Part 1 (2/2)
It is now about seven o'clock Mr Gordon moves forward As he does so, every man leans towards the open door of the pen in front of which he stands The bell sounds! With the first stroke each one of the seventyupon a sheep--has drawn it out--placed its head across his knee--and is working his shears as if the ”last ed, or tarred and feathered at the least Four minutes--James Steadman, who learned last year, has shorn down one side of his sheep; Jack Holai Bill are well down the other sides of theirs; when Billy May raises hih, and releases his sheep, perfectly clean-shorn froh the aperture of his separate enclosure With the same effort apparently he calls out 'Wool!' and darts upon another sheep Drawing this second victi wool of its neck A athered up fleece number one, and tossed it into the train-basket, the shearer is halfway down the sheep's side, the wool hanging in one fleece like a great glossywhether he did really shear the first sheep, or whether he had not a ready-shorn one in his coat-sleeve--like a conjuror
By this tiai Bill are 'out,' or finished; and the cry of ”Wool!' Wool!” see aisles of the shed, like a single note upon some rude instrument
Now and then the ”refrain” is varied by ”Tar!” being shouted instead, when a piece of skin is snipped off as well as the wool Great healing properties are attributed to this extract in the shed And if a shearer slice off a piece of flesh froravely anoints it with the universal remedy, and considers that the onus then lies with Providence, there being no h little time is lost, the men are by no means up to the speed which they will attain in a few days, when in full practice and training Their nerve, muscle, eye, endurance, will be all at, so to speak, concert-pitch, and sheep after sheep will be shorn with a precision and celerity even awful to the unprofessional observer
The unpastoral reader may be inforrand desiderata in shearing; the employer thinks principally of the latter, the shearer principally of the former To adjust equitably the proportion is one of those incomplete aspirations which torment humanity Hence the contest--old as human society--between labour and capital
This is the first day According to old-established custom, a kind of truce obtains It is before the battle, the ”salut,” when no hasty word or too deood taste Red Bill, Flash Jack, Je blades, more fa today with a painstaking precision, as of
Mr Gordonthe shearers with a paternal and gratified expression, occasionally hinting at slight i unqualified approval as a sheep is turned out shaven rather than shorn All goes on well Nothing is heard but expressions of goodwill and enthusiasnity of labour
One o'clock Mr Gordon moved on to the bell and sounded it At the first stroke several an to put on their coats One fellow of an alert nature (Master Jack Windsor) had just finished his sheep and was sharpening his shears, when his eye caught Mr Gordon's form in proximity to the final bell
With a bound like a wild cat, he reached the pen and drew out his sheep a bare second before the first stroke, aratulations of his coate at the same instant, but by the Median laas compelled to return sheepless He was cheered, but ironically Those whose sheep were in an unfinished stage quietly co off to their huts, where their board literally smoked with abundance
An hour passed The meal was concluded; the smoke was over; and thetheir shears by two o'clock Punctually at that hour the bell repeated its suthened its shadows; the shears clicked in tireless monotone; the pens filled and became empty The wool-presses yawned for the mountain of fleeces which filled the bins in front of therades of excellence, and continuously disgorged them, neatly and cubically packed and branded
At six o'clock the bell brought the day's work to a close The sheep of each man were counted in his presence, and noted doith scrupulous care, the record being written out in full and hung up for public inspection in the shed next day This ier, labourers and supernumeraries, betook themselves to their separate abodes, with such keen avoidance of delay that in fivelately so busy and populous, except the boys ere sweeping up the floor The silence of ages see at a rather earlier hour every man is at his post
Business is meant decidedly Now commences the delicate and difficult part of the superintendence which keeps Mr Gordon at his post in the shed, nearly froht to ten weeks
During the first day he has fore of each man's temper and workmanshi+p For now, and henceforth, the natural bias of each shearer will appear Some try to shear too fast, and in their haste shear badly Soe with the sheep, which do occasionally kick and become unquiet at critical tih Some shear very fairly and handsomely to a superficial eye, but co wool on” So carefully when overlooked, but ”racing” and otherwisedirectly the eye of authority is diverted These and many other tricks and defects require to be noted and abated, quietly but firer of the shed--firmly because evil would develop and spread ruinously if not checked; quietly because i differs froainst time, more especially in Riverina If the wool be not off the backs of the sheep before November, all sorts of draw-backs and destructions supervene The spear-shaped grass-seeds, specially formed as if in special collusion with the Evil One, hasten to bury themselves in the wool, and even in the flesh of the tender victims Dust rises in red clouds from the unmoistened, betraled From snohite to an unlovely dark brown turn the carefully washed fleeces, causing anathema from overseers and depreciation from brokers All these losses of te be protracted, it iven week
