The Yellow Dog
When I was a country parson in the early 1960’s of the little country church in the little country town of Ararat, gateway to the Wimmera, I taught Religious Instruction each week in the one teacher bush school at Jacksons Creek.
Jacksons Creek was a typical one teacher country school that was still to be found in those days throughout the bush. The one teacher, who had been there for more that 20 years in 1964, was Miss Pat Bradley. She was a no nonsense, country girl made teacher who had dedicated her life to the education of the children in the area where she had grown up.
Miss Bradley was strongly built with good arms, big hands that were used to milking for perhaps the previous 30 years. She wore sensible lace-up walking shoes with flat heels, lisle stockings, and it seemed the same dresses. She was a good hearted Christian who devoted her life to her pupils and when the weekend came spent Saturdays working with the church youth groups and Sundays teaching Sunday School.
Miss Pat Bradley’s whole life centred around children except for when she went back to her parents’ farm which she half ran under the watchful eye of her frail, failing father.
I was a country parson that came out to the little one teacher bush school to teach religious education each Thursday morning. I was a university graduate and had been teaching classes in secondary school for six years. After a week or so Miss Bradley saw that I could cope with the ten, eleven or twelve children who happened to be there and asked if I would mind taking charge for an hour or two while she would slip into Ararat to do the school banking and a few other chores she had to do. That worked well with me and I started a regular routine where I became the teacher for all of Thursday morning while Miss Bradley went into town to do whatever she had to do.
She left me with a good standby “While you are teaching one class your lesson, get the other children to read the next section in the School Reader”, she said. I knew the School Reader fairly well because I had been brought up with it. The School Reader used by the Victorian Education Department, was first issued in 1930 and it was used regularly up until the end of the 60’s. Each child had a School Reader according to their grade and the School Reader became the means of keeping the rest of the classes busy while I taught at an appropriate level. Each week I gave the same lesson three times but adjusted to the advancing grades within the school. The eleven kids were scattered over eight grades.
There was one obvious difference between the kids at the Jacksons Creek School and the kids who attended the schools where I had taught Religious Instruction in the city and that was the kids in the country always had a close affinity with animals.
There was always plenty of animal life around the Jacksons Creek School, some of it a bit closer than one would wish. The Jacksons Creek School had most of the ceiling in but at the back of the classroom there was a long gap where there were no ceiling boards. It was almost as if the builders had run out of boards before they completed nailing up the lining boards for the rest of the ceiling, but in fact this was part of an unique form of air-conditioning for the school. If you looked underneath the blackboard at the other end of the classroom you would notice that between the top of the platform and the bottom of the cupboards underneath the blackboard there was also another wide gap. Some thin pieces of wood with gaps an inch wide between them filled in the area which stopped anything rolling underneath the cupboards but in fact those gaps were open to the underneath of the school. The idea was that on very hot days air would be drawn from shaded area underneath the classroom, through the gaps at the bottom of the blackboard and the air would then circulate through the classroom with the hot air going out the back through the space in the ceiling at the rear of the room. It would then sit underneath the hot iron sheets of the school roof until it eventually made its way out into the atmosphere. It was primitive and it worked – especially in winter!
No matter what you did with this unique air circulation system it worked very well in winter. The fire at the front corner of the classroom could roar all it liked but the hot air it generated simply went out through the back of the classroom and up into the roof. The teacher sitting at her desk on the platform had cold air coming in at her back from the grill under-neath the cupboards. That was why I found that Miss Pat Bradley had stuffed a long blanket underneath the cupboard immediately behind her desk. At least she did her best to keep the draughts at bay.
But the point about the big gap in the ceiling at the back had not so much to do with the flow of air but the animal life that inhabited the ceiling of the school. This was the warmest place in winter and arriving through that gap in the ceiling was the warmest air for miles around. Consequently the ceiling of the school became home to a couple of goannas who loved to lie on the rafters and sleep in the warmth, and a variety of other wild life and bird life who would take shelter from the winter rain. The goannas were a bit disconcerting because while they would lie along the rafters their tails would hang down and for any city-bred minister the site of those hanging tails at the back of the classroom was enough to throw one off the lesson.
The kids were all encouraged to be part of the Gould League of Bird Lovers. Once a year we were sent a box of pretty badges with birds featured on them and the teacher was responsible for selling them to the students. As far as the badge was concerned they were pretty expensive out Jacksons Creek way -I think they were two shillings each. It seemed a lot for the badge but on the other hand we recognised there was a good cause to be supported although we were not quite sure what the Gould League of Bird Lovers actually did. All we knew was that if we were members of the Gould League of Bird Lovers we weren’t expected to raid the nests of birds, we were expected to provide an ambulance service when one was found with a broken wing, there were never to be any actions such as would threaten or endanger the life of one of God’s pretty creatures.
