Many of the youngsters along the Darling bank had not seen much more of the world than this; and they might seem a little simple in the superficial lore of the cities. But they could tell you how the snakes and the birds and the rabbits live, how the spiders are marked and where they are to be found. They could teach the city man for a month things in which he is a babe. And, if they have to go without the influence of great teachers in the schools, yet there are sometimes men in the back country who have seen other days and other places, men who, out of an experience that has oftener been wide than happy, can teach the youngster at their feet to make of life perhaps a better success than they themselves have made of it. I know one man of some distinction, whose early life was spent in a lonely little town, where, apart from the efforts of one harassed schoolmaster, he enjoyed only the teaching of two old employees of his father. For hours together, as they worked, they would give him the best they could of their own considerable knowledge; and it was that masterful instruction which equipped him for his success in the world.
They say that in these days the rabbit is responsible for a certain amount of truancy in the bush towns. Rabbits are so easy to shoot and trap, and the price of them for export to the cities and to England has been so good, that there have been boys who have been inclined to skip school for the sakeof making 30s. to ￡2 a week by rabbiting, and so run rather wild.
For the average bush boy rabbiting affords a valuable training in shooting. He practically always owns a pea-rifle. On many stations it is customary to allow the sons of station hands a cartridge for every rabbit scalp, and the boy will try as far as possible to keep himself in cartridges in this way.
The bush boy can always ride with that peculiar ease which makes him look a part of his horse-an ease which it seems almost impossible for those who learn later in life to attain. Also his eyes are trained so that in some cases, looking down across the plain, he can see a fence when to a city man it is actually invisible. He can see wallabies or rabbits or plain turkeys in the paddock when the ordinary man cannot pick them out from their background; he can make out distant sheep where the city boy would say there were none.
C. E. W. Bean, in The "Dreadnought" of the DarlingAuthor.-C. E. W. Bean, M.A., author and journalist, was born in New South Wales in 1879. At the outbreak of the Great War, he was appointed official war correspondent for the Commonwealth, and was attached to headquarters staff in Gallipoli and France. On his return, Captain Bean edited the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914- 1918. Previously he had written On the Wool Track, The Dreadnought of theDarling, and Flag-ships Three.
General Notes.-What is the difference between buggies and sulkies? How far does the Riverina extend? Explain "The superficial lore of the cities." Have a class debate on the question " Does the city boy know more than the country boy?"Lesson 19
mAGIC
Crawling up the hillside, Swinging round the bay,With a ceaseless humming Ply the trams all day.
When it"s dark I linger
Just to see the sight; All those jewelled beetlesFlashing through the night!
Anything more lovely I have never seen
Than the sparks above them, White and blue and green;Sometimes they are tiny: In a storm they shine,Dragons" tongues that follow
All along the line!
When the wind has fallen,
And the bay"s like glass,
Would you see some magic?
Watch what comes to pass:
There is just a ripple Where the water breaks,All the lamps reflected
Show like golden snakes:
Wait, the tram is coming Round the curving shore,And its humming changes To a hollow roar:
There"s a flaming glory
On the bay at last,
Red and green and orange- It has come, and passed.
Nothing breaks the stillness, All is as before,And the golden serpents Quiver near the shore....
Trams are only ugly Passing day by day,
But at night their crudeness Vanishes away.
Some kind magic clothes them In a fairer dress,So that we may wonder At their loveliness!
- Dorothea Mackellar
Author.-Miss Dorothea Mackellar, an Australian writer, was born and lives at Sydney. Her published books of verse include The Closed Door, The Witch Maid, and Fancy Dress. "Magic" is from the first- named book. Miss Mackellar"s novels are Outlaw"s Luck (a novel of the Argentine) and two books written in collaboration with Miss Ruth Bedford-The Little Blue Devil and Two"s Company.
General Notes.-Can you guess the name of the town in which the writer saw this wonderful change? Which verse do you like best? What other light makes everyday things beautiful? Do you know a poem that tells of this change?
Lesson 20
THE LITTLE PAGAN FAuN
It was the eve of the second (or was it the third?) of all the Christmases when three little rather self-esteeming girl seraphs slipped out of the pearly gates of one of the heavenly spheres and ran merrily down the star-powdered stairways of the sky to sing carols to the Little Child. They were in fact the first of the waits, but they didn"t know that they were.
When they got to the earth they found that they were slightly wrong, and that they had still to go through a fir- wood before they came to the Babe"s abode. Very beautiful the fir-wood looked in the frosty moonlight, and very beautiful the three little seraphs looked too as they hastened through it; while the faint and tender brightness of their former Paradise which was still about them made the pine shadows deeper and more velvety, and the three little seraphs themselves to look like three little glorified glow- worms.