To combat fierce sunshine many plants had covered themselves with silvery coats of soft wool or silk, which act as a blanket to keep within stems and leaves the precious moisture of which hot, hungry winds would rob them.
Others again, like the useful parakeelya, of the lowly ‘pigface’ family, hoarded stores of water in juicy stems and leaves, developing tough skins that cheated the sun by making the leaves into tightly corked bottles – a drink in themselves to thirsty stock. Cattle that have access to these plants are able to go for a year without water. Thirsty aborigines have only to squeeze a plant and drink!
Plants on rocky hills defied the wind by hugging the earth. Wattles and other trees became prostrate, instead of growing erect. To secure anchorage they sank their roots deeply between rocky crevices so that neither wind nor rare torrential rains could dislodge them.
Plants that had no hope of surviving above ground added to the store of food carried in their roots, which they sank ever more deeply, so that these, at least, might survive the hot summer, and shoot again with the first rain. The saltbushes and bluebushes are the chief successes among these perennials. Creepers which managed to lift themselves high enough to secure the support of trees developed such tough, wiry stems that only the sharpest knife could sever them. Even on waterless sandhills, when the tardy rain arrives it finds thousands of potential plants ready.
Here and there on the plains, where the only trees were dead or dying mulgas and a few sad desert oaks, the red and green flowers of a lovely fuchsia glowed above the quiet silver of Rhagodias and spiny Bassias (‘goathead’). The muted colours of a few hardy buck bushes and bleached, cone-shaped tufts of mulga grass filled in other spaces, so that for mile upon mile one travelled in a grey solitude, where hardly a bird broke the silence. These plains lay hold of the heart.
Once seen one must always remember the quiet beauty and the inexpressible sadness of them.
The bushman expresses it more tersely: ‘It’s a land that gets you.’ But it is a hard land, a land for the sons of Esau. Its pleasures are dearly bought, but when one has dipped below the surface one understands why men love it, and will never leave it, preferring its sands and its searing heat to the fleshpots of cities.
But there is another, more vivid, side to the picture, when, after a shower of rain the desert blossoms, not as the rose, but into brilliant, even daring, colours, unequalled anywhere else in the world.
It is a wonderful land – a land of striking contrasts. To those of us who have fallen under its spell it will stretch out invisible hands to draw us back to its blossoming wilderness – to follow again elusive trails across silvery plains; over white, dry beds of winding watercourses, over rock-strewn hills, painted in unbelievable colours, which only a few artists have dared to put on canvas – colours which must be seen to be believed, best of all, to enjoy again the colour and perfume of its vegetation, and to marvel again at its wonderful fertility.
Chapter 12
ONE OF US
‘Perhaps we might have a league of mothers who will volunteer to plant in their little ones the first seeds of a great affection for the trees and flowers, and all living things in this wonderful land of ours, who will inculcate in them a tenderness and sympathy for living creatures that will grow with the years.’
December 1939
‘It’s hardly fair,’ declares Edith, suddenly dropping The Age across the breakfast table. ‘Miss Baker will be devastated.’
James looks up from the motoring section.
‘An award of £125 for six months has been made to Miss Stella Miles Franklin, of Carlton, New South Wales,’ Edith reads aloud, ‘to enable her to complete a biography dealing with the life and legend of Joseph Furphy.’
James takes a sip from his ‘coffee’, his moustache barely twitching at the aroma of caramelised oats rising from the cup.
‘Don’t you like her books?’ he asks.
‘That’s not the point,’ retorts Edith. ‘Franklin is a creative writer, not a biographer. And it’s not her work. She’s using Miss Baker’s research to write this book. It is Miss Baker who knew Furphy best; without her work there would be nothing to write.’
James puts down his paper, giving up on his reading, and reaches for the apricot jam.
‘Of course, I understand the value of novels,’ Edith continues, ‘and she’d write a very fine novel, I’m sure, but this is an archival work. No-one is better equipped than Kate Baker to write Furphy’s biography. Franklin barely even knew him. Why would they give her the money and not give it to Miss Baker as well? They are supposed to be working together on this project.’
‘I see Charles Barrett’s new book got a good write-up,’James mentions hopefully, pointing out an article on nature books for Christmas.
But Edith tightens her lips. She knows what her friend Rupp thinks of Barrett. On the subject of people taking credit for the work of others Barrett is perhaps not the best choice of a distraction. She would never go so far as Rupp in her comments, but she did agree that credit should always be given where it is due.
Edith sips her coffee. She should have roasted the wheat and oats for a little longer. Still, everyone seemed happy enough with the brew – at least they accepted it with a fine tolerance that she took for praise.
It was so unfair on Miss Baker, who had spent a lifetime compiling and promoting the work of Joseph Furphy. She had met Furphy and his family when teaching near Rushworth and had encouraged him to persist with his book Such Is Life, which was finally published in 1903. Apparently, when Furphy died, in 1912, Baker had been heartbroken. She
