Kate's Wedding.
Our selection was a great place for dancing. We could all dance--from Dan down--and there was n't a figure or a movement we did n't know. We learned young. Mother was a firm believer in early tuition. She used to say it was nice for young people to know how to dance, and be able to take their part when they went out anywhere, and not be awkward and stupid-looking when they went into society. It was awful, she thought, to see young fellows and big lumps of girls like the Bradys stalk into a ballroom and sit the whole night long in a corner, without attempting to get up. She did n't know how mothers COULD bring children up so ignorantly, and did n't wonder at some of them not being able to find husbands for their daughters.
But we had a lot to feel thankful for. Besides a sympathetic mother, every other facility was afforded us to become accomplished. Abundance of freedom; enthusiastic sisters; and no matter how things were going--whether the corn would n't come up, or the wheat had failed, or the pumpkins had given out, or the water-hole run dry--we always had a concertina in the house. It never failed to attract company. Paddy Maloney and the well-sinkers, after belting and blasting all day long, used to drop in at night, and throw the table outside, and take the girls up, and prance about the floor with them till all hours.
Nearly every week Mother gave a ball. It might have been every night only for Dad. He said the jumping about destroyed the ground-floor--wore it away and made the room like a well. And whenever it rained hard and the water rushed in he had to bail it out. Dad always looked on the dark side of things. He had no ear for music either. His want of appreciation of melody often made the home miserable when it might have been the merriest on earth. Sometimes it happened that he had to throw down the plough-reins for half-an-hour or so to run round the wheat-paddock after a horse or an old cow; then, if he found Dave, or Sal, or any of us, sitting inside playing the concertina when he came to get a drink, he would nearly go mad.
"Can't y' find anything better t' do than everlastingly playing at that damn thing?" he would shout. And if we did n't put the instrument down immediately he would tear it from our hands and pitch it outside. If we DID lay it down quietly he would snatch it up and heave it out just as hard. The next evening he would devote all his time to patching the fragments together with sealing-wax.
Still, despite Dad's antagonism, we all turned out good players. It cost us nothing either. We learnt from each other. Kate was the first that learnt. SHE taught Sal. Sal taught Dave, and so on. Sandy Taylor was Kate's tutor. He passed our place every evening going to his selection, where he used to sleep at night (fulfilling conditions), and always stopped at the fence to yarn with Kate about dancing. Sandy was a fine dancer himself, very light on his feet and easy to waltz with--so the girls made out. When the dancing subject was exhausted Sandy would drag some hair out of his horse's mane and say, "How's the concertina?" "It's in there," Kate would answer. Then turning round she would call out, "J--OE, bring the concer'."In an instant Joe would strut along with it. And Sandy, for the fiftieth time, would examine it and laugh at the kangaroo-skin straps that Dave had tacked to it, and the scraps of brown paper that were plastered over the ribs of it to keep the wind in; and, cocking his left leg over the pommel of his saddle, he would sound a full blast on it as a preliminary. Then he would strike up "The Rocky Road to Dublin", or "The Wind Among the Barley,", or some other beautiful air, and grind away untiringly until it got dark--until mother came and asked him if he would n't come in and have supper. Of course, he always would. After supper he would play some more.
Then there would be a dance.
A ball was to be held at Anderson's one Friday night, and only Kate and Dave were asked from our place. Dave was very pleased to be invited; it was the first time he had been asked anywhere, and he began to practise vigorously. The evening before the ball Dad sent him to put the draught horses in the top paddock. He went off merrily with them. The sun was just going down when he let them go, and save the noise of the birds settling to rest the paddock was quiet. Dave was filled with emotion and enthusiastic thoughts about the ball.
He threw the winkers down and looked around. For a moment or two he stood erect, then he bowed gracefully to the saplings on his right, then to the stumps and trees on his left, and humming a tune, ambled across a small patch of ground that was bare and black, and pranced back again. He opened his arms and, clasping some beautiful imaginary form in them, swung round and round like a windmill. Then he paused for breath, embraced his partner again, and "galloped" up and down. And young Johnson, who had been watching him in wonder from behind a fence, bolted for our place.
"Mrs. Rudd! Mrs. Rudd!" he shouted from the verandah. Mother went out.
"Wot's--wot's up with Dave?"
Mother turned pale.
"There's SOMETHING--!"
"My God!" Mother exclaimed--" WHATEVER has happened?"Young Johnson hesitated. He was in doubt.
"Oh! What IS it?" Mother moaned.
"Well" (he drew close to her) "he's--he's MAD!""OH-H!"
