Page:On Our Selection.djvu/48

34 Dad was immovable.

"Anyway"—whined Joe—"I'm not going—not a night like this—not when I ain't got boots."

That vexed Dad. "Hold your tongue, sir!" he said—"you'll do as you're told."

But Dave had n't finished. "I've been following that harrow since sunrise this morning," he said, "and now you want me to go chasing wallabies about in the dark, a night like this, and for nothing else but to keep them from eating the ground. It's always the way here, the more one does the more he's wanted to do," and he commenced to cry. Mrs. Brown had something to say. She agreed with Dad and thought we ought to go, as the wheat might spring up again.

"Pshah!" Dave blurted out between his sobs, while we thought of telling her "Pshah!" to shut her mouth.

Slowly and reluctantly we left that roaring fireside to accompany Dad that bitter night. It was a night!—dark as pitch, silent, forlorn and forbidding, and colder than the busiest morgue. And just to keep wallabies from eating nothing! They had eaten all the wheat—every blade of it—and the grass as well. What they would start on next—ourselves or the cart-harness—was n't quite clear.