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Notes
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Publisher's note: 'This volume contains a selection of stories and sketches from Mr. Lawson's While the Billy Boils, Over the Sliprails and On the Track. It is published by arrangement with Messrs. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, and is not for sale in Australia or New Zealand.' It was never re-issued.
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Contains sixteen stories from While the Billy Boils and twelve from On the Track and Over the Sliprails.
Contents
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An Old Mate of Your Father's,
single work
short story
The narrator remembers how his father would be visited by old mates and how they sit together talking about their days on the Ballarat and Bendigo goldfields.
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'Tom's Selection' : A Sketch of Settling on the Land
Settling on the Land,
single work
short story
humour
Lawson gives a graphic, if humorous, account of the hardships faced by settlers and the rivalry between them and squatters.
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Stiffner and Jim (Thirdly, Bill),
single work
short story
humour
Bill and Jim, the narrator, arrive at a pub desperate for a drink, but without any money.
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The Man Who Forgot,
single work
short story
humour
A soft-hearted shearer is deceived by a cunning swagman.
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His Country - After All,
single work
short story
Expatriate for fifteen years, a man denigrates Australia throughout a coach-trip in New Zealand, until he encounters the smell and sight of imported blue gum trees.
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The Union Buries Its Dead : A Bushman's Funeral. A Sketch from Life
The Union Buries Its Dead,
single work
short story
humour
Describes a bush funeral.
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Mitchell Doesn't Believe in the Sack,
single work
short story
humour
Mitchell explains to his mate how to refuse to be sacked.
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His Father's Mate,
single work
short story
Tom Mason has lived a life full of misfortune and has lost all the people he loved. All he has left is his eleven-year-old son, to whom he is devoted.
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The Drover's Wife,
single work
short story
First appearing in The Bulletin in 1892, Henry Lawson's short story 'The Drovers Wife' is today regarded as a seminal work in the Australian literary tradition. Noted for it's depiction of the bush as harsh, potentially threatening and both isolated and isolating, the story opens with a simple enough premise: an aggressive--and presumably deadly--snake disrupts the working life of a bushwoman and her young children. Brave but cautious, the woman resolves to protect her children since her husband is, characteristically, away from home and of no help.
As time passes within the story, tension builds, and the snake's symbolic threat takes on layers of meaning as the sleepless heroine recalls previous challenges she faced while her husband was away. A series of flashbacks and recollections propel the story through the single night over which it takes place, and by the time the climax arrives--the confrontation with the snake--readers have learned much about the heroine's strengths and fears, most of the latter involving the loss of children and dark figures who encroach upon her small, vulnerable homestead. To be sure, this "darkness" is highly symbolic, and Lawson's use of imagery invokes Western notions of good and evil as well as gendered and racial stereotypes.
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The Bush Undertaker,
single work
short story
An old shepherd discovers his mate, Brummy, dead and mummified in the bush. Saddened, he feels compelled to bury him.
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Coming Across : A Study in the Steerage,
single work
short story
Lawson describes travelling steerage to New Zealand on a ship carrying ill-informed migrants, hard-drinking New Zealand shearers, and optimistic Australians.
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The Story of Malachi,
single work
short story
humour
Malachi is the butt of endless practical jokes, which he endures patiently. But when the squatter's daughter is threatened by a maddened cow he shows true heroism.
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Steelman's Pupil,
single work
short story
humour
Steelman strives to teach Smith the tricks of the trade, but eventually succeeds too well.
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Board and Residence,
single work
short story
autobiography
Lawson describes the evils of unemployment and cheap boarding houses.
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Two Dogs and a Fence,
single work
short story
humour
Mitchell muses on the behaviour of dogs.
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Macquarie's Mate,
single work
short story
The drinkers at Stiffner's shanty have a poor opinion of Macquarie, but his mate, Awful Example, defends him.
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The Shanty-Keeper's Wife,
single work
short story
humour
A party of coach travellers stop at a bush shanty, hoping for a meal after an uncomfortable journey. The publican informs them his wife is ill, asks them to be quiet, and tells them that he has no food and can only offer them rum and milk. Then the horses go missing and the travellers are offered accommodation for the night, at a price.
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The Hero of Redclay,
single work
short story
Joe is unhappy when Jack Mitchell brings an unlikeable shearer known as 'the Lachlan' to their camp. The Lachlan stays with them for the day, then moves on. That night Mitchell tells Joe the tragic tale of Jack Drew, a journalist and sometime gold prospector, and Ruth Wilson, a girl with whom Mitchell was also in love.
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The Darling River,
single work
short story
humour
Lawson describes the oddities of travel by river boat on the Darling River. He also explains how Bourke came to acquire the reputation of being the most drunken town on the Darling.
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A Daughter of Maoriland : A Sketch of Poor-Class Maoris,
single work
short story
The story of Sarah Moses, a brooding sixteen-year-old Maori girl called 'August' by her new school teacher, and a man with literary ambitions who thinks he may be able to construct a romance from her story. One day August turns up on his doorstep, claiming her family have thrown her out. The teacher and his wife take her in and all goes well at first, but gradually they realise August's real intentions.