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On the Track By: Henry Lawson (1867-1922) |
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by Henry Lawson
Author of "While the Billy Boils", and "When the World was Wide"
[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALISED. Some obvious
errors have been corrected after being confirmed.]
Preface Of the stories in this volume many have already appeared
in (various periodicals), while several now appear in print
for the first time. H. L.
Sydney, March 17th, 1900. Contents The Songs They used to Sing
A Vision of Sandy Blight
Andy Page's Rival
The Iron Bark Chip
"Middleton's Peter"
The Mystery of Dave Regan
Mitchell on Matrimony
Mitchell on Women
No Place for a Woman
Mitchell's Jobs
Bill, the Ventriloquial Rooster
Bush Cats
Meeting Old Mates
Two Larrikins
Mr. Smellingscheck
"A Rough Shed"
Payable Gold
An Oversight of Steelman's
How Steelman told his Story ON THE TRACK
The Songs They used to Sing On the diggings up to twenty odd years ago and as far back as I can
remember on Lambing Flat, the Pipe Clays, Gulgong, Home Rule, and so
through the roaring list; in bark huts, tents, public houses, sly grog
shanties, and well, the most glorious voice of all belonged to a bad
girl. We were only children and didn't know why she was bad, but we
weren't allowed to play near or go near the hut she lived in, and we
were trained to believe firmly that something awful would happen to us
if we stayed to answer a word, and didn't run away as fast as our legs
could carry us, if she attempted to speak to us. We had before us the
dread example of one urchin, who got an awful hiding and went on bread
and water for twenty four hours for allowing her to kiss him and give
him lollies. She didn't look bad she looked to us like a grand and
beautiful lady girl but we got instilled into us the idea that she was
an awful bad woman, something more terrible even than a drunken man, and
one whose presence was to be feared and fled from. There were two other
girls in the hut with her, also a pretty little girl, who called her
"Auntie", and with whom we were not allowed to play for they were all
bad; which puzzled us as much as child minds can be puzzled. We couldn't
make out how everybody in one house could be bad. We used to wonder why
these bad people weren't hunted away or put in gaol if they were so
bad. And another thing puzzled us. Slipping out after dark, when the bad
girls happened to be singing in their house, we'd sometimes run against
men hanging round the hut by ones and twos and threes, listening. They
seemed mysterious. They were mostly good men, and we concluded they were
listening and watching the bad women's house to see that they didn't
kill anyone, or steal and run away with any bad little boys ourselves,
for instance who ran out after dark; which, as we were informed, those
bad people were always on the lookout for a chance to do. We were told in after years that old Peter McKenzie (a respectable,
married, hard working digger) would sometimes steal up opposite the bad
door in the dark, and throw in money done up in a piece of paper, and
listen round until the bad girl had sung the "Bonnie Hills of Scotland"
two or three times. Then he'd go and get drunk, and stay drunk two or
three days at a time. And his wife caught him throwing the money in one
night, and there was a terrible row, and she left him; and people always
said it was all a mistake. But we couldn't see the mistake then. But I can hear that girl's voice through the night, twenty years ago: Oh! the bloomin' heath, and the pale blue bell,
In my bonnet then I wore;
And memory knows no brighter theme
Than those happy days of yore.
Scotland! Land of chief and song!
Oh, what charms to thee belong! And I am old enough to understand why poor Peter McKenzie who was
married to a Saxon, and a Tartar went and got drunk when the bad girl
sang "The Bonnie Hills of Scotland." His anxious eye might look in vain
For some loved form it knew! |
Genres for this book |
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Literature |
Short stories |
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