Pat Ritter. Books

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'The Shearer' - Page 23:

The shearing shed was built with bush timber, huge poles which held the raw timber rafters holding the roof in place with honed wooden slabs for the floor. A seven stand shed measured approximately one hundred feet in length, thirty feet in breadth. Seven pens built through the centre of the shearing shed to house the sheep before being shorn. Each shearer took his position in front of a selected pen.
Their role was to open a gate, enter the pen, grab a sheep, roll the sheep onto their back; physically drag it to a point in front of the gate. Close the gate so not to allow any other sheep in the pen to escape. With the front legs of the sheep pointing under the armpit of the shearer, he, the shearer first removed the belly wool.
A roustabout, a young lad, would rush to pick up the belly wool giving the shearer sufficient room to removed the rest of the wool. This was taken in one complete cut, peeling away layer upon layer of wool as the shearer worked magic with his shears. Again the roustabout collected the fleece whilst the shearer dispatched the shorn sheep down a chute before entering the catching pen to retrieve the next one. Cocky Young kept score on a board to indicate how many sheep each shearer shorn.
Wool from the sheep collected by the roustabout delivered to a Wool Classer, who separated and gauged the wool into appropriate piles depended on the various thickness of the wool. A Wool Presser collected the gauged wool from the various piles to fit into a wool pack to be tightly pressed and correctly branded. The name of the property was stencilled to identify the wool packs belonging to the property and the bales loaded onto a wagon to be taken to market.
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'The Shearer' - Page 24:

Morning smoko bell clanged, shearers finished off the sheep they were shearing and put their shears down. Time for morning smoko; half-an-hour allowed each man time for a toilet break and off to the shearers hut for a cuppa and freshly cooked scone.
‘How many ya done, Joe?’ Bluey asked, when the two left the shed.
‘Fifteen – how many for you?’ Joe asked.
‘Seventeen.’ Bluey smiled, knowing his number upset Joe.
‘I’ll need to go faster – won’t I,’ Joe remarked, when they sat down at the table to have their pannikin of black tea and scone.
‘You don’t want to have too many of those scones – it’ll slow you down’.
‘We’ll see,’ Joe answered with a mouth filled with scone. He lifted his pannikin of tea to his mouth to wash the scone down.
‘Meet ya out there Joe. Gotta have a fag before we start again.’ Bluey ed and left Joe at the table.
‘They’ll kill ya don’t you know.’ But Bluey was beyond hearing.
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'The Shearer' - Page 25:

Chapter 4

Joe finished his cuppa, moved his chair back, thanked the cook for the scones and left the room. Other shearers rested along the veranda but Joe wanted to keep moving. He walked to the opposite end of the veranda and looked out across the paddock. His eyes popped when he saw a horse and rider coming toward him. The rider pulled the horse up in front of where he stood.
‘How’re you going, I’m Hannah Young, the boss’s daughter.’ She smiled, dismounted and held the reins.
‘Hi there, I’m Joe Ryan, one of the shearers.’ He couldn’t believe a young woman would stop and speak with him especially the boss’s daughter.
‘Pleased to meet you, Joe Ryan,’ Hannah said joyfully, putting her hand out to shake Joe’s.
‘Over here Hannah,’ a thick loud voice bellowed.
‘Okay Pa, keep your shirt on. I’m talking to one of the shearers,’ she bellowed back.
‘Hannah, how many times have I told you not to speak with the hired help?’
‘Okay Pa. I’ll be there in a minute. Pleased to meet you Joe, perhaps we may see one another again soon.’ She smiled, remounted her horse and rode off toward the shearing shed.
Love at first sight enveloped Joe’s mind until the sound of the bell signalled the end of morning smoko. He returned to his stand at the shearing shed where Hannah stood next to her father, almost directly opposite. Her eyes fixed on Joe standing at the door to his pen ready for the sound of a bell from her father to commence shearing.
The bell clanged Joe opened the pen, grabbed a sheep and dragged it out to his stand. He leaned down to pick up the shears his eyes gazed across to Hannah Young; he decided there and then he would marry her.
His concentration lapsed as he shore the belly wool causing the shears to tear the skin. ‘Tar boy’, he shouted. Immediately a lad ran to his assistance to dab the wound with Stockholm tar to stop the bleeding.
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'The Shearer' - Page 26:

