While the Billy Boils
Copyright© 2024 by Henry Lawson
Baldy Thompson
Rough, squarish face, curly auburn wig, bushy grey eyebrows and moustache, and grizzly stubble—eyes that reminded one of Dampier the actor. He was a squatter of the old order—new chum, swagman, drover, shearer, super, pioneer, cocky, squatter, and finally bank victim. He had been through it all, and knew all about it.
He had been in parliament, and wanted too again; but the men mistrusted him as Thompson, M.P., though they swore by him as old Baldy Thompson the squatter. His hobby was politics, and his politics were badly boxed. When he wasn’t cursing the banks and government he cursed the country. He cursed the Labour leaders at intervals, and seemed to think that he could run the unions better than they could. Also, he seemed to think that he could run parliament better than any premier. He was generally voted a hard case, which term is mostly used in a kindly sense out back.
He was always grumbling about the country. If a shearer or rouseabout was good at argument, and a bit of a politician, he hadn’t to slave much at Thompson’s shed, for Baldy would argue with him all day and pay for it.
“I can’t put on any more men,” he’d say to travellers. “I can’t put on a lot of men to make big cheques when there’s no money in the bank to pay ‘em—and I’ve got all I can do to get tucker for the family. I shore nothing but burrs and grass-seed last season, and it didn’t pay carriage. I’m just sending away a flock of sheep now, and I won’t make threepence a head on ‘em. I had twenty thousand in the bank season before last, and now I can’t count on one. I’ll have to roll up my swag and go on the track myself next.”
“All right, Baldy,” they’d say, “git out your blooming swag and come along with us, old man; we’ll stick to you and see you through.”
“I swear I’d show you round first,” he’d reply. “Go up to the store and get what rations you want. You can camp in the huts to-night, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
But most likely he’d find his way over after tea, and sit on his heels in the cool outside the hut, and argue with the swagmen about unionism and politics. And he’d argue all night if he met his match.
The track by Baldy Thompson’s was reckoned as a good tucker track, especially when a dissolution of parliament was threatened. Then the guileless traveller would casually let Baldy know that he’d got his name on the electoral list, and show some interest in Baldy’s political opinions, and oppose them at first, and finally agree with them and see a lot in them—be led round to Baldy’s way of thinking, in fact; and ultimately depart, rejoicing, with a full nose-bag, and a quiet grin for his mate.
There are many camp-fire yarns about old Baldy Thompson.
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