My Place (32 page)

I had to watch from outside, they said I didn't have enough money to bet and pay me entry fee to the races as well. Inside, they had two big pots of hot dogs boiling up. I could smell them and I was real hungry. My money was gone, so what could I do. Later, two blokes in a sulky came through from New Norcia. They gave me a ride back to the pub.

As far as crops go, 1911 was a good harvest for nearly everyone. It was never as good after that. Dry conditions seemed to set in. Good rain fell in some places, like Bruce Rock. The farmers there were getting two bags to the acre, but it was lighter soil. If you were cropping in heavy soil, it was like trying to plough without hitching up the horses. Things got bad and we took three hundred head of cattle further north, trying to find better grazing and water.

It was July 1912, miners were finding gold at Paynes Find then. There was traffic on the roads. When the bit of water we found finally dried up, we took the cattle back to Nungarin. In the end, we had to sell most of them.

We kept working McQuarie's station, but things got worse and worse. The first time McQuarie went broke was because everyone owed him money. All the farmers were in debt to him and none of them could pay their bills. The bailiff came to sell off the stock and the machinery. All the farmers got together and agreed not to bid against McQuarie. He used his sister's money and got everything back for ten shillings or a pound. The bailiff didn't know what to do. McQuarie was the only one bidding, the others were just standing around, watching.

After that first time, McQuarie got the other farmers to help him clear a lot of land for extra cropping. He wasn't going to get nothin' out of that crop, just enough to pay his bills. Jackatee and me cleared even more land and put in more crops. We pulled out big boab trees, raked the roots together and burnt them. Then, we put the crop in. Jackatee was a good worker. He was real black. At night, we'd boil our billy in the bush and cook pancakes for tea on the forge. That was all the tucker we had. He was a good friend, old Jackatee.

Anyway, turned out the crop was better than before, but still not good enough to save McQuarie. A bad drought came and finished him off. There was no water, no feed for the animals. Dick and me had to shoot poor old Bess. She was a good horse, but there was nothin' for her to eat. What stock there was was in bad condition. We had to lift them all up between sticks and a chain to treat their sores. Then we let them go. Poor buggers. There was no food. Some of them were too far gone to be helped.

McQuarie said to Dick, ‘Dick, you can stop on the station. There's plenty of seed and super. You could put in another crop.'

Dick said, ‘No fear, I'm not doin' that. There's a war comin', I'm off to fight.' Ernie left, too. They were very lucky, because they could have been shot. They came back at the end of the war and stayed with their Aunty.

I stopped with McQuarie till he was real broke. The farmers still owned him money and the bailiff was coming again. Dalgetys sold him up. They didn't worry about the man battling on the land, they just wanted their money. And if the land didn't come into fruition like it should, they sold you up. I finally left with Jackatee in 1913. There was no food for me then either.

We went into Nungarin, trying to find work. We'd do anything. One chap saw us in the street and asked us to help him load a truck. He gave us threepence. Threepence, for all that work! We bought some bread and ate it. We were starvin' hungry. A big load of sandalwood came in and the storekeeper came over and said, ‘You boys want work loading that sandalwood?'

‘Yes,' we said. We were desperate, we didn't ask the pay.

When we finished loading twelve ton of sandalwood, he gave us half a crown. Then, we gave it back to him in his store for some sardines and biscuits, and that was the end of that. It seems like the whitefella doesn't want the blackfella to get a foot in this world.

I had no money, no job. I was about twenty, twenty-one then. I could see I couldn't live in Nungarin. I decided to strike out for Goomalling. There were two friends of mine who wanted to go there, too, Billy One Moon and Hunting Maggie. Hunting
Maggie was blind. Billy was her husband and he used to lead her along the road with a stick. I called them Aunty and Uncle. I wasn't in my home country and I thought if any other natives asked who I was, it would give me some protection.

By the time we were three or four miles out of Nungarin, McQuarie pulled up behind us in a buggy, ‘Hey, Marble,' he said, ‘I want you to drive me to Hines Hill, and the bailiff wants a boy to help round up stock.'

‘Righto,' I said. I told my friends I would meet them later.

