Children of the Bush by Lawson, Henry, 1867-1922

Joe Wilson rolled out his blankets close to Mitchell's camp; he wanted to enjoy some of Mitchell's quiet humour before he went to sleep, but Mitchell wasn't in a philosophical mood. He wanted to reflect.

"I wonder who Gentleman Once was?" said Joe to Mitchell. "Could he have been Danny, or old Awful Example back there at the shanty?"

"Dunno," said Mitchell. He puffed three long puffs at his pipe, and then said, reflectively:

"I've heard men tell their own stories before to-night Joe."

It was Joe who wanted to think now.

About four o'clock Mitchell woke and stood up. Peter was lying rolled in his blanket with his face turned to the west. The moon was low, the shadows had shifted back, and the light was on Peter's face. Mitchell stood looking at him reverently, as a grown son might who sees his father asleep for the first time. Then Mitchell quietly got some boughs and stuck them in the ground at a little distance from Peter's head, to shade his face from the bright moonlight; and then he turned in again to sleep till the sun woke him.

THE GHOSTS OF MANY CHRISTMASES

Did you ever trace back your Christmas days?--right back to the days when you were innocent and Santa Claus was real. At times you thought you were very wicked, but you never realize how innocent you were until you've grown up and knocked about the world.

Let me think!

Christmas in an English village, with bare hedges and trees, and leaden skies that lie heavy on our souls as we walk, with overcoat and umbrella, sons of English exiles and exiles in England, and think of bright skies and suns overhead, and sweeps of country disappearing into the haze, and blue mountain ranges melting into the azure of distant lower skies, and curves of white and yellow sand beaches, and runs of shelving yellow sandstone sea-walls--and the glorious Pacific! Sydney Harbour at sunrise, and the girls we took to Manly Beach.

Christmas in a London flat. Gloom and slush and soot. It is not the cold that affects us Australians so much, but the horrible gloom. We get heart-sick for the sun.

Christmas at sea--three Christmases, in fact--one going saloon from Sydney to Westralia early in the Golden Nineties with funds; and one, the Christmas after next, coming back steerage with nothing but the clothes we'd slept in. All of which was bad judgment on our part--the order and manner of our going and coming should have been reversed.

Christmas in a hessian tent in "th' Westren," with so many old mates from the East that it was just old times over again. We had five pounds of corned beef and a kerosene-tin to boil it in; and while we were talking of old things the skeleton of a kangaroo-dog grabbed the beef out of the boiling water and disappeared into the scrub--which made it seem more like old times than ever.