, seemed always imminent, it never did actually dissolve
in our time, and only occasionally did it shed any vital portion of
its fabric. Even after such minor catastrophes, it always bore up
nobly under the rude first (and last) aid we could give with cord, or
green-hide and axed wood.

To my inexperience it seemed that Ted had brought with him a wide
assortment of most of the commodities known to civilisation. The
unloading of the cart was to me as the enjoyment of a monstrous bran-pie;
an entertainment I had heard of, but never seen. And when I heard
there was certainly one more load, and probably two, to come, I felt
that we really were rich beyond the dreams of most folk. I recalled
the precise manner in which Fred (the _Ariadne_ rival and
fellow-passenger, whose surname I never knew) had wilted when he heard
that my father and I had intended travelling steerage, and from my heart
I wished he could see this cart-load of assorted goods. 'Goods' was the
correct word, I thought, for such wholesale profusion; and 'cart-load'
had the right spaciousness to indicate a measure of our abundance.

There were several large sheets of galvanised iron, appearing exactly
as one in the cart, but covering a notable expanse of ground when
spread out singly. These were for a roof in the place of the saloon
skylight. My father had pished and tushed and pressed for a bark roof;
but Ted, in his bush wisdom, had insisted on the prosaic 'tin,' as a
catchment area for rain-water to be stored in the two ship's tanks.
There were brooms, scrubbing-brushes, kettles, pots, pans, crockery,
fishing-lines, ammunition for Ted's highly lethal old gun, and there
were stores. I marvelled that stores so numerous and varied could have
come out of Werrina. My imagination was particularly fired by the
contemplation of a package said to contain a gross of boxes of
matches. Reckoning on fifty to the box, I struggled for some time with
a computation of the total number of our matches, giving it up finally
when I had reached figures which might have thrilled a Rothschild. Our
sugar was not in blue paper packages of a pound weight, but in a sack,
as it might be for the sweetening of an army corps' porridge. And our
tea! Like the true Australian he was, Ted had actually brought us a
twenty-six pound case of tea. It was a wondrous collection, and I drew
a long breath when I remembered that there was more, much more, to
come. Here were nails, not in spiral twists