he day before, on horseback, with two or three cows and
some heifers and steers and calves we had, and I'd told him to clean up
a bit, and make the hut as bright and cheerful as possible before Mary
came.

We hadn't much in the way of furniture. There was the four-poster cedar
bedstead that I bought before we were married, and Mary was rather proud
of it: it had 'turned' posts and joints that bolted together. There was
a plain hardwood table, that Mary called her 'ironing-table', upside
down on top of the load, with the bedding and blankets between the
legs; there were four of those common black kitchen-chairs--with apples
painted on the hard board backs--that we used for the parlour; there was
a cheap batten sofa with arms at the ends and turned rails between the
uprights of the arms (we were a little proud of the turned rails); and
there was the camp-oven, and the three-legged pot, and pans and buckets,
stuck about the load and hanging under the tail-board of the waggon.

There was the little Wilcox & Gibb's sewing-machine--my present to Mary
when we were married (and what a present, looking back to it!). There
was a cheap little rocking-chair, and a looking-glass and some
pictures that were presents from Mary's friends and sister. She had her
mantel-shelf ornaments and crockery and nick-nacks packed away, in the
linen and old clothes, in a big tub made of half a cask, and a box
that had been Jim's cradle. The live stock was a cat in one box, and in
another an old rooster, and three hens that formed cliques, two against
one, turn about, as three of the same sex will do all over the world. I
had my old cattle-dog, and of course a pup on the load--I always had a
pup that I gave away, or sold and didn't get paid for, or had 'touched'
(stolen) as soon as it was old enough. James had his three spidery,
sneaking, thieving, cold-blooded kangaroo-dogs with him. I was taking
out three months' provisions in the way of ration-sugar, tea, flour, and
potatoes, &c.

I started early, and Mary caught up to me at Ryan's Crossing on Sandy
Creek, where we boiled the billy and had some dinner.

Mary bustled about the camp and admired the scenery and talked too much,
for her, and was extra cheerful, and kept her face turned from me as
much as possible. I soon saw what was the matter. She'd been crying
to herself coming along the road. I thought it was all on account of
leaving little Jim behind for the first time. She told me that she