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 There we were at last,—at home, Hand-in-hand, and heart-to-heart, Sharing, caring, two together— Nothing that we couldn’t weather!

So, we went to work, we two. Built and blasted, stump’d and sow’d, Logg’d-up, dug, and drain’d and hoed, Milk’d, of course, and made the cheese, Fenced the paddocks, and the road, Plough’d a bit, and planted trees, Rear’d the poultry, started bees. Up at earliest blink of light, Often with the stars still bright, He’d be off, to sledge-in wood; Mostly I’d to bake at night; And we’d many pricks and pinches— Progress only came by inches; But, it came! We said it should! Yes, we got on, bit by bit, Fighting every inch of it; Day by day, and year by year Saw some blemish disappear, Something else come clean and clear; And the kindly creatures kept At their growing while we slept. Ay, we’d only fix’d the yards, Just the week the boy was born (I remember, as I lay, Picturing how he’d help, some day!); Two years back, when Jeanie came, Why, we’d near five hundred shorn! ....That first season, when we found Things were really coming round—