Page:On Our Selection.djvu/128

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T was a real scorcher. A soft, sweltering summer's day. The air quivered; the heat drove the fowls under the dray and sent the old dog to sleep upon the floor inside the house. The iron on the skillion creaked and sweated—so did Dad and Dave down the paddock, grubbing—grubbing in loOdeg. of sunshine. They were clearing a piece of new land—a heavily-timbered box-tree flat. They had been at it a fortnight, and if any music was in the ring of the axe or the rattle of the pick when commencing, there was none now.

Dad wished to be cheerful and complacent. He said (putting the pick down and dragging his flannel off to wring it): "It's a good thing to sweat well." Dave did n't say anything. I don't know what he thought, but he looked up at Dad—just looked up at him—while the perspiration filled his eyes and ran down over his nose like rain off a shingle; then he hitched up his pants and "wired in" again.

Dave was a philosopher. He worked away until the axe flew off the handle with a ring and a bound, and might have been lost in the long grass for ever only Dad stopped it with