"Where would I be now if I had n't used me head this last season ?" He paused for an answer.

None came.
"I say," he continued, "it's a mistake to think nothing's to be made at farming, and any man" ("Come to supper, D--AD!"-- 't was Sal's voice) "ought t' get on where there's land like this." "LAND!" said the same man--"where IS it ?" "Where IS it ?" Dad warmed up--"where IS N'T it?
Is n't this land ?" (Looking all round.) "Is n't the whole country land from one end to the other?
And is there another country like it anywhere ?" "There is n't!" said the man.
"Is there any other country in th' WORLD" (Dad lifted his voice) "where a man, if he likes, can live" ("Dad, tea!") "without a shilling in his pocket and without doing a tap of work from one year's end to the other ?" Anderson did n't quite understand, and the weird man asked Dad if he meant "in gaol." "I mean," Dad said, "that no man should starve in this country when there's kangaroos and bears and"-- (Joe came and stood beside Dad and asked him if he was DEAF)--"and goannas and snakes in thousands.

Look here!" (still to the weird man), "you say that farming"-- (Mother, bare-headed, came out and stood beside Joe, and asked Anderson if Mrs.
Anderson had got a nurse yet, and Anderson smiled and said he believed another son had just arrived, but he had n't seen it)--"that farming don't pay"-- (Sal came along and stood near Mother and asked Anderson who the baby was like)--"don't pay in this country ?" The man nodded.
"It will pay any man who----" Interruption.
Anderson's big dog had wandered to the house, and came back with nearly all that was for supper in his mouth.
Sal squealed.
"DROP IT--DROP IT, Bob!" Anderson shouted, giving chase.

Bob dropped it on the road.
"DAMN IT!" said Dad, glaring at Mother, "wot d' y' ALL want out 'ere ?...Y-YOU brute!" (to the dog, calmly licking its lips).
Then Anderson and the two men went away.
But when we had paid sixty pounds to the storekeeper and thirty pounds in interest; and paid for the seed and the reaping and threshing of the wheat; and bought three plough-horses, and a hack for Dave; and a corn-sheller, and a tank, and clothes for us all; and put rations in the house; and lent Anderson five pounds; and improved Shingle Hut; and so on; very little of the two hundred pounds was left.
Mother spoke of getting a cow.

The children, she said, could n't live without milk and when Dad heard from Johnson and Dwyer that Eastbrook dairy cattle were to be sold at auction, he said he would go down and buy one.
Very early.