Henry Lawson

Titles in Short Stories category:

• Black Joe

  They called him Black Joe, and me White Joe, by way of distinction and for the convenience of his boss (my uncle), and my aunt, and mother; so, when we heard the cry of "Bla-a-ack Joe!" (the adjective drawn out until it became a screech, after several repetitions, and the "Joe" short and sharp) ...

• Case for the Oracle, A

  The Oracle and I were camped together. The Oracle was a bricklayer by trade, and had two or three small contracts on hand. I was "doing a bit of house-painting". There were a plasterer, a carpenter, and a plumber -- we were all T'othersiders, and old mates, and we worked things together. It ...

• Darling River, The

  The Darling -- which is either a muddy gutter or a second Mississippi -- is about six times as long as the distance, in a straight line, from its head to its mouth. The state of the river is vaguely but generally understood to depend on some distant and foreign phenomena to which bushmen refer ...

• Daughter of Maoriland, A

  The new native-school teacher, who was "green", "soft", and poetical, and had a literary ambition, called her "August", and fondly hoped to build a romance on her character. She was down in the school registers as Sarah Moses, Maori, 16 years and three months. She looked twenty; but this was ...

• Gentleman Sharper and Steelman Sharper, A

  Steelman and Smith had been staying at the hotel for several days in the dress and character of bushies down for what they considered a spree. The gentleman sharper from the Other Side had been hanging round them for three days now. Steelman was the more sociable, and, to all appearances, the ...

• Hero of Redclay, The

  The "boss-over-the-board" was leaning with his back to the wall between two shoots, reading a reference handed to him by a green-hand applying for work as picker-up or woolroller -- a shed rouseabout. It was terribly hot. I was slipping past to the rolling-tables, carrying three fleeces to sav ...

• Incident at Stiffner's, An

  They called him "Stiffner" because he used, long before, to get a living by poisoning wild dogs near the Queensland border. The name stuck to him closer than misfortune did, for when he rose to the proud and independent position of landlord and sole proprietor of an out-back pub he was Stiffner ...

• Master's Mistake, The    

  William Spencer stayed away from school that hot day, and "went swimming". The master wrote a note to William's father, and gave it to William's brother Joe to carry home.

• Mitchell on the "Sex" and Other "Problems"

  "I agree with `T' in last week's `Bulletin'," said Mitchell, after cogitating some time over the last drop of tea in his pannikin, held at various angles, "about what they call the `Sex Problem'. There's no problem, really, except Creation, and that's not our affair; we can't solve it, and we'v ...

• New Year's Night

  It was dark enough for anything in Dead Man's Gap -- a round, warm, close darkness, in which retreating sounds seemed to be cut off suddenly at a distance of a hundred yards or so, instead of growing faint and fainter, and dying away, to strike the ear once or twice again -- and after minutes, ...

• Seeing the Last of You

  "When you're going away by boat," said Mitchell, "you ought to say good-bye to the women at home, and to the chaps at the last pub. I hate waiting on the wharf or up on deck when the boat's behind time. There's no sense in it, and a lot of unnecessary misery. Your friends wait on the wharf and ...

• Selector's Daughter, The

  I.

• Shanty-Keeper's Wife, The

  There were about a dozen of us jammed into the coach, on the box seat and hanging on to the roof and tailboard as best we could. We were shearers, bagmen, agents, a squatter, a cockatoo, the usual joker -- and one or two professional spielers, perhaps. We were tired and stiff and nearly frozen ...

• Story of the Oracle, The

  "We young fellows," said "Sympathy Joe" to Mitchell, after tea, in their first camp west the river -- "and you and I ARE young fellows, comparatively -- think we know the world. There are plenty of young chaps knocking round in this country who reckon they've been through it all before they're ...

• They Wait on the Wharf in Black

  We were coming back from West Australia, steerage -- Mitchell, the Oracle, and I. I had gone over saloon, with a few pounds in my pocket. Mitchell said this was a great mistake -- I should have gone over steerage with nothing but the clothes I stood upright in, and come back saloon with a pile ...

• Two Boys at Grinder Brothers'

  Five or six half-grown larrikins sat on the cemented sill of the big window of Grinder Bros.' Railway Coach Factory waiting for the work bell, and one of the number was Bill Anderson -- known as "Carstor Hoil" -- a young terror of fourteen or fifteen.