On the Track

Name: On the Track
Author: Henry Lawson

by Henry Lawson

Pages: about 148
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 2.7 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 1.5 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

Of the stories in this volume many have already appeared in (various periodicals), while several now appear in print for the first time.
The Songs They used to Sing A Vision of Sandy Blight Andy Page's Rival The Iron-Bark Chip “Middleton's Peter” The Mystery of Dave Regan Mitchell on Matrimony Mitchell on Women No Place for a Woman Mitchell's Jobs Bill, the Ventriloquial Rooster Bush Cats Meeting Old Mates Two Larrikins Mr. Smellingscheck “A Rough Shed” Payable Gold An Oversight of Steelman's How Steelman told his Story
On the diggings up to twenty odd years ago--and as far back as I can remember--on Lambing Flat, the Pipe Clays, Gulgong, Home Rule, and so through the roaring list; in bark huts, tents, public-houses, sly grog shanties, and--well, the most glorious voice of all belonged to a bad girl. We were only children and didn't know why she was bad, but we weren't allowed to play near or go near the hut she lived in, and we were trained to believe firmly that something awful would happen to us if we stayed to answer a word, and didn't run away as fast as our legs could carry us, if she attempted to speak to us. We had before us the dread example of one urchin, who got an awful hiding and went on bread and water for twenty-four hours for allowing her to kiss him and give him lollies. She didn't look bad--she looked to us like a grand and beautiful lady-girl--but we got instilled into us the idea that she was an awful bad woman, something more terrible even than a drunken man, and one whose presence was to be feared and fled from. There were two other girls in the hut with her, also a pretty little girl, who called her “Auntie”, and with whom we were not allowed to play--for they were all bad; which puzzled us as much as child-minds can be puzzled. We couldn't make out how everybody in one house could be bad.

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On the Track

From the opening

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