Work at High Pressure.
The wool table may fittingly be termed the pulse of the shearing shed, and any variation of movement is immediately reflected there, and registered with the wool classer, his finger on the pulse. Since resumption on Wednesday a distinct upward tendency has been maintained. On the Thursday evening, Sandy Grant, after checking up and recording the day's output, looked over the 2,000 sheep housed for the next day's operations, and, of knowledge gained in a lifetime's experience, predicted peak figures for to-morrow. Now, Sandy was something of an oracle, and not lightly did he express an opinion. That the going was both good and willing was early evident on Friday. At the breakfast adjournment tallies showed an all-round advance, and calculations on this basis indicated record-breaking. Now, there is a fascination in record-breaking, even in such unromantic things as sheep. Things fairly hummed after breakfast. Jim and Curly were on level terms at smoke-oh, several sheep in advance of previous efforts. Would Curly actually beat the redoubtable Jim? Now, Sandy Grant will contend that shearing either rose to the realm of art or descended to
slavery. For the art he will refer you to Jim Hanlon's stand. Watch Jim slip into that pen for a catch and glide out again with the step of a well trained dancer, a 1001b. sheep for a partner. Once in position, a few quick thrusts suffice for the preliminary opening up, then with unerring accuracy that machine is plied straight along the full length of that outstretched body, deeper and longer each succeeding blow, the comb filled to the last tooth. A slight pressure on the head, a turn of the operator's body, or a straightening of the knee, and the subject seems to come automatically into position. Over that last shoulder, and down the “whipping” side, that comb fairly whirred through the wool, just a matter of seconds, and another quivering, pink animal, clean to the toes, went scuttling out of the port-hole. There seemed something almost of the magical in the smooth precision of it all. All that day, at intervals of less than two minutes, Jim Hanlon sent another one down the chute. There were art and effort in supreme combination, for only by a consummate art could that unfaltering speed be maintained. On the other side of the board Charlie Downs slaved as no galley slave ever slaved. If grit and determination had their just reward Charlie would be a ringer of Silverbourne; but there is a limit to what sheer physical effort can accomplish. At the extreme end of the board Curly Parke's forged steadily along. A perfect stylist, this young Australian, but impetuous and lacking a little in the calm concentration of his more experienced rival; nevertheless an artist in the making. The board-walker hovered
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around a little more persistently to-day than usual. Record-breaking, interesting as it might be, was not his chief concern; nevertheless, his attention centred mostly around the chief actors, and he watched Curly carefully. Dinnertime found Jim a bare one in the lead, a catch on the bell giving him that slight advantage. As Curly was leaving the board, Matheson was at his elbow, but what passed between them was known only to themselves.
Early in the afternoon, at intervals, three shearers passed the 200 mark. Late in the day Jim Hanlon reach 250 for the third time in his career, and kept steadily on. Young Australia lost ground steadily in the first afternoon run, and the prospects of a thrilling race for the day's honours faded out. He recovered sufficiently to top the 250 mark, and joined the select band of 2min. shearers. Jim Hanlon ran his total to 265, beating his own previous best by four, but still short of the shed record by six. A hearty round of applause, led by Sandy Grant, greeted the end of a memorable day. The complete figures showed a record day's aggregate, both in sheep and weight of wool shorn. And what a day's work those shed hands did! None needed rocking to sleep that night. High tallies were the order, as the shed ran its prescribed course to the cut out, but no fresh figures were set, and one hour's work on the following Thursday saw the last sheep through the port-hole. Following established precedent, the whole shearing personnel gathered in the vicinity of the wool table, and in convivial spirit to the hospitality provided and presided over by the “boss” in person, celebrated the cut-out. Rivalry and unattained ambition were forgotten in that brief half-hour of leave-taking and good fellowship. The scene at the hut was an animated one, as swags were packed, and final preparations made for departure for other fields; to other sheds ’ere the brief season ended; others back to the city; college boys to their books. Then there came the final and all-important item of paying out cheques, and early in the afternoon the big station wagon, with its human freight, left the homestead road on its twenty-five mile journey to the rail-head. Next day the yards and pens were almost deserted. That ceaseless bleat, bleat, bleat, which we had come to accept as the natural accompaniment of shearing time, had died away, and Silverbourne resumed its normal life for another year.
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