Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/185

Rh settler. "The Land of Canaan, what flowed 'milk and honey' pure,—leastways, which growed grass and flowers—was nigh all watered like this. Parson Brown, he says. That's why it reads so cool and fresh-like in th' Old Book. Now that the Turks, and the Rummuns afore 'em, has let all the water run off, Canaan's dry as a bone again, and dusty as your darned plain. It's all the water as does it. I reckon," continued Smith, eyeing the visitor critically, "you have not eaten a house down, exactly, this mornin'."

"Boiled wheat and 'possum," replied the selector, shortly.

"You come along of me. We're just in time for grub. See them herbs there," remarked Smith, as he conducted his guest along the winding path in front of his cottage. "I made nigh forty pound, few months back, from a bed no bigger nor that. The girls chops it up and puts it into old salt bottles. Here, Betsy Jane"—to a damsel busy, with her sister, chopping and bottling the dried herbs, "tell your mother a gen'leman from the plains is a goin' to have tucker with us."

"What do you say to that?" as he led the bewildered "Cockie" to the garden at the rear. "You can have that melon to make jam on, if you can lift it—there now."

The stout selector essayed to grasp and raise the shining dappled monster, only succeeding in rolling it a few feet, so as to expose the white circle on which it rested.

"Never mind, covey, we'll get a couple of rails and roll it into the cart afore you go. You needn't bust yoursel' now."

"This be a cool place," remarked the visitor, as he stood in the porch, covered, as was half the roof of the