumental music came from the clarionet, from a violin, and a flute. The choir came from France and Germany, Old England and New England, Ireland, Alsace, and Belgium. It was divided into two hostile camps, and the party which first took possession of the gallery took precedence in the music for that day only. There was a want of harmony. One morning when the priest was chanting the first words of the Gloria, the head of a little French bugler appeared at the top of the gallery stairs, and at once started a plaint chant, Gloria, we had never rehearsed or heard before. He sang his solo to the end. He was thirsting for glory, and he took a full draught. |
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