Joe and I went back that evening and turned over every
stone on the ridge, but we did n't find any gold.
No mistake, it was a real wilderness--nothing but trees, "goannas," dead
timber, and bears; and the nearest house--Dwyer's--was three miles away.
I often wonder how the women stood it the first few years; and I can
remember how Mother, when she was alone, used to sit on a log, where the
lane is now, and cry for hours. Lonely! It WAS lonely.
Dad soon talked about clearing a couple of acres and putting in corn--all
of us did, in fact--till the work commenced. It was a delightful topic
before we started,; but in two weeks the clusters of fires that illumined
the whooping bush in the night, and the crash upon crash of the big trees
as they fell, had lost all their poetry.
We toiled and toiled clearing those four acres, where the haystacks are
now standing, till every tree and sapling that had grown there was down.
We thought then the worst was over; but how little we knew of clearing
land! Dad was never tired of calculating and telling us how much the crop
would fetch if the ground could only be got ready in time to put it in;
so we laboured the harder.
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