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Jimmy From the Fence

Edward S. Sorenson

In town and country, wheresoe’er he went,
The people called him “Jimmy from the Fence.”
Since ‘north and south, ‘cross half the continent.
He’d subdivided sqatttages immense,
And ne’er was tempted by the best of wages
To work at else through all his seven ages.

His hist’ry was compiled of posts and rails,
His recollections hung on fencing wires;
Beside one line were heard his infant wails,
Along another he from school retires;
At Bonnet’s Corner first he went a-wooing;
And so through life his ev’ry end pursuing.

Of all the sounds and notes that forests fill,
He loved to hear the mauls on wedges ringing,
The stroke of axes echo ‘long the hill.
The biting crosscut through the hardwoods singing;
The crack and crash of many branches, calling
To all the forest that a giant’s falling.

And when old age had laid his tools aside,
He’d follow still the old familiar sounds,
And oft along some new-made fence he’d ride,
Like an official person on his rounds.
To sight the line, his horse against it jamming,
And shake alternate posts to test the ramming.

He’d travel miles to meet a kindred soul,
And talk of fences until Kingdom Come.
He’d sink again his deepest corner hole;
He’d split once more his most colossal gum;
And illustrating with a stick while yapping,
He’d cover half a paddock with his mapping.

He’d take you bound’ry-riding for a week,
From Tumbanumba out to Bogan Gate;
From Walgett back to Tambaroora Creek,
And name the distance, sinking, terms and date;
Describe the country and the sorts of fences,
Right from the time our history commences.

He’d start with zigzags, cumbersome but strong,
And, stepping styles of fencing through the years
As settlement advanced, take you along
The chock-and-log, which round his sty appears;
The dogleg that’s remembered in connection
With early life on ev’ry free selection;

The sapling yard, the brush, and cockatoo;
And when he’d picked the free-grained trees and split
The posts and rails, and mortising was thro’.
You saw the two-rail follow—leagues of it;
Each panel adzed, and neatly cut each shoulder,
So that it loosened not as it grew older.

Flood rails were swung, and up went stubs and stays;
And with much pride he would enumerate
The giant posts he’d planted in those days,
Each pair of which with cap he’d decorate
Before he hung the gates across the highway,
Or put the sliprails up if ‘twas a byway.

Awhile he’d keep you to describe the woods
That were most durable and eas’ly got;
The brand of tools best suited to his moods,
And incident’ly he must grind a lot
When axes dulled or gapp’d; and minus kith he
Himself must take the wedges to the smithy.

The filing of the crosscut was an art;
The setting of ‘t required a master hand;
Likewise it took a man who’s passing smart
To make a maul that balanced and would stand
Hard slogging without slugs around its edges,
And never cast its rings upon the wedges.

Anon you’d reach the top-rail and three wires,
Which piece of architecture stood the shock,
On deep-grassed runs, of mud-careering fires,
And most efficient in confining stock;
A model that delighted the erector,
And pleased alike the squatter and selector.

But soon became the toprail obsolete,
And five-wires he erected by the mile—
All even, plumb and straight, and many a feat
Performed with brace and bit, with fork and file;
Yet of that fence by night spoke with derision,
Since he and it were often in collision.

Here he’d dilate upon the sorts of wires,
Relating also how and where to splice,
The distance of the strainers—which inspires
A lecture on the running-out device;
Forgetting not to mention how he fixes
A number eight atop four number sixes.

And peradventure he would stop to swear,
As mem’ry bore him ‘long some olden lines,
Recalling lazy methods of repair—
Wire ends projecting like so many spines;
Some uprights low, and some too elevated,
All wobblesome like things intoxicated;

Slack wires twitched midway with a crooked stick,
And broken posts depending for support
On puny props that wouldn’t stand a kick;
And splices of a neophytic sort
Provoking utterance of words unlawful,
For ‘stead of “figure eights” those knots were awful.

Such-hasty work recalls the lightning fence,
Which holds no lofty place in his regard,
And having strung some droppers, passes thence
To the construction of the barb-wire guard,
Which tears his cuticle and rips his “ trousis,”
Obstructs his progress, and his spleen arouses.

He searches here his palms for olden scars,
And tells you how he came by this and that,
And, running out the coils on iron bars,
The places that he happened to be at;
The route to him most clearly on his person
Was traced from Gundagai to Mount Macpherson.

Animadversions then give way to praise
Of him who loosed an everlasting pest,
And made it necessary soon to raise
A netted barrier from east to west,
And north to south, with endless intersections
On squattages, plantations and selections.

With waggon-loads of ironmongery,
With horse and plough, and frame for running out,
Ties, snips and pliers, pick and shovel, he
Begins to scatter “rabbit-proofs” about;
Whilst energetic Bunny, little heeding,
On either side the barrier goes on breeding.

Then sliding gates require some diagrams.
For such as you or me to understand.
Likewise the traps and brakes at tanks and dams—
Which sets him off again with stick in hand;
And all the styles in which the net’s connected
Across the waterways are resurrected.

His little plot of ground was picturesque,
Enclosed with all the fences that he knew
From ornamental to the most grotesque,
And built of all the woods that round him grew;
He’d graduated from a mere erector
To an enthusiastic fence collector.

Such things as politics engaged him not,
Nor matters that engross the common mind;
E’en literature and art were mostly rot
That did not make an idol of his kind;
And if he spoke of national defences,
‘Twas just to point how barb-wire saved expenses.

Whilst others looked at pumpkins, corn and rye,
Inspected horses, cattle, sheep and swine,
He’d only eyes for yard and pen and sty,
The subdivisions and the bound’ry line;
To talk of such was his sole delectation,
Inspecting them his only recreation.

In sleep his dreams encompassed fences too,
Gigantic twenty-railers that he strode,
And o’er the ranges and the forests thro’
The envy of all living things he rode;
And if perchance a nightmare interviewed him,
It was a log that down a hill pursued him.

When all his building and his dreams are o’er,
And Peter lets the final sliprails down,
His expectations on that other shore
Will not include a halo or a crown,
Nor e’en a pair of wings like angels fit on,
But just a fence—a glory fence—to sit on.

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