The Firstborn Sons
(The Rickards Family Story)
by Raymond Boyd Dunn
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Raymond Dunn
Prologue
My name is William George Rickards. You might already know a little about me if you read the story of my train trip to Darwin on the Indian Pacific and The Ghan from which I recently returned. (Once upon a Time on the Ghan).
But just in case you haven’t: I am a partner in an Accountancy firm in the beautiful city of Toowoomba. I was born at Dalby in 1975. I am still single in this year of Our Lord 2004, with only a slight chance of rectifying that status in the near future, to the satisfaction of my mother. I have two sisters (Margaret and Jane) and one brother (Jack). I board in Toowoomba with Margaret who is married to Webster Johnson, a motor mechanic, and they have two children. My other two siblings are also un-wed, and live with my parents, George and Bertha, on Bethrick, their cattle and grain property north of Dalby.
My purpose in writing this is to tell the story of our family, trying to separate the facts from the fiction, as passed down from generation to generation.
The story began in 1874 on the Palmer River goldfields, where my Great, Great, Great Grandfather, also named William Rickards, met my G-G-G-Grandmother, Elizabeth. They were the original settlers on Bethrick, which was originally a sheep raising property. Their story is told in the trilogy of books, 'Palmer Gold', 'An Australian Ranch' and 'Carly and Sam...Will and Effie.''
I will endeavour to relate the rest as told to me by my Great Grandfather, Samuel Rickards. Unfortunately, Samuel died just a couple of years ago at the ripe old age of ninety-seven. In his younger days he knew the original William and his son Will, who was his father. It’s a pity he couldn’t have lasted a few more years to help me with this story. As it stands I’ll have to rely on my memory of the many tales he used to tell me, both when I was a youngster listening in awe with mouth agape I should imagine, and later as a teenager, before I left the family hearth to find my own way in the world.
Samuel was old when first I knew him. To me, at such a young age, he appeared ancient. He would have been in his mid seventies then, which I suppose you could call ‘old’ when you are only young yourself. In all the time I knew him he didn’t seem to have aged, except in the last year of his life, but I suppose that could be said to be in the eye of the beholder.
As was the custom with all the first-born sons, Samuel lived on Bethrick all of his life, until failing health forced my father to take him in to a Nursing Home in Dalby for the last few months of his life. His own son, Raymond, my Grandfather, my father’s father, was the ‘black sheep’ of the family, but more about that later. He was killed during the Korean War in 1952, many years before I was born.
When Samuel’s wife, Mabel, passed away with cancer at the age of sixty-eight in 1973, only three weeks after my parents’ wedding, he moved out of the homestead into one of the cottages with his two unmarried daughters, leaving the homestead for my newly-married parents to move into. There are three cottages on Bethrick besides the homestead, which were occupied at various times by one or other of the married sons and daughters, or the married ringers.
I’m afraid I am going to break a tradition - which is that the first born son of each generation takes over the running of Bethrick - because of my chosen career of Accountancy. My brother Jack had to step into the breech. My father was disappointed when I showed no interest in being a farmer/grazier, but was consoled by the fact that what I lacked in enthusiasm was more than compensated for by Jack’s overwhelming love of the land.
Samuel had only one son, Raymond, and four daughters. Raymond had only one child, George, with his young love, Elsie. Fortunately for me! George is my father.
Samuel was the eldest child of Will and Effie (nee Pearson) Rickards and was born in 1905 in the Dalby Hospital.
Even though he wasn’t my grandfather I used to call Samuel ‘Gran-pop.’ My real grandfather, Raymond, was killed twenty-three years before I was born, so you could say that Samuel was ‘Gran-pop’ by proxy. I became very close to Gran-pop while I was growing up. The stories I will relate are based on the stories he told me, and embellished by my imagination.
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Chapter 1
Young Samuel Rickards, aged eight years, and his brother Jack, two years his junior, had reached the wooden swinging gate to Bethrick, the sheep property of 15000 acres which was their home. Samuel by right of his seniority sat in front of Jack on the horse, which they rode bare-back and double on their way to, and now from school in Jimbour.
Samuel leaned down from his position in front to unlatch the gate so they wouldn’t have to dismount, and was urging the horse forward so they could open it and pass through, when they heard the sound of an automobile approaching from behind them. Jack swung around nearly unseating both of them in the process, and shouted: “It’s Mum and Dad with the new Chevy car! Open the gate right up, Sammy.”
“Alright, you don’t have to yell! I can hear you!”
They both slid off their mount after the gate was opened, and stood holding it so it wouldn’t swing back again. Their parents had been taken into Dalby the previous day to take delivery of what Will, their father, called ‘a new-fangled horse-less carriage’. Will always maintained the automobile would never replace the horse and carriage as a means of transport. He argued that even if they did have one, he wouldn’t be able to drive it with his wooden foot; the result of being blown up in the Boer War in South Africa. But eventually he gave in to the reasoning of their mother Effie that it was going to be the way of the future.