Hence, as in harvest with a short allowance of fair weather, discipline must be tempered with diploo Billy May, Abraha a weekly difference of perhaps two or three thousand sheep for the re Can you not replace the this present month of September and for every hour of October Till that tiate, except, perhaps, one or two useless, characterless men Are you to tolerate bad workmanshi+p? Not that either But try all other means with your men before you resort to harshness; and be quite certain that your sentence is just, and that you can afford the defection
So our friend Mr Gordon, wise from many tens of thousands of shorn sheep that have been counted out past his steady eye, criticises temperately, but watchfully He reproves sufficiently, and nofault; makes his calculation as to who are really bad shearers, and can be discharged without loss to the commonwealth, or who can shear fairly and can be coached up to a decent average One division, slow, and good only when slow, have to be watched lest they erief Then ”the talent” has to be mildly admonished from time to time lest they force the pace, set a bad exa” This last leads to slovenly shearing, ill-usage of the sheep, and general dissatisfaction
Tact, temper, patience, and firmness are each and all necessary in that Captain of Industry who has the very delicate and ih Gordon had shown all in such proportion as would have uished man anywhere, had fortune not adjusted for him this particular profession Calth, he was kind and considerate indishonesty or incivility Then the lion part of his nature woke up, so that it coressor As this was matter of public report, he had little occasion to spoil the repose of his bearing Day succeeds day, and for a fortnight the oes on smoothly and successfully The sheep arrive at an appointed day and hour by detachood boys on Saturday night, redolent of soap and water, and clean to a fault They enter the shed white and flossy as newly coe, sliibly branded with tar on their paper-white skins
The Anabanco world--stiffish but undaunted--is turning out of bed oneHa! what sounds are these? And why does the room look so dark?
Rain, as I'entle, preparatory to having (one of these days) an Anabanco of his own
”Well, this is a change, and I'm not sorry for one,” quoth Mr
Jack, ”I' Won't the shearers growl! No shearing to-day, and perhaps none tomorrow either”
Truth to tell, Mr Bowles' sentienuous boso stopped ”just as a s” Those who are in top pace and condition don't like it But toup to and a little beyond their strength--ho apparent, it is a relief, and they are glad of the respite So at dinner-tiht in anticipation of such a contingency, are reported shorn All hands are then idle for the rest of the day The shearers dress and avail theo to look at their horses, now in clover, or its equivalent, in the Riverina graminetue proportion of the Australians having ar's worth of stalected or desirable correspondents Many a letter for Mrs Leftalone, Wallaroo Creek, or Miss Jane Sweetapple, Honeysuckle Flat, as the caseto a round or tith the gloves; while to complete the variety of recreations compatible with life at a woolshed, a selected troupe are busy in the coedy and a farce, hich they intend, the very next rainy day, to astonish the population of Anabanco
At the home-station a truce to labour's ”alarms” is proclaimed except in the case and person of Mr de Vere So far is he froeneral holiday that he finds the store thronged with shearers, washers, and ”knock-about o and buy sohtly at having no rest like other people
”That's all very fine,” says Mr Jack Bowles, who, seated on a case, is ss, ”but what have you got to do e're all HARD AT WORK at the shed?” He speaks with an air of great iht, Mr Bowles,” chimes in one of the shearers, ”stand up for the shed I never see a young gentlerowls de Vere, ”as if anybody couldn't gallop about froive half of the!
Why, Mr Gordon said the other day, he should have to take you off and put on a Chinaman--that he couldn't make , de Vere, because you think I'ood-natured Bowles, ”Mr Gordon's going to send 20,000 sheep, after shearing, to the Lik Lak paddock, and he said I should go in charge”
”Charge be hanged!” laughs de Vere, with two very bright-patterned Crimean shi+rts, one in each hand, which he offers to a tall young shearer for inspection ”There's a well there, and whenever either of the two ets sick or runs away, you'll have to work the whim in his place, till another man's sent out, if it's a month”