A story of the chicken and the hen
They
were very hard up,for times were bad in the theatre world,and nobody seemend to
want either one or the other.but no one knew it except
themselves.they used to look helplessly into each other’s eyes every morning,when
he would come up from his dingy little home to where she lived,to see
if,micawber-like,anything had turned up.
“nothing,chicken?”-his
name for her.
“nothing,hen!”-her
name for him
And
another hopeless day would drag along.
So
it went for months.
They
had been pals for years –players together all over the world-won
together-rejoiced togerher suffered together –and he had watched over her just
like an old hen over her one chicken.
So
she called him”hen-mother,hen”Hen”forshort.and now things looked very blue.
In
early life he had been at sea,but drifted away into the Australian bush,while
his ship lay at sandridge pier and a new rush broke out.the rush was way up
north on the palmer;plenty of gold and lots of fever;he got some of both,and it
became a question whether to get rich and die or get out.so he “humped his
drum”to.yhecoast.but he had seen gold.one day camping at noon,he knocked a
piece of stone off the cap of a reef which showed color freely.
Gold
had come too late!he crawled away along the ghastly track through maytown to
hell’s gates and on to cppktown where he stowed away on a ship bound south.
They
played together in Australia years afterwards,and he often spent an hour
telling her of the old life on the palmer river.they did well made money and
came back to London,where things prospered for them both,until one awful
November day when she said she “felt gray”-and for three month doctors watched
her hanging between life and death.every night on his way to the theatre he
would look up into the murky London sky and pray god for her life.and god was very good and listened,and he thanked god
from his heart.it was soon after this that things got so bad,and they came
across a man they had known in the colonies and all got to talking gold.
“I
know where there’s gold,”said hen.
“where?”
“palmer;s
abandoned years ago”.
“so
was bendigo once.”
“how
do you know gold’s up there?”
“I’ve
seen it.”
“but
it’s all worked our.”
“I
don’t think so.”
And
they looked over Dr.jack’s latest geological map and found no reef marked where
hen said there was gold.
“there’s
a fortune up there.”Hen put his finger on a spot that lay about twenty-six
miles to the southeast of maytown.
“why
don’t you go and get it if you’re so sure?”
And
the man laughed.
And
the “Chicken” sighed.
And
the “Hen” folded up the map and put it way.
But
a few weeks later,atthe”Stores”he and she were buying a few cheap necessaries
for some one who going into the tropics.
“I
want a pillow of some sort-anything will do,”said hen.
There
were many sorts to choose from,but all seemend very dear,theythought,for money
was very scarce.that friend whom they had told had lent hen enoughto get out to
the palmer.
“I
want you to have a comfortable pillow,Hen.what does it matter – a few shillings
– and it will be so much better.flock gets into such horrid lumps – and it’s so
hot and study – horse-hair will keep you cool.”
“how
much are these horse-hair pillows”asked hen.
“A
guinea, sir.”
Hen
looked up and drew a quick breath.
Chicken
sighed.
“That
sttlesit!Flock – three and six – will do for me.”
Chicken
turned away and seemed very interested in an advertisement of somebody’s
soap.When she thought no one noticed,she quickly brushed her cheek with her
handkerchief.She had a horse-hair pillow at home.
But
Hen-mother had seen.hen they left the “Stores,” he chaffed about feather
pillows and such luxuries,and told her that a clean sheet of stringy-bark with
a saddle for a pillow made as comfortable a bed as anyone could possibly want
in the bush.
He
was going back again – after twenty years – to look for gold. It seemed a wild
isea, a hopeless sort of scheme ,this going out to Australia,but they had
talked it over and thrashed it out and is seemed best. And so one day he came
up in the morning for the last time.It was ten o’clock,and his ship was to sail
from the albert dock at twelve.
For
the first time in twelve years they were parted.
On
the ship he commenced a diary and the opening words were : January 18, 1900.
The most miserable day he left, he read through dim eyes.
“my
hen mother I couldn’t see anyone I just locked my door and threw myself down on
my bed and buried my face in the pillow an then I thought of your poor old head
on the horrid flock pillow and my heart broke…”
He
had an old photograph of her he always carried and, sitting in his tent at the
Laura River thousands of miles away, he loocked at it and kissed the beautiful
face it pictured to him.
Time
went on. Fortune seemed turning for them both. She had one or two good offersin
London and wrote out, “don’t worry, my hen, about me. If the piece is a success
I shall be all right. “and it was a success.
And
he wrote home to her, “I am in luck. I found the old spot where I camped years
ago and broke the stone. The country is wild, unutterably wild and lonely.
There is nothing within miles of me. I am absolutely alone. I have worked on
the reef, which is a very fine one, and shows gold freely. It is on the top of
a spur, and the other day I was fossicking in the gully below when I came
across some nice little pieces of gold. But it is lonely – lonely – lonely
beyond words.
Months
went by until one day she received a cable from reuter and her heart stood
still. She trembled and hesitated to open it for it was from australi. What had
happened?
She
shut herself up and turned the key in the door, then knelt down by the desk
where she kept all her letters and
murmured, “god grant there is nothing wrong!” then she opened the
envelope and read the cable.
“maytown”
Have
cabled you one thousand pounds today paris bank. Well. Hen.”
Then
she cried.
She
didn’t know what do she felt so happy. She had been a bit ill, but all that
seemed to vanish and everyone at the theatre that night though she was
“splendid!”
