On the goldfields, the miners take delight in secretlyintroducing a few small nuggets into the plum-duff-and they do not go round the table after dinner collecting them as some women do the coins. The gold becomes the property of the one who finds it, and it is made into pins, rings, and brooches. This habit of "salting" the pudding induces a good deal of prospecting, and, as the prospectors have to eat up the "tailings," it is probably the reason that so many people don"t feel very well after the Christmas feast.
Hop-beer, ginger-beer, and honey-mead are also made, and stored away in kegs and bottles. "Bee-trees" are plentiful in many parts of the bush, and a good nest or two is usually left for December, when the trees are felled and the bees robbed. The mead is made from the comb after the honey has been drained out of it. Sarsaparilla is another extensively- made drink, the vines growing plentifully among the ranges. The women and children are fond of these home-made drinks, but father is not always so enthusiastic.
A day or two before Christmas, the wanderers return. First comes Jim, cantering up the track with a valise strapped in front of him and a smoke-cloud trailing behind, while the old folks and the little ones are watching, with glad faces, from the veranda. Towards sundown, Bill appears on the hill in another direction, and comes jogging along quietly, with a well-loaded pack-horse, and with quart-pots, bells, and hobble-chains rattling and jingling to every stride. The children run shouting to meet him, and some ride backbehind him, and some perch on the pack. They help him to unsaddle and carry his pack-bags in; they take his tired horses to water, and lead them through the slip-rails, and let them go in the paddock with a gentle pat on the neck. The sun is down, perhaps, when Bob comes plodding slowly along through the trees, carrying his swag, and swinging a billy in one hand, while he shakes a little bush before his face with the other to keep the flies away.
"Poor old Bob," says mother, "still walking!" The young- sters race down the road again, and they carry his billy and tucker-bag for him, and hang on to his hands as though helping the tired traveller home.
They all talk to him at once, their eyes dancing with excitement, telling him that Jim and Willie are home, and that Strawberry has a calf, and the speckly hen has ten chickens. Bob listens with a dry smile as he plods along, recalling when he, too, was interested in Strawberry and the hens. When he reaches the door, the smile broadens, and he says, "Merry Christmas!" and throws his swag down against the wall. They crowd round him, wringing his hands till he feels tired, and ask him how he"s been getting on. "All right," says Bob, simply.
Though Bob has "humped bluey" home, he has probably as many pound notes in his pockets as those who came in creaking saddles, and he feels well repaid for his long tramp and his many months of hard work and battling in the back-blocks when he observes the pleased look on his mother"s face as he hands her the bulk of his savings.
The brothers " swap" yarns till late at night, telling of their experiences and adventures by flood and field; and each has some curiosity to show, brought home as a token or keepsake from strange and far-off parts of the bush. The old home, which has so long been dull and quiet, now rings with merry laughter and glad voices, and when Bob dances a jig the very roof shakes and the crockery rattles loudly on the dresser. There is an hour or two"s dancing, may be, to the strains of the violin. Then somebody goes off for the Jackson girls and the Maloneys and the Andersons, and old acquaintances are renewed-likewise the dancing.
On Christmas Eve the boys go out with the guns for scrub turkeys, pigeons, and ducks. Often they spend the whole day shooting in the scrubs and round the swamps and lagoons; and they come home well laden with game. All hands and the cook turn to after tea and pluck the birds. The bushman"s table is very rarely without game at this time.
Christmas Day is quiet and generally dull-a day of rest; but Boxing Day makes up for it with a quantum of sport and excitement. There are usually horse-races somewhere in the vicinity, or a cricket match between Wombat Hill and Emu Creek.
There are many persons in the bush every year to whom the festive season is only a memory. These are men campedin lonely parts, "batching" at the station out-camps and boundary-riders" huts. Some of them have been so long alone that, though they know that Christmas is somewhere near, they could not tell you whether it is two days ahead or two days past. I have often found man keeping up Saturday or Monday for the Sabbath, even within a few miles of town.
Edwabd S. Sorenson
Author.-Edward Sylvester Sorenson was born in New South Wales in 1869. He contributed to metropolitan newspapers when about 25, chiefly verse and stories of bush life. and entered upon writing as s profession in 1901. Author of The Squatter"s Ward, Quinton"s Life in the Australian Backblocks, Friends and Foes in the Australian Bush, Chips and Splinters, Spotty the Bower Bird, Murty Brown, etc.
General Notes.-This account of Christmas in the Early Days will come nearer home to adults than to young readers, for customs change, though they linger longest in remote places. What are the newer bush customs that Mr. Sorenson has not noticed? Do all that he has mentioned survive? Is he as accurate as he is interesting? What is the main motive that brings the family together? What fresh links has the bush with the city? Write an essay on Christmas in the City.
LESSON 4
lOVE THy NEIgHBOuR
