Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/196

186 nor her sable spouse and mates, with pickaninnies clad in seamless, some said unseemly, suit of black skin, to camp in the back-yard.

"Swept and garnished" was the homestead, and Larry and his visitors, clerical and otherwise, had reason to thank their stars that a lady had come to Bullaroo.

"The course of true love" does not necessarily "run smooth" after marriage, especially if it did not do so before.

Scarce was the garden at the front, whence cabbage and melons had been removed, nicely laid-out, and the tennis-lawn, where the gallows had swung, was clothed with coat of velvety grass; scarce had the Vixen filly come well to her paces and she and Hilda fallen into harmony, than the first little home of the "happy pair" had to be broken up.

Did Larry, like many a married man, attend less to business now?

However it was, the terrible drought came upon him unawares. The "Cockie" he had "hammered" cut his best dam, just after the last rains; the new tank, not properly puddled, leaked. Heavily stocked, he tried, when too late, to lighten himself of his load. After the first draft to market, he would, he declared, rather "boil all down than accept such prices." The sun did the boiling for him, and the hot winds the drying of carcase and of fleece. Often did the newly-married couple return with buggy full of remnants, all of value that was left of the sheep whose wool was silvering the plains.

Larry welcomed an opportunity, after the first rain, of selling out. The "desert" of last week was a prairie of