On Our Selection by Steele Rudd

Author:Steele Rudd [Rudd, Steele]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781925416190
Publisher: ETT Imprint
Published: 2015-11-12T05:00:00+00:00

A man in a long, black coat, white collar, and new leggings rode up, spoke to Dad, and got off. Dad straightened up and looked awkward, with his arms hanging wide and the mixture dripping from them. Mother came out. The cove shook hands with her, but he didn’t with Dad. They went inside—not Dad, who washed himself first.

Dave sent Joe to ask Dad who the cove was. Dad spoke in a whisper and said he was Mr. Macpherson, the clergyman who was to marry Kate and Sandy. Dave whistled and piled more wood on the dead cow. Mother came out and called Dave and Joe. Dave wouldn’t go, but sent Joe.

Dave threw another log on the cow, then thought he would see what was going on inside.

He stood at the window and looked in. He couldn’t believe his eyes at first, and put his head right in. There were Dad, Joe, and the lot of them down on their marrowbones saying something after the parson. Dave was glad that he didn’t go in.

How the parson prayed! Just when he said “Lead us not into temptation” the big kangaroo-dog slipped in and grabbed all the fresh meat on the table; but Dave managed to kick him in the ribs at the door. Dad groaned and seemed very restless.

When the parson had gone Dad said that what he had read about “reaping the same as you sow” was all rot, and spoke about the time when we sowed two bushels of barley in the lower paddock and got a big stack of rye from it.

The wedding was on a Wednesday, and at three o’clock in the afternoon. Most of the people came before dinner; the Hamiltons arrived just after breakfast. Talk of drays!—the little paddock couldn’t hold them.

Jim Mullins was the only one who came in to dinner; the others mostly sat on their heels in a row and waited in the shade of the wire-fence. The parson was the last to come, and as he passed in he knocked his head against the kangaroo-leg hanging under the verandah. Dad saw it swinging, and said angrily to Joe: “Didn’t I tell you to take that down this morning?”

Joe unhooked it and said: “But if I hang it anywhere else the dog’ll get it.”

Dad tried to laugh at Joe, and said, loudly: “And what else is it for?” Then he bustled Joe off before he could answer him again.

Joe didn’t understand.

Then Dad said (putting the leg in a bag): “Do you want everyone to know we eat it, ---- you?”

Joe understood.

The ceremony commenced. Those who could squeeze inside did so—the others looked in at the window and through the cracks in the chimney.

Mrs. McDoolan led Kate out of the back-room; then Sandy rose from the fire-place and stood beside her. Everyone thought Kate looked very nice—and orange blossoms!

You’d think she was an orange-tree with a new bed-curtain thrown over it. Sandy looked well, too, in his snake-belt and new tweeds; but he seemed uncomfortable when the pin that Dave put in the back of his collar came out.

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