It was washing-day, and we were all delighted. So would you have been if you had been there; for when washing is done by black lubras the fun is always fast and furious.
Directly after breakfast, which was usually at sunrise, there was a wild scramble among the bundles of soiled clothes, followed by a go-as-you-please race to the billabong or water-hole. Each lubra, as she ran, looked like a big snowball with twinkling black legs; while perched on top of two or three of the snowballs sat little shiny-black piccaninnies. Bett-Bett had not had many washing-days, and that accounts for her being last with the stocking-bag. As they reached the creek every one dropped her bundle, slipped off her clothes and began the day’s work by taking a header into the water.
When I came along I threw big pieces of soap at them, and they all ducked and dived to dodge it, and when they came up they all ducked and dived again to find it.
“Now,” I said, sitting down in the shade of some pandanus palms, “come and begin, and wash the clothes very clean to-day.”
“You eye, Missus,” they all answered, as they scrambled out up the banks.
“And don’t play too much,” I added. At least, what I really did say was, “No more all day play-about.”
“You eye, Missus,” they all said again, but grinned at each other. They knew as well as I did that as long as the work was well done, I would let them play over it as much as they liked. You see, I was what white people would call a “bad mistress;” but the blacks called me a “goodfellow Missus,” and would do anything I wanted without a murmur.
They began to sort the clothes very seriously; but before half-a-minute had passed Bett-Bett and Judy were having a tug-of-war with a sheet, and everybody else was standing up to scream and shout. It was most exciting, particularly when Bett-Bett suddenly let go, and Judy and sheet took a double somersault into the water. As soon as her head came up every one pelted her with soap, which was the first thing that came handy. Then of course they all had to dive in to find it before they could go on with the washing. There is one thing a blackfellow can do perfectly, and that is to make hard work into play.
After all sorts of pranks, the clothes were sorted, and then every one climbed along an old tree trunk that had fallen into the water. There they sat, six naked lubras in a row, and rubbed and scrubbed and soaped, till the clothes looked like wet frothy balls, and the tree trunk was as slippery as an eel.
As they scrubbed, they kept up a perpetual sort of pillow fight with sloppy balls of clothes, knocking each other off the tree, till often there were more Lubras in the water than out of it. It certainly is a good plan to take your clothes off on washing-day in the tropics.
When everything was washed, the rinsing began; and if you like real fun, it’s a pity you were not there.
The sheets and big things were done first. After they had been carefully spread out on top of the water, every one climbed up the banks and took flying leaps into them. Down they went to the bottom wrapped up in a sheet or tablecloth, there to kick and splash till they came to the top again. The first person out of the tangle ducked the others as they came up, or else swam off up the creek with a sheet, which still had one lubra half rolled up in it, and two or three others hanging on to it.
And the babies? The little shiny-black piccaninnies? They just played and rolled over each other on the banks. Every now and then one would roll into the water, only to swim out again, or to dogpaddle after its mother.
And what were Sue and I doing all this time? We were sitting in the warm, pleasant shade, enjoying the washing circus, and wondering why everybody wasn’t drowned three or four times over. Blackfellows evidently can’t drown.
When the rinsing was finished, and the clothes were “cooking,” as we called boiling, the lubras put on their dresses and came and sat down near me. They knew well enough that I should have something good for them to eat. Canned fruit or sweet biscuit were always voted “goodfellow,” but there was nothing so good as treacle—“blackfellow sugarbag,” you know.
It was treacle to-day, and as every one lay laughing, smoking and resting, the tin was passed round and round. Very thin, bony, black fingers went in, and very fat, juicy black fingers came out, and were put into grinning, happy mouths, Sue getting a lick from Bett-Bett’s, every turn.
“Do you like washing-days, Bett-Bett?” I asked, as she sat waiting for another dig into the tucker.
“My word!” she grinned, dragging a crawling piccaninny from the treacle-tins by its legs.
Biddy interfered at once, by putting the baby’s little fist into the sticky stuff. It was her piccaninny, you see, and engaged to be married to Goggle Eye!
“Biddy,” I said, as she bent forward to push the baby’s treacly fingers into its open mouth, “haven’t you cut your hair rather short?” I had noticed the day before how pretty and curly it was, but now it was like a convict’s.
“Goggle Eye bin talk,” she answered, meaning that he had told her to cut it. That was all she said, for she knew I would understand, you see; she was Goggle Eye’s mother-in-law, and so all her hair or most of it belonged to him. Whenever it grew nice and long, he told her to cut it off and make him some string, and she had to obey. It was a bit of a nuisance being a mother-in-law.