“If you can ride a horse and walk with a wooden foot,” she argued against his excuses, “you ought to be able to operate the pedals. Besides, it’s 1913 now. It’s high time you came into the modern world.”
So eventually they went in to Dalby to try out his skill as a car driver with the car dealer. After he found he could manage quite well, he became very enthusiastic himself, and needed very little persuasion from the dealer that he should have one. Before they returned home he ordered a Series C Chevrolet motor car, for delivery as soon as the dealer could provide one.
There was no shortage of money. Their property had always been a profitable undertaking, firstly as a sheep run, and later when they switched to cattle and began to cultivate the richer soil and plant crops. It remained profitable even during the many droughts they had experienced since Samuel’s grandparents, Billy and Beth Rickards, first bought the property in 1874, using only part of the fortune they made on the Palmer River goldfields.
When their daughter Mattie, their only other child, married Henry Bell in 1905 and moved with him on to a property north of Roma, Billy and Beth moved out of the homestead into a newly built cottage nearby, giving the larger home to Will and Effie and their expanding family.
After passing through the gate, Will brought the car to a stop so the boys could see it.
“I won’t turn the motor off until we reach home,” he said, “just in case I can’t start it again. Look! There goes Priceless. The car must have scared her.”
The boys’ horse, which had neither saddle nor bridle, was trotting off towards the homestead about a mile down the road.
“Never mind,” said Will, “you can have your first ride in the new car – after you shut the gate.”
Effie was in the front passenger seat with two year old Caroline on her lap, and four year old George was hanging over the side in the back seat.
“Shove over, George,” ordered Samuel as he clambered over the side into the back of the vehicle, having shut the gate.
“Use the door!” commanded Will. “You’re not to climb all over the car. Open the door, Jack, and get in properly.”
“How do I open it, Dad?” exclaimed Jack, as he stepped up on to the running board. "There’s no handle.”
“The handle’s on the inside. You open it for him, Sam. It’s that lever near the top. Just pull it to you.”
Samuel tugged on the lever, pushing against the door at the same time. The door flew open, sending Jack sprawling onto the ground.
“Sam! You…!” Jack stopped just in time. He knew of the consequences if he swore in front of his mother. He’d felt his father’s strap on his bare legs for just such a slip of the tongue before.
“Sam couldn’t help it, Jack. Get in now and we’ll be on our way. I can’t wait to show Grandma and Granddad. After all, it’s partly theirs too.”
“Great seats, Dad,” proclaimed Samuel, as he bounced up and down on the black leather upholstery, to be immediately joined in that activity by the other two boys. “It's better than the sulky.”
“Stop doing that, you boys! This isn’t a toy! Sit properly!”
“Yes, you boys,” said Effie, twisting around to look at them, “you never did it in the sulky, and I don’t want you to teach Caroline bad habits.”
The boys quietened down. They took many more liberties with their father than they did with their mother, even though Will was the one who occasionally administered the punishment for their misdeeds. Effie’s quiet voice, delivering instructions in a soothing and loving way, would tame even the wildest beast, according to Will. Even three rowdy boys!
“Be careful not to knock over that can of Benzene on the floor, or we won’t have any fuel for it,” Will warned the boys. “At least horses don’t need Benzene to make them go,” he commented, looking slyly at Effie.
“What’s Benzene, Dad?” asked Samuel, leaning across the front seat. “Gee! We’re going fast!”
“Twenty-five miles an hour,” observed Will, as he checked the speedometer. “It went at thirty-five on the roads around Dalby. I don’t want to go too fast here when there are sheep around. You know how stupid they are. I don’t want to damage the car on the first day.”
“Yeah, but what’s Benzene? It’s leaking a bit around the cap. It smells horrible!”
“You have to put it in the fuel tank, and that’s what makes the contraption go. Is it leaking, you say?”
“Just a bit about the top. It stinks!”
“Well, don’t get any on you. And maybe you’d better not smell it. It mightn’t be good for you.”
“It’s making my head hurt,” complained four-year-old George, who had been in the back with it all the way from Dalby.
“Yes, Will,” commented Effie, “I can smell it here. I thought it was just a car smell. It’s not very nice, is it?”
“We’re nearly there,” said Will. “As soon as we stop, I’ll take it out and put it in the shed. There’re Grandma and Granddad out the front waiting for us, boys. They must have heard us coming. You can’t sneak up on anyone in this contraption like you can on a horse.”
“Oh! Admit it Will,” smiled Effie. “You love it, don’t you?”