A moment of shame came for the school the previous year when Tom Bethridge, our big, strapping, Eighth Grader, was caught shooting magpies with his air rifle. Miss Bradley drummed him out of the Gould League of Bird Lovers and demanded his badge back.
The Gould League of Bird Lovers used to circulate a magazine and sometimes with the younger classes I would get them to colour in the pictures. Of course they all wanted to colour the rosellas first but I made it a point of discipline that only when they neatly coloured in the currawongs and magpies black and white with blue sky and green branches, were they allowed to go on to the more prettily coloured rosellas.
It wasn’t that Tom Bethridge was against birds. It was just that he liked rifles. Anything that moved was likely to be shot by Tom and we had to make a firm law against bringing his air rifle to school.
Outside in the school yard there were always a couple of horses. The O’Rourke children, whose father Paddy managed a scrub farm out Maroona way, always came on two horses. Michael and young Timothy came riding one horse together and Seamus and Colleen rode the other together. They rode bareback and they rode like natives.
On a hot day nothing moved around Jacksons Creek except the flies, but when it was wet or when the wind blew then the animals got restless, especially the three or four dogs who used to sleep around the foot of the stairs at the back of the school. On a cold day the dogs seemed to fight. On a hot day they just slept.
I don’t know how we got onto the subject of dogs but one day, in the middle of what I thought was a pretty good Religious Instruction lesson on the Sermon on the Mount, I had come to the teaching of Jesus where He spoke about the sparrows of the air and the lilies of the field. I was interrupted by Jason Bethridge, who was my sole representative of Grade 7, asking the usual question designed to get me off the track: “Did Jesus have a dog, sir?” When, as if on cue, two of the dogs outside the door started a dreadful fight. The noise was incredible and it sounded like one dog was being dispatched to its eternal destination. I said to Tom Bethridge, the oldest and biggest boy, “Quickly, Tom, go out and separate them.” Tom was out the door like a shot. Five seconds later there was an incredible yelp from a dog, followed by a whole series of whimpers. It was as if the dog had been shot and lay mortally wounded although my guess was Tom’s boot had found the mark and separated the two warring canines.
The point and purpose of the lesson had been lost. Once more the carefully prepared Religious Instruction lesson lay in ruins defeated by a combination of goanna tails hanging from the ceiling and wounded dogs outside.
If there is one thing I can do, it is to recognise when I am beaten. I closed the Bible and turned to the children and said, “Michael, bring out your School Reader. There is a story there you should know about a dog.” I asked the Tynan twins and the young O’Rourkes to come and sit down at the edge of the platform and I sat back in Miss Pat Bradley’s comfortable teacher’s chair.
I look around at my dusty group of children and said, “Do any of you know where there are any gold shafts around here?” Instantly the hands of each student went up into the air. There were lots of gold shafts around Jacksons Creek. Mullock heaps were everywhere. There had been a tremendous strike at Dunkeld and a hundred thousand miners had come to that area, and that was only a little over 50 years ago. Out at Mount Ararat and along the river banks of Mount Langi Ghiran, and all the way along Jacksons Creek there were mullock heaps and some still quite deep miners shafts. The farmers didn’t mind a few good deep mining shafts because it became the natural tip for all the rubbish that accumulates on a farm. “Well I want to tell you a story about a couple of men down Ballarat way who were sinking a shaft at Stony Creek.”
“Dave Regan, Jim Bentley, and Andy Page were sinking a shaft at Stony Creek in search of a rich quartz reef that was supposed to exist in the vicinity.”“The creek held plenty of fish, providing both sport and food for the men. There came a time, however, when the fish, for some reason best known to themselves, refused to bite. The creek at this time was reduced to a series of water-holes, and Dave, who was subject to what are popularly known as ‘brain waves’, conceived the idea of blowing the fish up with a cartridge similar to those which they used for blasting the rock.”
“He thought the thing out, and Andy worked it out, making the cartridge about three times the ordinary size, Jim Bentley remarking that it was big enough to blow the bottom out of the river. After covering the thing with several coatings of canvas and tallow, Andy stood it carefully against a tent peg and wound the fuse loosely around it. Then he went to the camp fire to try some potatoes which were boiling in a ‘billy’.”
“Dave and Jim were at work in the claim that morning. They had a big black young retriever dog, a big, foolish, four-footed mate, who was always slobbering round them and lashing their legs with his heavy tail, which swung round like a stock-whip. He seemed to take life, the world, and his own instinct as a huge joke. He’d retrieve anything: he carted back most of the camp rubbish that Andy threw away.”
“He watched Andy with great interest while the cartridge was being made, then went off to meet Dave and Jim. Andy was cook that day; Dave and Jim stood with their backs to the fire waiting till dinner should be ready. The retriever went nosing round after something he seemed to have missed. Presently, Dave glanced over his shoulder to see how the chops were doing – and bolted. Jim looked behind, and bolted after Dave. Andy stood stock still, staring after them.”
