Small branches flew down and rolled
before the wind. Presently it thundered afar off. Mother and Sal ran out
and gathered the clothes, and fixed the spout, and looked cheerfully up at
the sky.
Joe sat in the chimney-corner thumping the ribs of a cattle-pup, and
pinching its ears to make it savage. He had been training the pup ever
since its arrival that morning.
The plough-horses, yoked to the plough, stood in the middle of the paddock,
beating the flies off with their tails and leaning against each other.
Dad stood at the stock-yard--his brown arms and bearded chin resting on a
middle-rail--passively watching Dave and Paddy Maloney breaking-in a colt
for Callaghan--a weedy, wild, herring-gutted brute that might have been
worth fifteen shillings. Dave was to have him to hack about for six
months in return for the breaking-in. Dave was acquiring a local
reputation for his skill in handling colts.
They had been at "Callaghan"--as they christened the colt--since daylight,
pretty well; and had crippled old Moll and lamed Maloney's Dandy, and
knocked up two they borrowed from Anderson--yarding the rubbish; and there
was n't a fence within miles of the place that he had n't tumbled over and
smashed.
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