“I suppose I’ll get used to it. At least, I won’t have to catch it when I want to go anywhere.”
He pulled up opposite the homestead gate where Billy and Beth were waiting.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked them, after he switched off the motor and climbed out to stand to one side, sweeping his arm towards the car.
“I like the colour. It’s a lovely blue,” commented Beth.
“Just like a woman,” said Billy. “More concerned with how it looks than what it does! D’you think it’ll be any good, Will?”
“I didn’t think much of the idea at first. Now I’ve driven it all the way from Dalby in less than half the time it takes by sulky, and a more comfortable ride at that, I reckon it’s going to be just the ticket! There’re chains to put around the wheels when the black soil roads are wet; side curtains to put on when it’s raining. There're even lamps that light up the road in front when it’s dark.
“Righto!” he called. “Everyone out, so that I can move the Benzene tin and let Grandma and Granddad sit in it.”
After Billy and Beth spent some time in the car being shown all the features by Will, the adults and Caroline moved to go inside the homestead and have some afternoon tea.
“Can I drive it, Dad?” pleaded Samuel, as the adults moved off.
“You boys can sit in it for a while, as long as you promise not to touch anything except the steering wheel. Once we’ve had it for a while and get used to it, I might let you have a go at driving it.”
“Is it safe letting them do that?” said a worried Effie.
“There’s nothing much that I can see that’ll harm them. They can’t start it. But I’ll put a couple of rocks under the wheels so it doesn’t roll if they release the brake.”
Once they were inside, sitting around the kitchen table drinking their tea, all the talk was about their new car.
“Will it pull a wagon?” asked Billy. “Say, a German wagon? I’ve heard that there are motor trucks carrying produce now instead of the horse-drawn wagons.”
“I don’t think we’ll be worrying about pulling wagons with it,” replied Will. “I don’t know whether it’d be powerful enough. I saw a motor truck carrying stock from the railway station to Thomas Jack’s store, so we might eventually have to buy one of those to cart things around Bethrick.”
“All these modern things,” sighed Beth. “Where’s it all leading? They even have flying machines now. Mrs Jenson told me in Dalby a couple of weeks ago that they reckon going at such a fast speed isn’t good for your health!”
“I don’t think Mrs Jenson knows what she’s talking about,” Billy said, reassuringly. “But it wouldn’t be good for your health if you bumped into something. And it wouldn’t be the speed that hurt you. It’d be the sudden stop at the end,” he joked.
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Chapter 2
Samuel stood in front of the full length mirror on the wardrobe in the bedroom which he shared with his two brothers, checking to see if his appearance was the best it could be. He adjusted his tie so it sat properly around his neck and wondered whether the tail was too long. He had to look his best, because today was his twenty-first birthday, and he was to be guest of honour at a party to celebrate his coming of age.
His parents had invited all of his friends, and most accepted the invitation. Most important of all, Mabel Stegman would be coming with the crowd from Jimbour. He met Mabel at the formal opening of the newly renovated Jimbour House the previous year. Her father was one of the tradesmen who were responsible for reviving the stately home to its former glory, and they now lived in the township of Jimbour.
The Crown had resumed a large portion of the Jimbour Station during the years from 1907-11, and most of the outbuildings and residences were moved to other locations. Many were moved to the railway siding which became the town of Jimbour. For years the once elegant house was allowed to go to rack and ruin, until Mr W.A.Russell purchased it from Charles Whipple in 1923. It deteriorated to such an extent that the top floor had been shut off. The roof was leaking, windows were broken, and the top floor was home to the birds. Only a couple of rooms on the ground floor were being lived in. Mr Russell immediately set about the expensive restoration of the building, and its completion was celebrated with a formal Ball in 1925, the year before.
A group of eight young people was expected to travel from Jimbour township to attend, in addition to the others from various other parts of the district.
Samuel decided the tail of his tie was too long after all, and it would have to be re-tied. He pulled it off, and started once again, this time allowing for what he thought would be the correct setting. He always had trouble getting it just right. The stiff thumb on his right hand didn't make it any easier. He couldn't bend it to grip anything. Ever since the accident many years ago, he experienced trouble doing some of the things which should be simple with a good thumb. In addition to being stiff, it was out of alignment when compared to the thumb on his left hand, and would not operate in the way it was supposed to. Writing was a problem for him until he learnt to hold the pen or pencil between the first and second fingers, instead of between thumb and forefinger.
As he fiddled with his tie, his mind went back to the day when the damage had been done...