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I’m sure Billy Muck often wished that I was his mother-in-law, for he saw me drying my hair in the sun one day, and knew it was nice and long.
“My word, Missus!” he said, “big mob hair sit down longa you cobra,” meaning, “what a lot of hair you’ve got on your head.” Just think what lovely belts and things he would have ordered me to make, if only I had been his mother-in-law; but I wasn’t, and I’m sure Billy Muck was the only person who was really sorry about it.
Bett-Bett was Jimmy’s mother-in-law. Of course she wasn’t married yet, only engaged to Billy Muck; but that did not matter. She was Jimmy’s mother-in-law, and when she did grow up and have a piccaninny, it was to be his wife. In the meantime, nobody else could have her spare hair.
Common string is all right for common things, but charms and belts and special things must have hair-string, or they won’t keep Debbil-debbils away properly. This way of having the mother-in-law’s hair divides the hair of the tribe very evenly, as every man has two or three mothers-in-law.
When the treacle was finished, Sue began to dig a hole to lie down in. As she dug, she scratched up a little red and yellow worm. With a yell all the lubras grabbed hold of the poor little dog, and nearly pulled her in pieces in their hurry to get her away. Then they all shrieked and jabbered, and pointed at the scraggy wriggling thing, while Sue sat just where they had thrown her, too astonished to move.
“Well,” I said, “that worm won’t eat us, will it?”
“Him Rainbow Debbil-debbil,” they shrieked, shaking with fear at Sue’s narrow escape.
“Nonsense,” I said; “it’s only a worm.”
But they insisted that it was a baby Rainbow.
“Him piccaninny Rainbow alright,” they cried.
“Don’t be so silly,” I said, and bent forward to pick it up in my fingers; but they yelled their very best at this, and caught hold of my arms.
“Very well,” I said; “come and tell me all about it, and what a baby Rainbow is doing down here.”
We all moved to a place of safety, and they explained that what we call hailstones are really Rainbow’s eggs, and that they fall on the ground and hatch into worms— I mean baby Rainbows! The wise men of the tribe say it is so, and of course they know everything. This is how they found out:—many years ago a great number of hailstones fell, which is a very unusual thing on the Roper River; every one was afraid to touch them, for they didn’t know what they were; so they sat and looked at them in wonder until they had all burrowed into the ground—“melted,” the whites call it! Now this looked very strange, and after a great deal of talking, one very brave old blackfellow dug a hole to see what was happening underneath. Instead of hailstones, he found brightly-coloured little creatures—worms, of course—creeping about in the wet earth. Every one looked at them and said they were very like little Rainbows, and that they must have hatched out of the hailstones, which could be nothing else but Rainbow’s eggs. Of course everybody knew, before, that the grown-up Rainbow is a Debbil-debbil snake who lives in the Roper River, and that he kindly takes care of the fish supply for the blackfellows. He is very good, and allows you to catch as many fish as you can eat, but he can’t bear to see any wasted. He gets dreadfully angry if he knows that any one has been spearing fish for fun, and leaving them to rot on the banks. I don’t wonder at his anger, for if everybody did that, soon there would be no fish left.
He and his wife often go for a stroll together in the sky. He is red and yellow in colour, and she is blue. It is while they are strolling about that they catch the guilty people. They pick them up before they can say “Jack Robinson,” and carry them off to the Roper River—and feed the fish upon their bodies.
When I heard that the worm was really a baby Rainbow, I felt very thankful that I had not hurt it, for it would be awful to be chased by an angry Mother Debbil-debbil Rainbow!
After such a narrow escape we thought that under the palm trees was not a very safe place, so we went and finished the washing and spread everything out to dry, and then began the fun of chasing the grasshoppers, lest they should settle on the clothes and eat holes in them. As the lubras darted about, here and there, the scene looked more like a Sunday-school picnic than a washing-day. It certainly sounded like one.
Blacks are blacks, and whites are whites, and as I looked from the merry black faces to the clean white clothes, I knew their way of working was best—for them, at any rate, so I kept on being a “bad mistress” and a “goodfellow Missus,” and we all enjoyed washing day —all except Sue! The fun was too wet for her, and besides it always made her think of worms—Rainbows, I mean!
My friends used to wonder why I was not lonely, a hundred miles from any white neighbours, and I used to wonder if any one could be lonely with a perpetual circus and variety show on the premises.