Joe Middleton's wife, Maggie, gives birth with the assistance of Mother Palmer, but is in need of a doctor, specifically the unregistered and alcoholic Doc. Wild. Joe's brother, Dave, rides fifteen miles to fetch him, but Doc. Wild is drunk in Black's shanty and will not come. It takes Old Peter, also known as Middleton's Peter, to persuade him.
'Ratty Howlett' has lived alone on his selection for fifteen years. His only company is the occasional traveller he waylays on the road past his property and persuades to stop for a yarn. When the narrator is invited back to Ratty's hut for a meal he is surprised to find it clean and tidy. Ratty tells him his wife has gone out for the day and it is not until five years later that the narrator learns the truth.
Steelman praises Smith, telling him he is nearly as good to talk to as an intelligent sheepdog, then reveals much of his life story in the form of counsel about life.
On the Track, and, Over the Sliprails
Sydney
:
Angus and Robertson
,
1900
Z404390
1900
selected work
short story
Combined edition of On the Track and Over the Sliprails, issued initially as two separately paginated volumes in one and later in a continuously paginated format.
'Paul Eggert writes on the discovery of Henry Lawson's prose sketch 'Selection Farms'.
'Paul Eggert writes on the discovery of Henry Lawson's prose sketch 'Selection Farms'.
