The River Charm (6 page)

6

The Sheep Wash

 

October, 1839

Dandy Jack arrived at the kitchen door, his blue shirt wet and muddy. He took his hat off and smiled at Bridget, who was scrubbing a pot at the stone sink, soap suds up to her elbows.

‘Excuse me, ma'am,' he said to Mamma, slicking his hair back with one hand. ‘Mister Ash sent me up to fetch the food for the men. We're all hungry and parched.'

‘Thank you, Jack,' replied Mamma, beckoning him into the kitchen. ‘It is all here ready for you. You may carry the basket with the beef, if you please? Bridget, can you manage the puddings?'

Three large joints of meat had been roasted, wrapped in cloth and deposited in a basket, along with a cutting board and some long, sharp carving knives. A smaller basket held two massive plum puddings that had been steaming in their bowls for hours.

Bridget nodded, wiping her hands on a cloth and hefting the basket onto her hip. ‘Yes, o' course, ma'am.'

‘Is Mr Barton coming down to inspect the washing, ma'am?' asked Dandy Jack, flashing a grin at Bridget. ‘It's nearly midday.'

More than 2000 sheep had been mustered in from all over the main estate and their sheep stations in the surrounding area. Washing the wool prior to the annual shearing was vital to ensure the best possible price for the clip. The washing and the subsequent shearing were two of the biggest events on the Oldbury farming calendar.

‘No,' Mamma replied, tucking a pot of mustard in with the beef. ‘Regrettably, Mr Barton is indisposed today. I went down early this morning to check on the progress and will come again now that the food is ready. Is everything going smoothly?'

‘Hard, backbreaking work, as usual,' complained Dandy Jack. ‘I'll be glad when it's finished.'

Mamma frowned and rubbed her forehead. ‘Well, better hard work than starving,' she replied. ‘Emily, would you fetch the bread from the pantry, if you please?'

The girls carried flat cane baskets filled with loaves of bread, slabs of butter and knives. Louisa was entrusted with the canvas bag containing the tin mugs for tea and a small sack of sugar.

They could hear the deafening sounds of the washing long before they could see it. Hundreds of sheep bleated plaintively to their lambs. Men yelled and called instructions. Water sloshed and splashed. Dogs barked.

The men had set up temporary pens that were filled with unwashed sheep, their heavy fleeces matted with muck. The creek at this point had steep, rocky sides. A rough dam of boulders and soil had been constructed to capture the winter rains, forming a wide waterhole warmed by the spring sunshine.

Mamma directed the girls to set the baskets down in the shade with Bridget to mind them, then she led them to the half-full pen to inspect the sheep.

James was helping Charley tend to a campfire with a huge kettle suspended over the coals. When he saw them, James ran over. His clothes were soaked to the skin, his hair was sticking out from under his hat, and his face was flushed. He had been down helping the men since dawn. It was the first year he was old enough to join in.

‘Mamma, come and see the sheep,' called James. ‘We have washed hundreds and hundreds of them, and John was knocked over by a big ram who escaped before he was washed, and we had to chase after him. The dogs were so clever and brought the ram back, meek as a lamb. And Mr Ash said I did a fine job.'

‘Hello, James,' called Mamma, ruffling his damp hair. ‘It sounds like you are having a wonderful time. Have you minded everything Mr Ash has told you?'

‘It has been so much fun,' James said. ‘I've been helping herd the sheep down into the water and running errands and washing some of the smaller ewes.'

Mr Ash, the superintendent, came over to greet Mamma, raising his cabbage tree hat. ‘Master James has been a good young stock hand this morning, ma'am,' he assured her with a grin. ‘We'll make a good farmer out of him yet.'

‘I hope he will be, just like his father,' confessed Mamma with a fond glance at her son.

‘May I wash our pet lambs too, please, Mamma?' asked Louisa, looking up with excitement. ‘They look so pretty, all fresh and white.'

‘It's a little rough down in the sheep wash today, Miss Louisa,' explained Mr Ash. ‘But perhaps you can wash the lambs in the yards tomorrow. I'll get one of the men to carry up some buckets of water for you.'

‘I can use our lavender soap and they'll smell beautiful,' Louisa decided, bouncing from one foot to another.

‘Charlotte and I will help you, poppet,' said Emily with a smile. ‘Then we can walk them around the orchard on leads made of ribbon while their coats dry.'

Mr Ash grinned at the image. ‘I'm glad we don't have to give the whole flock that kind of special treatment,' he joked. ‘It would take us months to get the job done.'

‘How is the washing proceeding?' asked Mamma, her brow creased.

The two leant on the rails of the stock pen, checking the milling ewes and rams. Charlotte and James climbed up on the rail, their legs hanging down inside the pen. A shepherd was using a long timber crook and his dog to separate out individual beasts and send them down the race towards the water.

‘When this pen is empty, we will have washed four hundred sheep,' said Mr Ash. ‘We should finish another three hundred this afternoon, so it should take us three days to do them all.'

Mamma nodded, gazing out over the crowded pens. ‘How does the wool look so far?' she asked, feeling the dirty fleece of an unwashed ewe pressed against the railing.

‘It looks excellent,' replied Mr Ash. ‘We should get a good yield.'

‘Well, let's pray the wool prices improve,' said Mamma with a frown. ‘The prices in Sydney so far this year have been dreadful. Our agent says if they do not improve soon it will not be worth shipping the wool to England.'

‘It's much worse out west where the drought is really bad,' said Mr Ash. ‘At least we've had rain. Things must improve soon.'

