Send Round the Hat

It was about nine o'clock in the morning, and, though it was Sunday
morning, it was no harm to wake me; but the shearer had mistaken me for a
deaf jackeroo, who was staying at the shanty and was something like me,
and had good-naturedly shouted almost at the top of his voice, and he
woke the whole shanty. Anyway he woke three or four others who were
sleeping on beds and stretchers, and one on a shake-down on the floor, in
the same room. It had been a wet night, and the shanty was full of
shearers from Big Billabong Shed which had cut out the day before. My
room mates had been drinking and gambling overnight, and they swore
luridly at the intruder for disturbing them.

He was six-foot-three or thereabout. He was loosely built, bony,
sandy-complexioned and grey eyed. He wore a goodhumoured grin at most
times, as I noticed later on; he was of a type of bushman that I always
liked--the sort that seem to get more good-natured the longer they grow,
yet are hardknuckled and would accommodate a man who wanted to fight, or
thrash a bully in a good-natured way. The sort that like to carry
somebody's baby round, and cut wood, carry water and do little things for
overworked married bushwomen. He wore a saddle-tweed sac suit two sizes
too small for him, and his face, neck, great hands and bony wrists were
covered with sunblotches and freckles.

"I hope I ain't disturbin' yer," he shouted, as he bent over my bunk,
"but there's a cove----"

"You needn't shout!" I interrupted, "I'm not deaf."

"Oh--I beg your pardon!" he shouted. "I didn't know I was yellin'. I
thought you was the deaf feller."

"Oh, that's all right," I said. "What's the trouble?"

"Wait till them other chaps is done swearin' and I'll tell yer," he said.
He spoke with a quiet, good-natured drawl, with something of the nasal
twang, but tone and drawl distinctly Australian--altogether apart from
that of the Americans.

"Oh, spit it out for Christ's sake, Long'un!" yelled One-eyed Bogan, who
had been the worst swearer in a rough shed, and he fell back on his bunk
as if his previous remarks had exhausted him.

"It's that there sick jackeroo that was pickin'-up at Big Billabong,"
said the Giraffe. "He had to knock off the first week, an' he's been here
ever since. They're sendin' him away to the hospital in Sydney by the
speeshall train. They're just goin' to take him up in the wagonette to
the railway station, an' I thought I might as well go round with the hat
an' get him a few bob. He's got a missus and kids in Sydney."

"Yer always goin' round with yer gory hat!" growled Bogan. "Yer'd blanky
well take it round in hell!"

"That's what he's doing, Bogan," muttered Gentleman Once, on the
shake-down, with his face to the wall.

The hat was a genuine "cabbage-tree," one of the sort that "last a
lifetime." It was well coloured, almost black in fact with weather and
age, and it had a new strap round the base of the crown. I looked into it
and saw a dirty pound note and some silver. I dropped in half a crown,
which was more than I could spare, for I had only been a green-hand at
Big Billabong.

Send Round the Hat