“”Run, Andy, run!” they shouted.”Look behind you, you fool!” Andy turned slowly and looked, and there, close behind him, was the retriever with the cartridge in his mouth – wedged into his broadest and silliest grin. But that wasn’t all. The dog had come round the fire to Andy, and the loose end of the fuse had trailed over the burning sticks, and the firing end was now hissing and spitting properly.”
“Andy’s legs started with a jolt, and he made after Dave and Jim. The dog followed Andy, leaped and capered round him, delighted to find his mates, as he thought, ready for a frolic.”
“They could never explain why they followed each other; but so they ran, Dave keeping in Jim’s track, Andy after Dave, and the dog circling round Andy – the live fuse swishing in all directions and hissing and spluttering. Jim yelled to Dave not to follow him; Dave shouted to Andy to go in another direction – to “spread out”; and Andy roared at the dog to go home. Then Andy’s brain began to work. He tried to get a running kick at the dog, but the dog dodged; he snatched up sticks and stones and threw them at the dog and ran on again.”
“The retriever saw that he had made a mistake about Andy; so he left him and bounded after Dave. Dave made a dive for the dog, caught him by the tail, and, as he swung round, snatched the cartridge out of his mouth and flung it as far as he could. The dog immediately bounded after it and retrieved it. Dave roared at the dog, who, seeing that Dave was offended, left him and went after Jim, who was well ahead. ”
Jim swung to a sapling and went up it like a native bear. It was a young sapling, and Jim couldn’t safely get more than ten or twelve feet from the ground. The dog laid the cartridge, as carefully as if it were a kitten, at the foot of the sapling, and capered and leaped and whooped joyously round under Jim. The big pup reckoned that this was part of the lark – he was all right now – it was Jim who was out for a spree. The fuse sounded as if it were going a mile a minute. Jim tried to climb higher, and the sapling bent and cracked. Jim fell on his feet and ran. The dog swooped on the cartridge and followed. It all took but a very few moments. Jim ran to a digger’s hole, about ten feet deep, and dropped into it. The dog grinned down on him for a moment, as if he thought it would be a good lark to drop the cartridge down on Jim.”
“”Go away, Tommy,” said Jim, feebly. The dog bounded off after Dave, who was the only one in sight now. Andy had dropped behind a log.”
“There was a small hotel or shanty on the road. Dave was desperate, so he made for the shanty. There were several bushmen on the veranda and in the bar; Dave rushed into the bar, banging the door behind him. “Look!” he gasped, in reply to the astonished stare of the publican; “he’s got a live cartridge in his mouth.”
“The retriever, finding the front door shut against him, had bounded round and in by the back way, and now stood smiling in the doorway from the passage, the cartridge still in his mouth, and the fuse spluttering. They burst out of that bar. Tommy bounded first after one and then after another, for, being a young dog, he tried to make friends with everybody.”
“The bushmen ran around corners, and some shut themselves in the stable. There was a new kitchen and wash-house on piles in the back yard, with some women washing clothes inside. Dave and the publican bundled in there and shut the door. The retriever went under the kitchen; but, luckily for those inside, there was vicious yellow mongrel cattle dog under there – a sneaking, fighting, thieving cur, whom neighbours had tried for years to shoot or poison. Tommy saw his danger and started out across the yard, still sticking to the cartridge.”
“Half-way across the yard, the yellow dog caught and nipped him. Tommy dropped the cartridge, gave one terrified yell, and took to the bush. The yellow dog followed him to the fence and then ran back to see what he had dropped. Nearly a dozen other dogs of varied breeds came round, but kept at a respectable distance from the nasty yellow dog. He sniffed at the cartridge twice, and was just taking a third cautious sniff when – Bang!”
“Bushmen say that the kitchen jumped off its piles and on again. When the smoke and dust had cleared away, the remains of the nasty yellow dog were lying against the paling fence of the yard. Several saddle-horses, which had been “hanging up” round the veranda, were galloping wildly down the road, and from every point of the compass came the yelping of dogs.”
“For half an hour or so after the explosion, there were several bushmen behind the stable who crouched, doubled up, against the wall, trying to laugh without shrieking. Two women were in hysterics, and a half-caste was rushing aimlessly round with a dipper of cold water.”
“The publican was holding his wife and begging her, between her squawks, to “hold up, for my sake, Mary.”
“Dave decided to apologise later on, “when things had settled a bit”, and went back to camp. The dog that had done it all, “Tommy”, the great idiotic mongrel retriever, came slobbering round Dave, lashing his legs with his tail, and trotted home after him, smiling his broadest, longest, and reddest smile of amiability, apparently satisfied for one afternoon with the fun he’d had.”
Henry Lawson
The School Reader was my constant friend in those days when I lived in Ararat and taught the eight classes in the one teacher bush school at Jacksons Creek.
GORDON MOYES