A rich man driving his buggy past our home might see the tin trunk in the yard and the pumpkins growing on the skillion roof but he would never imagine all my father’s issue the great number of us packed behind the curtains breathing the same air snoring farting blind and deaf to each other as a newborn litter.
I had long taught myself to be deaf to my parents’ private business but after digging up that trunk I would stay awake at night listening to my mother and my father talking.
I learned not a thing about the dress I discovered it were land my parents whispered about and in particular the Duffy Land Act of 1862 it gave a man or widow the right to select a block between 50 and 640 acres for £1 per acre part payable on selection the rest over 8 yr. My mother were for it but my father were against it he said the great Charles Gavan Duffy was a well intentioned idiot leading poor men into debt and lifelong labour. He were correct as it happened but when my mother abused my da for cowardice the terrible turmoil in my heart were somehow soothed. Only a simpleton she said would try to farm 20 acres like my da were doing. I thought yes you must be a mighty fool.
This debate about the Land Act were life or death and my mother enlisted her family who was presently our neighbours but in the midst of buying land far away in the North East.
The Quinns was purchasing 1,000 acres at Glenmore on the King River they was Irish and therefore drunk with land and fancy horses all the old hardships soon to be forgotten. The Quinn women come visiting with soda bread and surveyor’s maps the men was tall and reckless they cursed and sang they fought anyone they did not like and rode thoroughbreds they could not afford to buy. My uncle Jimmy Quinn were a man by now there were a dreadful wildness in his eyes like a horse that has been tortured. The Quinns would of tossed my father down the well if they had seen the dress but they chivvied and joked and finally prevailed upon him to sell everything he owned in Beveridge he got a total of £80.
But when my da finally had the cash put in his hand the thought of giving the government so large a sum were more than he could bear and when the new owners arrived to take possession he borrowed a cart and shifted us to rented land on the outskirts of the township of Avenel. So while my mother’s brothers and sisters went on to farm 1,000 virgin acres at Glenmore my father transported us 60 mi. to a district of English snobs and there to my mother’s great outrage he slowly pissed away the 80 quid on rent and booze. I were his flesh and he must of felt me draw further away but he were proud and did not try to win me back.
The question of our lost opportunity were now always present my mother could not leave it alone my father would sit solid in his chair and quietly rub the belly of his big black cat. I am thinking now of one night in particular when he broke his silence.
Your family arent bad fellows said he at last.
If you’re planning to speak ill of them you can stop right there.
Oh I aint got nothing against them personal.
Of course not they was always good to you.
I’m sure the land will do the job. Them rocks aint nothing but the land can’t touch this land Ellen.
And us with no meat but the adjectival possums.
We aint got beef its true.
Not even mutton.
But do you notice we aint got no police? Now thats an interesting thing I wonder why that is do you imagine your family is as lucky up at Glenmore?
Oh no not this again.
Well you must agree the Quinns attract the traps as surely as rabbit guts will bring the flies.
My mother shrieked a plate or cup were dashed against the wall.
Well Ellen said he I know you’re very low about your farm but I would rather die than go to prison.
You great galoot no one wants to put you in prison.
So you say.
No one she cried her voice rising. Are you mad?
And why was the traps always visiting us do you imagine?
You have been a free man 15 yr. they don’t want you back again.
The Quinns bring attention its the truth.
O you adjectival worm.
My mother were now sobbing Maggie also I could hear her little rabbit noises on the far side of the curtain. Then my mother said my father would rather his children starve than take a risk and beside me Jem pulled his pillow tight across his ears.
The land were very good at Avenel but there were a drought and nothing flourished there but misery I were the oldest son I thought it time to earn my place.