It was a week or so after their parents arrived home with their new Chevrolet motor car, right back in 1913, when Samuel decided to take it for a short spin around the homestead. The previous day, Will arrived home after taking Grandma, Granddad, Effie and Caroline for a week's visit to Great Grandmother Martha in Dalby. On the morning of the accident, Will and one of the ringers rode up to the north-east paddock to check on the stock in that area, after leaving strict instructions for Samuel to take good care of four year old George, but leaving an enormous temptation for the three boys.
Samuel had been pestering his father to let him have a go at driving the new car, and was promised that one day his father would let him do so. Every time they went with their father in the car, Samuel paid particular attention to what his father did, and was quite certain he knew what to do.
"Come on, you two," encouraged Samuel, "now's our chance to go for a ride. I know how to drive it."
"Do you think we ought to?" cautioned Jack. "We'll cop it if Dad finds out!"
"He won't find out. We'll only go for a short ride. Come on, Jack. Don't be chicken."
"I don't want to. We'll only get into trouble."
"Alright, I know how to start it. Dad does it without any help. I'll bet you want to come for a ride when you see me in it."
The car was parked in an open-ended lean-to shelter, which meant Samuel would not have to back out, but could drive straight forward if, or when, he started it.
Samuel strode confidently over to the lean-to, followed at a distance by his two brothers. He stood on the running board, and jiggled the gear lever from side to side as he had seen his father do to make sure it was in neutral. Then he pulled out the choke to the exact position his father did, and reached under the seat for the crank handle. Moving confidently to the front of the car, he inserted the crank handle through the hole in the bumper bar, and into the hole under the radiator. When he felt it lodge into position, he turned to his brothers and announced confidently: "Now watch this!"
He took a firm grip of the handle, encircling it with thumb and fingers, and tried to turn it - but it went only so far before returning to its original position.
"See! You can't start it!" said Jack. "Come on, Sam. Let's go and climb in the shed."
"No! I just didn't pull hard enough. Watch this time."
Taking the same grip, but this time assisting with the other hand, Samuel took a deep breath, and using all his strength gave it another turn. It went nearly all the way around this time, but kicked back powerfully. Samuel let out a yell, and put his hand under his armpit, which is where instinct and experience from the school teacher's cane taught him to place a stinging hand to alleviate the pain. But it only made it worse, and he looked at his hand, to find the thumb pointing awkwardly to one side.
The thumb hadn't healed properly and was stiff, so his use of it was restricted; but, over the years, he learnt to cope with it by using his left hand more than he would have otherwise. Satisfied now that his tie was just right, he took one final look at his overall appearance in the mirror, and left the room to join his mother and Auntie Mattie. Mattie Bell and her husband, Henry, were visiting for a week or so from their cattle grazing property north of Roma. Their youngest son Geoffrey, who recently turned fifteen, was with them. Samuel couldn't stand the cheeky young so and so.
"My! Don't you look smart, Samuel," said Mattie, when he walked into the kitchen. "Your Mum tells me that you have a girlfriend now. Is all this for her benefit? You've even pomaded your hair, and it's the first time I've seen you do that."
"Don't tease him, Mattie," intervened Effie. "I've tried for years to have him take a pride in his appearance - to no avail - but it seems to me that Mabel has provided him with the incentive to smarten himself up."
"Aw! Lay off me, will you? It's my coming of age birthday party, so I have to look my very best, don't I?"
"Well, whatever the reason, I'm pleased you are starting to make an effort in that regard. If only I could persuade Jack and George to do the same.
"Mattie," Effie continued. "You should see the effort George makes when I tell him to tuck his shirt in. You'd swear I'd asked him to do something impossible. You'd think a seventeen-year-old could at least do that!"
"I know just what you mean," replied Mattie. "I have two boys myself, don't forget. Geoffrey is the same. Stan used to be like that, but since he turned nineteen and now has a girlfriend, he's a changed boy. There's no doubt that when a girl comes into the picture, a boy's whole attitude changes."
Samuel was becoming embarrassed with all this women's talk, and made his excuses so he could go outside, and wait for the party guests to arrive.
His brothers, Jack and George, were sitting on the front steps talking, having been ready for the last half an hour. The sun still had another hour or so to light up the land before it disappeared behind the trees on the hills to the west. People should be starting to arrive before long.
"It's about time you showed up," said Jack. "Prettying yourself up for Mabel, were you?"
"Don't you start, Jack. I've copped enough from Mum and Auntie Mattie without you putting in your tuppence-worth. Anyway, I haven't seen you looking so spick and span before. It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the Jimbour overseer's daughter is coming would it?"
"You're right! I think I might have a chance there, and I'm going to make an effort. I heard she gave Wally Wycroft the old heave-ho, so I'm going to see if I can help her get over a broken romance, and heal her 'broken' heart!"
"Speak of the devil," said Samuel. "This looks like two of the Jimbour cars coming up the track now. Come on. Get up and help me welcome them."