After I got back from Hines Hill, I rounded up the stock. They were no trouble. I had a bad time with my old pony. She wanted to stop with me. She didn't want to go in the corral with the others. I thought McQuarie might say, ‘Take her, Marble, she's your horse,' but he didn't. I nearly cried when I saw her go.

After that, the bailiff said, ‘You want another job?'

‘Too right,' I said. ‘I got no job.'

‘Good,' he said. ‘I want you to shepherd the sheep near the pub till we're ready to truck 'em.'

While I was minding the sheep, a man came up and spoke to me.

‘When you finished working for that bailiff, how about coming and working for me? I'll give you ten bob a week plus board.'

‘That's all right by me!' I said. It was the most I ever been offered.

After they trucked the sheep, the bailiff gave me thirty shillings. That was more than I expected. I picked up my swag and went over and saw Dick McQuarie.

‘Dick,' I said, ‘how much you want for that old bike of yours?'

‘My old bike? Well, let me see, about thirty bob would do.'

I gave him my thirty bob and wheeled the bike across the railway line to Hancock's place. A local had imported the bike years ago from England and sold it to Dick. It had no tyres or tubes. I didn't mind. I had a bike and I was looking forward to my new job.

***

From 1913 to 1916, I worked for Hancock. In all that time I got no pay, only my tucker, and I worked damn hard. I never saw that ten bob a week he promised me. Most of the time I was there, I was freezing cold. We just lived in an old bough shed. There was no proper place to sleep and, in winter, the wind cut right through you. There was no getting away from it, no matter where you sat. I used to get old gallon tins and fill them with hot water, tie bags around them, then strap them to my feet. My feet felt the cold the most. Like ice, they were. I never had shoes. The tins gave some relief. I tell you, it's hard to keep warm in an open bough shed.

Most of my working time was spent clearing the land, seeding and cropping. It was hard work, but I was used to it. In between times, I made mud bricks for a hut with a chimney and fireplace. I used to tread the mud with my bare feet, and when a stick tickled my foot, I'd pull it out. If I didn't, the brick would crack. The bricks started to mount up. We dug out a hole inside to throw out the heat. Winter came and we'd used all the bricks, so we slept in the cellar. It sure was warmer than that shed. I felt like a king that winter.

While I was at Hancock's, I managed to get tyres and tubes for my bike. I fixed that bike up real good, oiled it and kept it nice. In my spare time I'd ride around all over the countryside, wherever my legs would take me, round and round they'd go, pushing those pedals to goodness knows where. I never planned on going anywhere in particular. I just liked riding round, looking at the land and the bush. It was what you'd call my entertainment. I met lots of different people when I was out. Most of them was friendly. ‘Gidday,' they'd say, or ‘Mornin'.' Course, you got some that weren't interested in talkin' to you, but I never let them worry me. I loved that bike, it made me feel real grand.

It was during my time at Hancock's that I met up with a Welshman named Davy Jones. He was working on the Trans Line, out on the Nullarbor Plain, and now and then he came to Nungarin to check on his land. It was at the time when Lord Kitchener had ordered all the States to be linked by railway line, in case of war. That way, they could help each other.

While Davy was working the Trans Line, the Land Department was trying to forfeit his land in Nungarin. That's why he visited Hancock so much. Davy couldn't write then, so he'd get Hancock to write letters for him. Excuses and reasons about why he was away and how he'd be working the land once the Trans Line was finished.

He didn't just talk to Hancock, he talked to me, as well. He seemed real friendly. More like a white blackfella, really. Sometimes when the three of us were together, I'd show off. I wasn't big, but I was strong and good with an axe. I'd say to Hancock and Davy, ‘I'll drop this big tree with my axe before you even get back to camp.' Camp was about twenty feet away. They'd laugh and walk off, but I always did it. I wasn't afraid of work.

Towards the end of three years with Hancock, I could see I wasn't getting anywhere. The hut was built by then, but I was still just getting me tucker, no money. I wasn't going nowhere. ‘Hancock,' I said to him one day, ‘how about paying me that money you owe me?' He went real quiet and looked at me. The year was 1916, it was the middle of winter and there was a flood on. After a while, he said, ‘Marble, you clear that forty acres of land I been wantin' cleared and I'll give you twelve pounds, no more, no less!'