There were no dam or spring upon our property each day I took the cows to water them at Hughes Creek. In a good year it would of made a pretty picture but in the drought that creek were no more than a chain of sandy waterholes. It were across this dry river bed that Mr Murray’s heifer calf come calling out my name I were very hungry when I heard her and knew what I must do. I had never killed nothing bigger than a rooster but when I saw the long line of the heifer’s crop above the blackberries I knew I could not be afraid of nothing. Her eye were a little wild but she was a poll Hereford and very sleek. I later heard that Mr Murray had made a great investment on her and poddied her with corn and hay which must be true for there were no feed in any of his paddocks and although he owned 500 acres his stock was out grazing on the roadsides finding what nourishment they could. I did not care I bailed her up and led her down the creek into a thick stand of wattles with a clearing in the centre. She did not like the rope around her neck she fought and bucked and would of done herself a damage had I not bound her hind legs and tied them to a wattle trunk. She began to bellow terribly. Soon she were trussed up like a Christmas chook but I had no pity nor did I have a knife. I ran up through the scrub to fetch one from the hut. Inside my mother were occupied trying to plug the spaces between the slabs with clay and straw so I took the carving knife from beneath her very nose she never even noticed.
Said she Theres one of Murray’s beasts caught down the creek.
You must be mistaken.
I can hear it bellowing from here.
I said I would attend to it and let her know.
Within the year I would of learned to kill a beast very smart and clean and have its hide off and drying in the sun before you could say Jack Robertson but on this 1st occasion I failed to find the artery. I’m sure you know I have spilled human blood when there were no other choice at that time I were no more guilty than a soldier in a war. But if there was a law against the murder of a beast I would plead guilty and you would be correct to put the black cap on your head for I killed my little heifer badly and am sorry for it still. By the time she fell her neck was a sea of laceration I will never forget the terror in her eyes.
And this is how my ma found me with the poor dead creature at my feet and my hair and shirt soaked with blood and gore.
We have beef I said we’ll feast on her.
But my words was bolder than my upset heart and I were very pleased she relieved me of the bloody knife I didnt know what next to do having not the faintest idea of how to butcher the heifer and yet not wanting the privilege to go elsewhere. My mother took my gory hand and led me across the dusty paddock to the hut and after tying up the dogs she ministered to me with soap and water all the time berating me and saying I were a very bad boy and she was angry with me etc. etc. but this were for the benefit of the other children who was listening at the door and watching through the chinks between the logs. My ma cleaned me so very gentle with the washer I knew she must be pleased.
Of course Annie could be relied upon to tell my father what I had done before he even got the saddle off his horse. He had been delivering butter to people with English names a job that always put him out of temper so when Annie showed him the dead beast he come inside to give me a hiding with his belt a mark on my leg I carry to this day. When it were dark he took a lantern down by the creek and skinned and butchered my beast and carried the 4 quarters back across the paddock one at a time and then burned the head and hung the hide and cut out the MM brand so none could accuse us of stealing Murray’s heifer. He salted down what meat would fit into a barrel and the rest he ordered my mother to cook at once.
All through this Annie would not speak to me even Maggie kept her distance but very late that night we had a mighty feast of beef and I noticed it were not just my excited brothers who ate their fill.
2 days later I were sent home from school at lunch time to collect my homework which I had forgot again I found a strange bay mare tethered beneath our peppercorn tree it had VR embroidered on the saddlecloth in silver Victoria Regina. I knew it were the police. I entered the hut and my father were sitting in his usual chair watching a lanky fair haired Constable spreading out the heifer’s hide across our table.
Come on John said Constable Doxcy putting his hand right through the hole where the brand had been. John we know whats missing here.
As you can see said my father I slaughtered a cow and made a greenhide whip.
Ah you made a whip.
Correct my father said but did not protest or struggle against the accusation.
So be a good fellow will you John and bring me the whip.
My father did not say nothing he did not move he stared at the Constable with puffy eyes.
Perhaps you never made a whip at all.
O I must of lost it.
Must of lost it.
I’ll bring it up to you soon as I find it.
More likely it were the brand John. Did you cut out Mr Murray’s brand?
No I made a whip.
Did you ever hear of Act 7 and Act 8 George IV No 29?
I don’t know.
