Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/96

 He had also got them out of various other kinds of trees.

We talked about soil and grass, and gold-digging, and many other things which came back to one like a revelation as we yarned.

He had been to the hospital several times. 'The doctors don't say they can cure me,' he said, 'they say they might be able to improve my sight and hearing, but it would take a long time―anyway, the treatment would improve my general health. They know what's the matter with my eyes,' and he explained it as well as he could. 'I wish I'd seen a good doctor when my eyes first began to get weak; but young chaps are always careless over things. It's harder to get cured of anything when you're done growing.'

He was always hopeful and cheerful. 'If the worst comes to the worst,' he said, 'there's things I can do where I come from. I might do a bit o' wool-sorting, for instance. I'm a pretty fair expert. Or else when they're weeding out I could help. I'd just have to sit down and they'd bring the sheep to me, and I'd feel the wool and tell them what it was―being blind improves the feeling, you know.'

He had a packet of portraits, but he couldn't make them out very well now. They were sort of blurred to him, but I described them and he told me who they were. 'That's a girl o' mine,' he said, with reference to one―a jolly, good-looking bush girl. 'I got a letter from her yesterday. I managed to scribble something, but I'll get you, if you don't mind, to write something more I want to put in on another piece of paper, and address an envelope for me.'