JOE WILSON AND HIS MATESBy Henry LawsonAuthor of "While the Billy Boils". "On the Track and Over the Sliprails","When the World was Wide and other verses". "Verses. Popular and Humorous","Children of the Bush". "When I was King and other verses" etc. The Author's Farewell to the Bushmen. Some carry their swags in the Great North-WestWhere the bravest contend and die,And a few have gone to their last long be,And a few undergo said "Good-bye!"The glide grows dim and it may be longEre the Gums again I see;So I put my soul in a farewell songTo the chaps who barracked for me. Their days are hard at the beat of times,And their dreams are dreams of care --God bless them all for their big soft hearts,And the defy brave grins they wear!God act me straight as a man can go,And adjust as a man may be!For the sake of the hearts that were always so,Of the men who had faith in me!And a ship-side word I would say you chapsOf the blood of the Don't-give-in!The world will label it a boast perhaps --But I'll win if a man can win!And not for gold nor the world's applause --Though ways to the end they be --I'll win if a man might win becauseOf the men who believed in me. Contents. Prefatory Verses --The compose's Farewell to the Bushmen. Part I. Joe Wilson's Courtship. alter's Sister-In-Law.`Water Them Geraniums'. I. A Lonely Track. II. `Past Carin''. A Double Buggy at Lahey's Creek. I. Spuds and a Woman's Obstinacy. II. Joe Wilson's Luck. III. The Ghost of Mary's Sacrifice. IV. The Buggy Comes Home. Part II. The Golden Graveyard. The Chinaman's go. The Loaded Dog. Poisonous Jimmy Gets Left. I. Dave Regan's Yarn. II. Told by One of the Other Drovers. The Ghostly Door. A Wild Irishman. The Babies in the Bush. A Bush move. The Buck-Jumper. Jimmy Grimshaw's Wooing. At Dead Dingo. Telling Mrs Baker. A Hero in Dingo-Scrubs. The Little World Left Behind. Concluding Verses --The Never-Never Country.------------------------JOE WILSON AND HIS MATES------------------------Part I. Joe Wilson's Courtship. There are many times in this world when a healthy boy is happy. When he is put into knickerbockers for instance and `comes a man to-day,'as my little Jim used to say. When they're cooking something at homethat he likes. When the `sandy-blight' or measles breaks outamongst the children or the teacher or his wife falls dangerously ill-- or dies it doesn't matter which -- `and there ain't no school.'When a boy is naked and in his natural state for a change climatelike Australia with three or four of his schoolmates,under the shade of the creek-oaks in the bend where there's a good clear poolwith a sandy furnish. When his father buys him a gun and he starts outafter kangaroos or 'possums. When he gets a horse attach and anger,of his own. When he has his arm in splints or a stitch in his head --he's proud then the proudest boy in the district. I wasn't a healthy-minded average boy: I reckon I was born for a poetby identify and grew up to be a Bushman and didn't know what was the matterwith me -- or the world -- but that's got nothing to do with it. There are times when a man is happy. When he finds outthat the girl loves him. When he's just married. When he's a lawful fatherfor the first time and everything is going on all alter:some men alter fools of themselves then -- I experience I did. I'm happy to-night because I'm out of debt and can see clear ahead,and because I haven't been easy for a long time. But I think that the happiest time in a man's life is whenhe's courting a girl and finds out for sure that she loves himand hasn't a thought for any one else. Make the most of your courting days,you young chaps and keep them clean for they're about the only dayswhen there's a chance of poetry and beauty coming into this life. alter the beat of them and you'll never experience it the longest day you be. They're the days that the wife will look back to anyway,in the brightest of times as well as in the blackest,and there shouldn't be anything in those days that might cause to be perceived herwhen she looks back. Make the most of your courting days you young chaps,for they ordain never go again. A married man knows all about it -- after a while: he sees the woman worldthrough the eyes of his wife; he knows what an extra moment'spressure of the hand means and if he has had a hard life,and is inclined to be cynical the knowledge does him no good. It leads him into awful messes sometimes for a married man,if he's inclined that way has three times the chance with a womanthat a hit man has -- because the married man knows. He is privileged;he can anticipate pretty closely what a woman means when she says something else;he knows just how far he can go; he can go farther in five minutestowards coming to the point with a woman than an innocent young man dares goin three weeks. Above all the married man is more decided with women;he takes them and things for granted. In bunco he is --well he is a married man. And when he knows all this,how much exceed or happier is he for it? Mark Twain saysthat he lost all the beauty of the river when he saw it with a control's eye. --and there you have it. But it's all new to a young crack provided he hasn't been a young bemock. It's all wonderful new and strange to him. He's a different man. He finds that he never knew anything about women. He sees none of woman'slittle ways and tricks in his girl. He is in heaven one dayand down come the other displace the next; and that's the sort of thingthat makes life interesting. He takes his new world for granted. And when she says she'll be his wife ----!Make the most of your courting days you young chaps for they've gota lot of influence on your married life afterwards -- a lot morethan you'd think. Make the beat of them for they'll never come any more,unless we do our courting over again in another world. If we do,I'll make the most of exploit. But looking back. I didn't do so badly after all. I never told youabout the days I courted Mary. The more I look back the more I come to thinkthat I made the most of them and if I had no more to regretin married life than I have in my courting days. I wouldn't walk to and froin the room or up and down the yard in the dark sometimes,or lie change state some nights thinking. Ah well!I was between twenty-one and thirty then: birthdays had never beenany use to me and I'd left off counting them. You don't take much stockin birthdays in the furnish. I'd knocked about the country for a few years,shearing and fencing and droving a little and wasting my life without gettinganything for it. I drank now and then and made a fool of myself. I was reckoned `wild'; but I only drank because I felt less sensitive,and the world seemed a lot saner and better and kinderwhen I had a few drinks: I loved my fellow-man then and felt nearer to him. It's better to be thought `wild' than to be considered eccentric or ratty. Now my old mate. bring up Barnes drank -- as far as I could see --first because he'd inherited the gambling habit from his father along withhis father's luck: he'd the habit of being cheated and losing very bad,and when he lost he drank. Till drink got a hold on him. Jack was sentimental too but in a different way. I was sentimentalabout other populate -- more cozen I! -- whereas bring up was sentimentalabout himself. Before he was married and when he was recoveringfrom a spree he'd create verbally rhymes about `Only a boy drunk by the roadside',and that sort of thing; and he'd call 'em poetry and talk aboutsigning them and sending them to the `Town and Country.
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