The True Story of Spit MacPhee by James Aldridge Read Free Book Online Page B

greeting him, and when he was finally noticed Mr Tree said, ‘Hello, Spit. It’s still pretty low, isn’t it? It isn’t rising at all.’
    ‘It hasn’t started yet,’ Spit said.
    ‘It’s been a long summer,’ Jack Tree said.
    To Spit the longer the summer lasted and the longer it took for the river to begin its autumn rise, the better. But for Jack Tree, and his district stock and pasture problems, it was a question of water in the Riverrain where the dairy herds were. Jack would always look back on these long dry summers as harbingers of drought, and if the weather didn’t change soon there could be trouble.
    ‘You haven’t noticed any rise at all in the last week or so?’ he said to Spit.
    Spit always kept a willow sprig on the very edge of the river at right-angles to see if it was rising or falling, and he could report to Mr Tree that the river had fallen another two inches in the last week. ‘It’s still going down,’ he said.
    ‘They’re keeping the weir wide open too,’ Mr Tree said thoughtfully. ‘So we’re going to be in trouble. How are the fish?’ he asked Spit.
    ‘All right,’ Spit said. ‘Do you want to buy a cod?’
    ‘You shouldn’t catch so many,’ the soldier replied. ‘You’re depleting them.’ And he was on his way up the slope to his house when Sadie came running along the river path from upstream calling, ‘Spit, it’s your grandfather. You’ll have to come quick.’ Then she saw her father and stopped where she stood.
    Spit said, ‘Goddamn,’ and was off, running like a muscular, fleet-footed hare along the path, with Sadie and Mr Tree following him. They found old Fyfe lying twisted-up on the very edge of the river, his hands clamped tight over his ears, his face distorted as he groaned and swung his head from side to side, and his legs stiff and straight. He was shouting something that was too broken to understand.
    ‘He’s having a fit,’ Mr Tree said, kneeling over him.
    ‘No he isn’t,’ Spit shouted. ‘It’s not a fit. Don’t touch him.’
    ‘We’ll have to get him inside,’ Mr Tree said.
    ‘That’s no good,’ Spit said. ‘Just leave him alone. Don’t touch him.’ And Spit tried to push Jack Tree out of the way.
    ‘He’ll fall in the river if you don’t move him,’ Jack insisted as Spit kept pushing him off.
    ‘No, he won’t. Just leave him alone, and go away. Go away.’ Sadie and Mr Tree stood for a moment, undecided, watching the old man’s suffering. But then Sadie said, ‘Come on, Dad,’ and she pulled at his arm. ‘Spit will do everything.’
    ‘He needs some help.’
    ‘No, he doesn’t,’ Sadie said, pulling at her father. ‘You’ve got to leave them.’
    Reluctantly, Mr Tree allowed himself to be led away by Sadie as Spit took one of the buckets of water, always waiting at the river bank for kitchen use, and threw it over his grandfather. Fyfe groaned a little and ground his teeth but then he subsided, and as Mr Tree followed the fleeing Sadie up the slope they heard Fyfe shouting, and Spit replying angrily, ‘You’re too near the river, Grandpa. You’ve got to get up.’
    ‘Poor Mr MacPhee,’ Sadie said miserably as they hurried around the big trees to their fenced-in house to get to the back door instead of the front.
    ‘He’s a tough old bird,’ Mr Tree said. ‘Although I’ve never seen him like that before.’
    ‘Why is he like that?’ Sadie asked her father. ‘Is he really mad?’
    ‘Not all the time,’ her father said. ‘But he’s getting worse, and some day he’s going to go clean off his head. No doubt about it.’
    ‘What’ll happen to Spit then?’ Sadie asked. ‘What’ll he do?’
    ‘Betty Arbuckle will probably get him,’ Mr Tree said.
    ‘But she’d send him away to the Boys Home in Bendigo, wouldn’t she?’
    ‘Probably.’
    ‘That’s not fair.’
    Mr Tree was surprised to hear so much sudden conviction from his daughter. ‘It doesn’t have to be fair or unfair,’ he told her