The Voice of Experience
Dave is 77 years old, has a crippled wife, works slowly. methodically and continually on the land and is always cheer- ful. He is a small man; I suspect that his lack of inches helped to get him, half a century ago, one of his earlier jobs, which was boxing with a kangaroo in a circus. He looked—for he is a pre-tractor man—slightly out of place in the implement- shed, where we had both taken refuge from the rain which drummed inexorably on its roof. Did he ever remember a summer like this one, or even like the last ? Dave screwed up his eyes and contemplated the past. 'Well, sir,' he said at length,' it do seem to be different now. Different altogether.' He groped for something which would clinch the matter, would bring us both back from the speculative realm of associated troughs of low pressure and what he calls all that gun-firing' to the terra firma of reality and experience. Well, sir,' he went on, gazing with wistful, aggrieved incredulity at the cascades of rain, people may be right, plough-horses may be no use any more. But I'll tell you a thing there's less use for than a plough-horse." What's that ? ' I asked. The little straw bonnets,' said Dave, that we used to put on their heads against the sun.' STRIX
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