Mamma bit her lip and pushed away from the railing.

‘How are the men?' Mamma asked briskly. ‘Are they managing tolerably?'

‘They are tired and hungry, so I hope you have loads of food for us!'

‘Enough to feed an entire army, I assure you,' Mamma replied.

‘I'm starving,' chipped in James, looking at the baskets with hungry eyes.

‘It's not time for the meal break yet, dearest,' Mamma reproved. James looked crestfallen. ‘But here is a little morsel to keep you going.' She tore off a crust of bread and handed it to James, who gobbled it down. ‘There is beef and mustard and plum pudding to go with that when the job is done.'

‘We'll just finish this pen of sheep and then we'll break for dinner,' said Mr Ash. ‘There's a nice shady spot under that tree where you'll get a good view without being in the way.'

‘Thank you, Mr Ash,' said Mamma.

‘Come, on Master James,' said Mr Ash. ‘Time to get back to work.'

James ran back to join Charley at the fire.

The girls spread a blanket under the shade of one of the trees and watched the action in the waterhole below. One by one the sheep were urged down a timber race towards the creek. Once in the water, all the air in the fleece made the sheep float.

The men stood thigh-deep in water in a line across the waterhole, swinging each sheep from hand to hand and vigorously rubbing their woolly coats to wash away the dirt and muck. On the other side of the creek, two burly shepherds pulled the drenched sheep from the water and squeezed the excess water from the fleece with their hands.

It was hot, exhausting work as the unwilling sheep struggled and the sodden coats made them even heavier. Once the sheep had been rubbed down, they were reunited with their lambs on the other side and released into the grassy paddock to dry in the sunshine.

The girls watched until the pen was empty and the last sheep was released. Then they helped Mamma and Bridget serve the midday meal for the men, carrying around the baskets of bread and platters of roast beef.

Charlotte overheard Dandy Jack talking to one of the convict stock hands sitting on a rock overlooking the waterhole.

‘Another two days of this, a week to dry them off, then shearing starts next week,' complained Dandy Jack. ‘I'll be glad when the whole lot is sold off.'

‘We'll just be consigned to someone else when the stock is gone,' replied the other. ‘I hope the lawyers find someone decent to lease the property and they keep us on.'

‘I heard the sheep were passed in at the auction in Sydney last week,' retorted Dandy Jack. ‘No one bid on the sheep or the leasehold on the property. They didn't think the stock could be much good with Barton in charge.'

Charlotte stiffened, her heart lifting with excitement.
The sheep haven't been sold. Perhaps if no one buys the sheep, they can stay here and we can stay too.

‘Humph,' snorted the stock hand. ‘As if he's in charge. He hasn't come out to see the stock in months. He's only interested in hunting and drinking.'

‘It's better when he stays away,' said Dandy Jack. ‘He's a harsh man.'

The two stockmen started puffing on their pipes, and Charlotte returned to join her family under the tree.

 

On Saturday afternoon it was supply day. Shepherds and stockmen, farm labourers and sawyers had ridden to the homestead from the huts on the estate and the far-flung outstations to collect their rations and gossip for the week. Some of the men had ridden a full day for their week's supply of flour, sugar, tea, salt beef and tobacco.

The estate employed dozens of people – both convicts and free labourers – to herd the large flocks of sheep, cattle and horses, and to tend and harvest the crops of wheat, barley, oats, turnips, hay and peas. In addition, there were sawyers, carpenters, stonemasons, blacksmiths and bricklayers, whose jobs were to cut timber, clear paddocks, build fences, mend tools and construct outbuildings. Many of these men lived isolated lives in huts and camps out in the bush, while others lived in the workers' huts along the creek.

Mr Ash had unlocked the storehouse – one of the outbuildings behind the main house – and was super­vising the weighing of flour, sugar and tea into smaller calico sacks with the help of Charley. The crowded, dim room was stacked to the rafters with casks, kegs, sacks, crates and barrels brought down from Sydney by dray. Motes of dust danced in the shaft of sunlight that streamed through the open doorway.

The storehouse had a counter with weights and measures like a shop. In addition to the basic food rations they received from the estate, the men were also able to purchase other foodstuffs with their wages, such as currants, sardines, pickles and jam.

Charlotte had been sent to fetch a bag of tea for the kitchen pantry, but she dawdled about the chore, enjoying the escape from the baking in the kitchen. She waited outside in the warm spring sunshine, petting one of the orphan wallabies and lazily letting the sights and sounds wash over her. Dandy Jack and O'Brien the sawyer were standing just inside the door, chatting and smoking their pipes.

‘Did you hear another shepherd's been murdered by the blacks down south at Hume River?' said Dandy Jack. ‘Speared.'

‘Poor blighter,' replied the sawyer, stroking his thick, bushy beard. ‘The natives move quiet as ghosts. He never had a chance.'

‘They say they found the blacks and wiped out the whole camp,' Dandy Jack continued. ‘Men, women and children.'

‘That's what they should do here – wipe out the whole danged lot of them.'

‘Missus wouldn't stand for that,' retorted Dandy Jack. ‘She's given strict orders that none of the natives are to be touched.'

The sawyer spat in the dust. ‘All right for her, safe in the big house,' he complained. ‘What about us living out in the bush? The natives keep spearing the bullocks.'

‘If it's not the natives spearing the stock, then it's the bushrangers shooting them, or the neighbours moon­lighting – it's all the same to me.'