"
"Missus! missus!" the Maluka cried, as soon as he could speak, "you'll
need a deal of educating "; and while Mac gasped, "Oh I say! Look here!"
Dan, with tears in his eyes, chuckled: "She'll have a drouth on by the
time she runs one down." Dan always called a thirst a drouth. "Oh Lord!"
he said, picturing the scene in his mind's eye, "'I'll catch a cow and
milk it,' she says."
Then, dancing with fun, the hazel eyes looked round the company, and as
Dan rose, preparatory to turning in, we felt we were about to hear their
verdict. When it came it was characteristic of the man in uniqueness of
wording:
"She's the dead finish!" he said, wiping his eyes on his shirt sleeve.
"Reckoned she was the minute I heard her talking about slap-up dampers";
and in some indescribable way we knew he had paid the woman who was just
entering his life the highest compliment in his power. Then he added,
"Told the chaps the little 'uns were generally all right." It is the
helplessness of little women that makes them appear "all right" in the
eyes of bushmen, helplessness being foreign to snorters.
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