It is a law John it says that if you duff another fellow’s heifer then you’re going to go to adjectival gaol and you can bring me any adjectival whip you like but unless it can fill this hole exactly John you’re going in the adjectival lockup. We don’t like Irish thieves in Avenel.
I can’t bear prison my father spoke as plainly as a man who don’t like Brussels sprouts.
Well thats a shame said Doxcy as he moved towards him.
I done it I said I thrust myself forward.
I put my hand on Doxcy’s hard black shoulder belt and he rested his hand upon my arm.
You’re a good boy Jim said he.
I’m Ned I done it.
The policeman asked my father Is this so?
But my father would say nothing he were like some creature drugged by spiders.
I turned back to Doxcy demanding he arrest me and he laughed ruffling my hair and smiling a foolish sentimental smile.
Pack up your things John he said to my father you can bring a blanket and a pannikin and spoon.
I done it I said the brand were MM I done it with the carving knife.
Shutup my father says his eyes now alive and angry. Shut your gob go back to school.
Thus were Father taken from me handcuffed to the stirrup iron of Doxcy’s mare.
In the days before our father were imprisoned we Kelly children would walk to school along the creek but now we took a new path through the police paddock where the lockup stood. Apart from this stockade the paddock had no feature other than a dreary mound of clay which marked the grave of Doxcy’s mare. Even this miserable sight my father were denied for there was not one window in them heavy walls. At 1st we would shout out to him but never got any answer and finally we all give up excepting Jem who run his hands along the frost cold walls patting the prison like a dog.
I dreamed about my father every night he come to sit on the end of my bed and stare at me his puffy eyes silent his face lacerated by a thousand knife cuts.
I were so v. guilty I could never of admitted that life without my father had become in many ways more pleasant. Only when his big old buck cat went missing did I frankly tell my ma I were pleased to see it gone.
Do not misunderstand me our lives was far harder for his absence. The landlord provided no decent fences so the mother and her children was obliged to build a dogleg fence 2 mi. long to save our cows from impounding. In any case our stock would still escape the fines was 5/– for a cow 3/– for a pig. This we could ill afford. Our mother were expecting another baby she were always weary yet more tender than before. At night she would gather us about her and tell us stories and poems she never done that when my da were away shearing or contracting but now we discovered this treasure she had committed to her memory. She knew the stories of Conchobor and Dedriu and Mebd the tale of Cuchulainn I still see him stepping into his war chariot it bristles with points of iron and narrow blades with hooks and hard prongs and straps and loops and cords.
The southerly wind blew right through the hut and it were so bitter it made your head ache though it aint the cold I remember but the light of the tallow candle it were golden on my mother’s cheeks it shone in her great dark eyes bright and fierce as a native cat to defend her fatherless brood. In the stories she told us of the old country there was many such women they was queens they was hot blooded not careful they would fight a fight and take a king into their marriage bed. They would have been called Irish rubbish in Avenel.
Our mother grew bigger. We boys laboured beside her in the garden it were a good loam soil and we was set to improve it further. That 1st winter we had parsnips and potatoes only. We had to sell the wagon and 2 horses but kept our small herd of dairy cows. We produced 2 lb. of butter per day but rarely had anything except lard for our own bread. Jem and I tramped into town and back delivering the butter on foot walking right past our father’s lockup not calling out to him no more. Each day I waited for the night to fall who can imagine from where happiness will come?
On the 5th of August 1865 I come home in the loud dripping dark. It had been raining already for a week the creek were a river roaring so I did not hear Mother’s cries until I were at the door. I picked up a shovel and inside I discovered her lying on the earthen floor. When she saw me she sat up and explained she was beginning to have her baby. The handy woman were already gone to Hobbs’ Creek for another birth so my mother had sent Maggie to borrow the Murrays’ horse and ride to fetch old Dr May. That were 2 hr. previous and now the pain was very bad and my mother feared Maggie had been thrown off the horse or drowned crossing the creek.