"Sure, I'd not blame ye if ye fried bacon in the
tea-pot--not this morning. I dunno, meself, am I on me head or me heels.
All the men is much the same; they've been fallin' over each other,
tryin' to get a little bit of extra spit-an'-polish on the whole place.
I b'lieve Dave Boone wud 'a' set to work an' whitewashed the paddock
fences if I'd encouraged him at all."
"There's that Sarah," said Mrs. Brown. "Ornery days it takes me, an
alarum clock, an' Mary, to say nothin' of a wet sponge, to get her out
of bed. But bless you--these last three days she's up before the pair
of us, rubbin' an' polishin' in every corner. An' she an' 'Ogg at each
other's throats over flowers; she wantin' to pick every one to look
pretty in the 'ouse, an' 'Ogg wantin' every one to look pretty in the
garden."
"Well, Hogg's got enough an' to spare," was Murty's comment. "No union
touch about his work. I reckon he's put in sixteen hours a day at that
garden since we heard they were comin'."
"But there never was any union touch about Billabong," said Mrs. Brown.
"Not much! We all know when we're well off," said Murty. "I'll bet no
union was ever as good a boss as David Linton."
Two other men appeared at the kitchen door--Mick Shanahan and Dave
Boone--each wearing, in defiance of regulations, some battered remnant
of uniform that marked the "digger," while Mick, in addition, would walk
always with a slight limp.
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