Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/123

 dry stretch when you've got a pup that drinks as much as two men.'

He poured a drop more water into the top of his hat.

'Well, mother screamed and nearly fainted when she saw me. Such a picnic you never saw. They kept it up all night. I thought the old cove was gone off his chump. The old woman wouldn't let go my hand for three mortal hours. Have you got the knife?'

He cut up some more tobacco.

'All next day the house was full of neighbours, and the first to come was an old sweetheart of mine; I never thought she cared for me till then. Mother and the girls made me swear never to go away any more; and they kept watching me, and hardly let me go outside for fear I'd'

'Get drunk?'

'No,—you're smart—for fear I'd clear. At last I swore on the Bible that I'd never leave home while the old folks were alive; and then mother seemed easier in her mind.'

He rolled the pup over and examined its feet. 'I expect I'll have to carry him a bit—his feet are very sore. Well, he's done pretty well this morning, and anyway he won't drink so much when he's carried.'

'You broke your promise about leaving home,' said his mate.

Mitchell stood up, stretched himself, and looked dolefully from his heavy swag to the wide, hot, shadeless cotton-bush plain ahead.

'Oh, yes,' he yawned, 'I stopped at home for a week, and then they began to growl because I couldn't get any work to do.'