‘Ryan, you cut my sheep again, you’re sacked!’ a voice bellowed. Hannah smiled and walked away.
Sweat formed on his brow, around his armpits and down his legs. Get a hold of yourself. He kept working until the bell rang to break for lunch. His companion, Bluey, made a sly remark when they left the shearing shed to make their way to the kitchen, ‘Don’t go fooling yourself with that pretty little bonny woman, Joe. She’s too high and mighty for you and our kind.’
‘What’d mean Bluey. She’s beautiful,’ Joe whispered.
‘You know, a cocky’s daughter wouldn’t entertain the likes of you Joe. Give it up man while you can. You like shearing here don’t ya?’ Bluey asked.
‘Yeah Bluey, but she is the one I want to marry.’ Joe was determined.
‘Best of luck to you mate wish you all of the best, but I think old man Young will have something to say about that.’ Bluey walked into the kitchen to take his seat closest to the door. The kitchen was getting hotter.
After eating his meal Joe retired to the veranda. Wonder what he meant when he said Hannah wouldn’t be interested in the likes of me? What’s wrong with me? I work hard and I’m a good person, only I might drink a bit heavy when I’m with me mates. I’d stop drinking to be with Hannah.
Sleep overtook his mind, dreaming of the day when he and Hannah would be joined at the hip as husband and wife. She’d make a beautiful bride, dressed in white for purity, he standing beside her dressed in his Sunday best.
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'The Shearer' - Page 27:

In the background, Joe heard a bell ringing. Could it be wedding bells? He felt a hand on his shoulder. ‘Wake up dreamy head – back to work.’ Bluey stood over him.
‘I dreamt I married Hannah.’ He told Bluey.
‘Bloody hell mate, lucky it was only a dream for that’s all it’ll be – a dream’, he pronounced before walking ahead of Joe to his stand ready to commence an afternoon of shearing. Bluey’s total for the morning was thirty-five he was well on his way to shear seventy for the day. Joe on the other hand, scored only twenty-nine because after he cut the first sheep it slowed his tally.
By the final bell for the day, Joe was pleased to have shorn his last sheep. His tally was under fifty. Tomorrow will be a different day.
After dinner, he decided to take a bath which was uncommon during the week because shearers only body-washed with a tin basin, soap and cloth over the important smelly parts of their bodies.
The shower room in the quarters - if one could call it a room was large enough for one person to stand upright under a gallon can raised above the person’s head. A rope hung from a lever on top of the can so the person having a shower after soaping their body pulled on the cord to release the water from the can above their head. If the person showering needed more water; the top can needed to be refilled with water from four gallon kerosene tin.
Joe felt refreshed and alive after his shower. He towelled himself off to dry and changed into his town clothes. He felt good, his mind clear and knew what he needed to do to capture the heart of Hannah Young. It didn’t worry Joe that the woman he was seeking was the daughter of one of the richest property owners in the district.
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'The Shearer' - Page 28:

‘Where’re you off to Joe? You going to see that gal of youse?’ Bluey commented seeing Joe leave the compounds of the shearing quarters to walk across to the sheep yards adjoining the shearing shed.
‘I’m going for a walk – if that’s alright.’
Leaning against the railing of the sheep yard, he rolled a cigarette and lit it with his hand covering the flame at the end of the cigarette. A soft female voice echoed from the next yard, ‘You come here often?’
Joe stopped lighting the cigarette.
‘Cat got your tongue?’
‘I thought I heard someone – never in my wildest dreams ever thought it would be you.’ Joe’s heart pounded in his chest. ‘Does your father know you’re here?’ Hannah looked like a dream come true dressed in a dress, frilled at the bottom to show off her womanly shape rather than the riding britches she’d worn that morning.
‘Pa’s smoking his pipe on the veranda. See, have a look, you can see the glow.’ She continued to look Joe in the eye.
‘How did you know I’d be here?’ He asked.
‘I didn’t. Pa asked me to take a walk and check on the water in the yard. I’d forgotten this afternoon before I left.’
‘So he doesn’t know you’re with me.’
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Thank you dub. Here is the page for today: 'The Shearer - Page 29:

‘No. Does that matter? I was hoping to bump into you if I could,’ she murmured.
‘Have you checked the water yet?’
‘No – not yet, do you want to help me?’
‘Sure – where is it?’
‘At the top of the yard. Water flows into a trough to water the sheep from the bore. They have a drink before I take them to the paddock in the morning.’ Her demeanour highlighted the brightness in her eyes.
‘Okay, let’s go check on the water, shall we?’
Together they walked around the sheep-yard to the front section. ‘Can you see, it’s getting dark,’ Joe asked, Hannah walked beside him.
‘Yeah, I see in the dark, green eyes like a cat.’ They walked to a wooden water trough. Joe shut down the water flowing into the trough.
‘There you are. All done, you can tell your Pa water’s turned off.’ Joe wanted to say more but couldn’t find the correct words. Bluey may be right when he said she was too good for the likes of him. He was only a shearer, not a cocky. He didn’t have much to offer.
‘Why don’t we sit on the log over there for awhile and talk? Hannah beckoned Joe to a nearby log. He followed and when she tried to sit beside him he moved, so they were apart. ‘Don’t you like sitting beside me Joe?’ she asked beckoning him to move closer.
‘Na – it’s not that,’ he stammered, ‘I’ve never spoken to a beautiful woman like you before.’ He stumped his smoke out on the ground with his boot, nerves thundering through his body.
‘You think I’m beautiful?’ She turned her head toward him.
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