`Better than doing nothing,'said Jack.
`There's a nice little girl in service at Black's,'he said.
`She's more like an adopted daughter,in fact,than a servant.
She's a real good little girl,and good-looking into the bargain.
I hear that young Black is sweet on her,but they say she won't have anything to do with him.I know a lot of chaps that have tried for her,but they've never had any luck.She's a regular little dumpling,and I like dumplings.They call her 'Possum.You ought to try a bear up in that direction,Joe.'
I was always shy with women --except perhaps some that I should have fought shy of;but Jack wasn't --he was afraid of no woman,good,bad,or indifferent.I haven't time to explain why,but somehow,whenever a girl took any notice of me I took it for granted that she was only playing with me,and felt nasty about it.
I made one or two mistakes,but --ah well!
`My wife knows little 'Possum,'said Jack.`I'll get her to ask her out to our place and let you know.'
I reckoned that he wouldn't get me there then,and made a note to be on the watch for tricks.I had a hopeless little love-story behind me,of course.I suppose most married men can look back to their lost love;few marry the first flame.Many a married man looks back and thinks it was damned lucky that he didn't get the girl he couldn't have.
Jack had been my successful rival,only he didn't know it --I don't think his wife knew it either.I used to think her the prettiest and sweetest little girl in the district.
But Jack was mighty keen on fixing me up with the little girl at Haviland.
He seemed to take it for granted that I was going to fall in love with her at first sight.He took too many things for granted as far as I was concerned,and got me into awful tangles sometimes.
`You let me alone,and I'll fix you up,Joe,'he said,as we rode up to the station.`I'll make it all right with the girl.
You're rather a good-looking chap.You've got the sort of eyes that take with girls,only you don't know it;you haven't got the go.
If I had your eyes along with my other attractions,I'd be in trouble on account of a woman about once a-week.'
`For God's sake shut up,Jack,'I said.
Do you remember the first glimpse you got of your wife?Perhaps not in England,where so many couples grow up together from childhood;but it's different in Australia,where you may hail from two thousand miles away from where your wife was born,and yet she may be a countrywoman of yours,and a countrywoman in ideas and politics too.
I remember the first glimpse I got of Mary.
It was a two-storey brick house with wide balconies and verandahs all round,and a double row of pines down to the front gate.Parallel at the back was an old slab-and-shingle place,one room deep and about eight rooms long,with a row of skillions at the back:the place was used for kitchen,laundry,servants'rooms,&c.This was the old homestead before the new house was built.There was a wide,old-fashioned,brick-floored verandah in front,with an open end;there was ivy climbing up the verandah post on one side and a baby-rose on the other,and a grape-vine near the chimney.We rode up to the end of the verandah,and Jack called to see if there was any one at home,and Mary came trotting out;so it was in the frame of vines that I first saw her.
More than once since then I've had a fancy to wonder whether the rose-bush killed the grape-vine or the ivy smothered 'em both in the end.I used to have a vague idea of riding that way some day to see.
You do get strange fancies at odd times.
Jack asked her if the boss was in.He did all the talking.
I saw a little girl,rather plump,with a complexion like a New England or Blue Mountain girl,or a girl from Tasmania or from Gippsland in Victoria.Red and white girls were very scarce in the Solong district.
She had the biggest and brightest eyes I'd seen round there,dark hazel eyes,as I found out afterwards,and bright as a 'possum's.
No wonder they called her `'Possum'.I forgot at once that Mrs Jack Barnes was the prettiest girl in the district.
I felt a sort of comfortable satisfaction in the fact that I was on horseback:most Bushmen look better on horseback.It was a black filly,a fresh young thing,and she seemed as shy of girls as I was myself.
I noticed Mary glanced in my direction once or twice to see if she knew me;but,when she looked,the filly took all my attention.Mary trotted in to tell old Black he was wanted,and after Jack had seen him,and arranged to start work next day,we started back to Solong.
I expected Jack to ask me what I thought of Mary --but he didn't.
He squinted at me sideways once or twice and didn't say anything for a long time,and then he started talking of other things.
I began to feel wild at him.He seemed so damnably satisfied with the way things were going.He seemed to reckon that I was a gone case now;but,as he didn't say so,I had no way of getting at him.
I felt sure he'd go home and tell his wife that Joe Wilson was properly gone on little 'Possum at Haviland.That was all Jack's way.
Next morning we started to work.We were to build the buggy-house at the back near the end of the old house,but first we had to take down a rotten old place that might have been the original hut in the Bush before the old house was built.There was a window in it,opposite the laundry window in the old place,and the first thing I did was to take out the sash.I'd noticed Jack yarning with 'Possum before he started work.While I was at work at the window he called me round to the other end of the hut to help him lift a grindstone out of the way;and when we'd done it,he took the tips of my ear between his fingers and thumb and stretched it and whispered into it --`Don't hurry with that window,Joe;the strips are hardwood and hard to get off --you'll have to take the sash out very carefully so as not to break the glass.'Then he stretched my ear a little more and put his mouth closer --`Make a looking-glass of that window,Joe,'he said.
I was used to Jack,and when I went back to the window I started to puzzle out what he meant,and presently I saw it by chance.