Now he'd tried to get all sorts of people to clear that land. Nobody could do it. It was covered with big logs and stumps, and with the flood on, it was worth more like one hundred pounds, not twelve pounds! Trouble was, I knew he had me and he knew too. Where could I go, I had no money, no home. ‘Right,' I said, ‘I'll clear the land for you, as long as you pay me. For three years,
I been working for you, breaking my back and you never paid me yet. I got no choice, I got to stick with you or I got nothing.'

I don't think he believed I'd clear the land. He thought he'd have me there three more years, doing his work for him, building his house. He didn't know me. I worked from three hours before sunrise till sunset, clearing and burning. During that time, the flood got worse and the railway line was nearly washed away. Every day, I was soaking wet. My feet were like blocks of ice. Sometimes, the rain drove down so hard I couldn't see in front of me, but I kept going. I wasn't going to give up, it was my only way out. The job took me three weeks. I cleared that land by myself when no other man would, or could.

I showed Hancock the land, then asked him for my money. He couldn't believe I'd done it. He thought he'd beaten me. He didn't give me the money right away, but he kept me waiting, waiting, hoping I'd forget about it. He knew I'd leave as soon as he gave me the money. I kept asking him for my pay. In the end, he went to Perth and got the money from the bank. Then, he took out fifteen shillings a week board for the three weeks it had taken me to clear the land.

Despite the flood, 1916 was a good year for most farmers. There'd been drought earlier on, and maize, lucerne and crushed fodder had been imported from Argentina. There was none to be had around Northam. We couldn't get any from New South Wales either.

When Micky Farrell heard I'd left Hancock, he offered me work carting two hundred tons of chaff for twenty-five shillings a week. There were two wagons and a steam cutter and fifteen men on the job, but only me doing the carting. I wasn't afraid to work. The work with Micky only lasted two weeks. After that, I was looking for work again. Mr Williams gave me a job harvesting. I got two pounds a week for that. When that job wound up, I didn't know what I was going to do. I just hoped something would turn up. That was when I met up with Davy Jones again. I
hadn't seen him for quite a while. He told me he'd finished working on the Trans Line.

‘Marble,' he said, ‘why don't you come sharefarming with me. You buy the horses and harness and come and work my land with me.'

‘All right, Dave,' I said, ‘that suits me fine.' I had nothing else to do. I bought the horses and the harness and teamed up with Davy Jones.

He would've been stuck if he hadn't got me. He was a failure. He'd tried cropping his land before, but left it too late. He spent all his time putting in crops for Micky Farrell and Mr Lochlan to earn some money, but by the time he was free to put in his own crop, the season was just about at an end. Of course, the hot weather came. The crop only rose six inches before it was burnt off and that was the end of that.

When I started with Davy, I put in two hundred acres with my team. They were a good team, hard-working animals. As hard as me. I bought their feed and watered them and looked after them real well. That year, we had the best crops in the district. One paddock gave ten bags to the acre, the other seven bags. The lowest yield we got was eighteen bushels to the acre. From then on, we never looked back. All our crops were bumpers, right through till 1923.

Davy Jones became Mr Davy Jones of the Nungarin district. He was independent now. He didn't have to work for no one. When he was working on the Trans Line, he had a tiny little purse he kept with him in camp. It had all his money in it. Now, he was banking with Lloyds of London. He had money in his pockets and I had money in mine, but not as much. It was his land, but I did all the work. The only thing I owned was the team. My share after harvest was one quarter, Davy got the rest.

I saved all my money, never spent a penny. Pretty soon, I had enough to buy a farm. I bought a nice little farm in Mukinbudin.

I'll never forget Mucka when I first saw it, there was nothing
there. A few houses now and then, but nothing more. Later, I had the first truck there and I used to cart water for the townspeople from ten miles out. They didn't even have a pub till years later.

My name was good right through the district. Everyone knew I was a good worker. Later, I had six men working for me, clearing my land. I paid them out of a cheque book. I was the only farmer in the area to have a cheque book. All the other farmers were mortgaged to the bank, they had no say in their crop. They were all jealous of me, a black man, doing better than what they were. When I first bought the farm, they all made fun of me. ‘Where are you going to get stock from?' they'd call. ‘What would you know about farming?' they'd yell. They thought I knew nothin'. I proved them wrong.