Then came lessons in
ploughing on a dry hillside; he managed badly at first, and came in for
a good deal of the rough side of old Joe's tongue before he learned to
keep to anything approaching a straight line. Ploughing, Bob reflected,
was clearly an art which needed long apprenticeship before you learned
to appreciate it, and he developed a new comprehension and sympathy for
the ploughman described by Gray as "homeward plodding his weary way." He
also wondered if Gray's ploughman had to milk and get his own tea after
he got home.
Other relaxations of the bush were open to him. Old Joe had a paddock,
once a swamp, which he had drained; it was free of water, but abounded
in tussocks and sword grass which "Captin" was detailed to grub out
whenever no duty more pressing awaited him. And sword grass is a
fearsome vegetable, clinging of root and so tough of stem that, if
handled unwarily, it can cut a finger almost to the bone; wherefore the
unfortunate "Captin" hated it with a mighty hatred, and preferred any
other branch of his education. There were stones to pick up and pile
in cairns; red stones, half buried in grass and tussocks, and weighing
anything from a pound to half a hundredweight. He scarred his hands and
broke his fingernails to pieces over them, but, on the whole, considered
it not a bad employment, except when old Joe took it into his head to
perch on the fence and spur him on to greater efforts by disparaging
remarks about England.
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