anything approaching a straight line. Ploughing, Bob reflected,
was clearly an art which needed long apprenticeship before you learned
to appreciate it, and he developed a new comprehension and sympathy for
the ploughman described by Gray as "homeward plodding his weary way." He
also wondered if Gray's ploughman had to milk and get his own tea after
he got home.

Other relaxations of the bush were open to him. Old Joe had a paddock,
once a swamp, which he had drained; it was free of water, but abounded
in tussocks and sword grass which "Captin" was detailed to grub out
whenever no duty more pressing awaited him. And sword grass is a
fearsome vegetable, clinging of root and so tough of stem that, if
handled unwarily, it can cut a finger almost to the bone; wherefore the
unfortunate "Captin" hated it with a mighty hatred, and preferred any
other branch of his education. There were stones to pick up and pile
in cairns; red stones, half buried in grass and tussocks, and weighing
anything from a pound to half a hundredweight. He scarred his hands and
broke his fingernails to pieces over them, but, on the whole, considered
it not a bad employment, except when old Joe took it into his head to
perch on the fence and spur him on to greater efforts by disparaging
remarks about England. Whatever his work, there was never any certainty
that old Joe would not appear, to sit down, light his short, black pipe,
and make caustic remarks about his methods or his country--or both. Bob
took it all with a grin. He was a cheerful soul.

They used to meet for dinner--dinner consisting of corned beef and
potatoes until the corned beef ran out; then it became potatoes and
bread and jam for some days, until Joe amazed them by saddling an
ancient grey mare and riding into Cunjee, returning with more corned
beef--and more jam. He boiled the beef in a kerosene tin, and Bob
thought he had never tasted anything better. Appetites did not need
pampering on Howard's Farm. Work in the evening went on until there was
barely light enough to get home and find the cow; it was generally quite
dark by the time milking was finished, and Bob would come in with his
bucket to find Jim just in, and lighting the fire--"Major," not being
the milking hand, worked in the paddocks a little longer. Tea required
little preparation, since the only menu that occurred to old Joe seemed
to be bread and jam. Jim, being a masterful soul, occasionally took the
matter into his o