The
gully turned out to be a regular bonanza and for weeks he worked on alone until
there was no more to pan.
At
first glance he used to hide the gold in his flock pillow, which had got into
hard lumps itself, hardly distinguishable from the nuggets. And as the pile
grew and there were no more soft spots for his head, he used to laugh and
think, “I wonder if chicken would rather I kept my pillow now than change
change it for a horse hair one?
He
didn’t know how much gold there was. When the pillow got too full, he dug a
hole under his camp and buried it all. Then he went In to maytown and told the
warden he had found gold on the creek.
There
was a rush and the papers heard of it. “revival of the palmer,” announced one.
“big find near maytown,“ another.
Hen
pegged out a fifty acre lease of the reef and called it the “hen and chicken.”
Then in a little time he got some gunny bags, filled them with stone frome the
reef and in each he put another bag full of the gold he had won from the gully
and buried in his tent. Chinamen “packed” these bags down to the Laura River
for him from there they were never out of his reach to cook town, where he
sailed on the same ship with them for Brisbane.Here he opened the big bags and
took out the little bags of gold before sending the quartz to Aldershot to be
crushed and assayed.
A
couple of weeks later the sensation of the evening paper in Brisbane was as
follows;
Two
tons of stone from the “ Hen an chicken” reef near cannibal creek, on the
palmer gold field, were crushed at Aldershot for the phenomenal return of 757
ounces of retorted gold.This reef was taken up by a gentleman from London
who,in the early days of the palmer discovered it while tramping on his way to
cooktown, to which place he was proceeding, almost dying from fever. This wat twenty
years ago, and the gentlemen in question had the good luck recently to
rediscover the reef which is in the wildest part of the ranges to the S. E. of
maytown, and which had eluded the notice of prospectors from that day until is
recent discovery. Provision has been made to float the “Hen and chicken” into
company in London,a very high price having been offered for it on the advice of
awell-known London expert,who was fortunate enough to be in cooktown lately on
his way to examine some new guinea property.”
Hen
travelled by the first P.&Q.boat that started after he had lodged the gold
in the bank and received a draft for it on London payable at ninety days to
chicken.His palmer gold proved to be as good as any in the world and fetched
over four pounds an ounce at the Sydney mint.
So
now, what with the gold itself and the purchase money for the mine, he was
rich. As he came over the gangway of the steamer, a rathet disreputable
loocking digger’s “swag” was being hoisted on board. Lashed to this were a pick
, a shovel and a pan, with labels on them, “Sydney to London.” They were old
friends that had “seen him through,” and in the heart of the “swag” was a very
much worn and clay stained flock pillow.
“I’ll
keep the old traps as curios,” he said to the third officer,who asked him why
on earth he was shipping such a kit as that.
It
was midsummer when he reached home and she was living up the river where he
found her one glorious evening looking radiantly beautiful and happy.they would
neither of them speak – their hearts were too full – and the tears started to
their eyes as their hands met.at last said:
“Chicken,
I have brought home something for you – here it is.” And he put his hand in his
pocket and from and old worn leather case produced a faded photofraph of
her,round which was wrapped a draft for twelve thousand pounds.
“It
helped to stuff my pillow along with the flock.”
He
held out the paper.mechanically she took it and saw what it was,then wanted to
speak but no words came.she was choking but,dimly,through the rush of her own
feelings saw the tears trickle down his gaunt,bronzedcheeks.then all got
blurred and she sobbed out,her heart clasped close in his arms.
They
were drifting in a punt alone on the river.in the moonlight ,he had told he all
his life since he had left her a years ago and she had told him all hers.he was
still a young man as men go,and she in the prime of her beauty and womanhood.he
had loved her for years but he had been too poor to talk of anything to her but
work.
“what
will you get from the”hen and chicken?” she asked
They
sat together on the cushions in the middle of yhe punt. He turned the paddle
slightly with which he steered. “all told about a hundred and thirthy to a
hundred and fifty thousand.” He turned, looked into her beautiful eyes in the
moonlight and smiled happily.” Half of that’s yours chicken.”
“
mine!”
“yes
we’re ‘mates’ we’ve always been ‘mates’ and out in Australia your ‘mate’ always
has half of everything.”
“we
were ‘mates,’ dear, when I went away and if we aren’t to remain ‘mates’ I wish
I had never gone. It has been awful alone in the bush never seeing you. I have
been away a whole year and you have had to fight it out alone when I might have
been here to help you.”
“but
you have helped me more than you could have done by staying by me.”
“
then I am content, at least”
“at
least?”
“almost.”
“what
more can you want?”
“can’t
you guess, chicken?” his voice was very tender, very low and carried her
thoughts back for years to the night when first she played “Juliet” to his
“romeo,” and he murmured to her in the balcony scene in a voice that woke an
echo in her own heart which had sounded there ever since. But to her he had
always been “hen mother.” She was like a child she had told him all her troubles,
all her joys to him her word, her wish was a law, and yet they were ‘mates’ who
had grown necessary to each other, although they had never spoken of love.
“I
know” she said it very tenderly, as she took his hand an nestled a little
closer.” I know you want me to give you a horse-hair pillow in place of your
old flock one.”
He
looked round. Her eyes were infinitely gentle, her head had sunk down on his
shoulder and her face was turned up to his in the moonlight.
“yes beloved” he spoke very slowly and drew her
closer to him. He could just hear her whisper.” You shall have mine!”
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar