True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey Read Free Book Online Page A

Several 1‘ to 4‘ tears without loss of text.
    An account of the family’s arrival at the district of Greta and
a visit from their Uncle James with a very full description of
his subsequent arrest for arson and his sentencing at the
Autumn Assizes. A brief report of Ned and Jem Kelly’s life as
agricultural labourers in the service of Ellen Kelly’s sisters.
Mrs Kelly’s selection of land at Eleven Mile Creek is narrated
with considerable enthusiasm. Also includes unflattering
portraits of Anne Kelly and of various suitors of Mrs Kelly.
    NOW WERE YOUR GRANDPA’S poor wracked body finally granted everlasting title to the rich soil of Avenel and your grandma left free to reveal her passion for the Duffy Land Act once again. There were now no one to contradict her or call her a fool certainly not us children. We knew the Quinns had gotten 1,000 acres at Glenmore on the King River and that is what we wanted too even Dan who were the most distressed by our father’s death.
    In the hot summer evenings following the burial my mother gathered her brood about her. It were not Cuchulainn and Dedriu and Mebd she talked of now but the mighty farm we would all soon select together she said we would find a great mountain river and flats so rich no plough were needed we would plunge our hands into it and breathe the fertile loamy smell and be neighbours with our aunts and uncles once again and break wild horses and sell them and grow corn and wheat and raise fat sleek cattle and all the land beneath our feet would be our own to walk on from dawn to dusk ours and ours alone.
    We did not talk about our father knowing our very excitement were an insult against his memory and his soul were within each soul of ours and would be for every moment of our lives and there would never be a knot I tied or a rabbit I skun or a horse I rode that I did not see those small eyes watching to see I done it right.
    There was 60 hard crabholed miles between Avenel and my aunts Kate and Jane. The very small children rode in a borrowed cart together with our chooks in baskets & pots & pans & blankets & axes & hoes & 2 bags of seed my mother sitting up on the bench driving with baby Grace at her breast.
    We older ones had charge of the cows and the dogs it were our job to catch the pig when he escaped though we never minded on account of we was going to a farm. Doubtless my mother had the same idea but when we finally arrived at the township of Greta we discovered our uncles had been put in gaol and the aunts and all their children was living in a delicensed hotel. Once a palace of the gold rush it was abandoned now like a grand old ship beached on the wide brown plain it seemed the height of luxury to me.
    There was 13 bedrooms and wide hallways such as I had only previously observed in Shelton’s hotel and my cousins Tom and Jack and Jack Jr and my sister Kate run up and down and around in merry misrule.
    If my mother were disappointed she never showed it she were always singing with her sisters and riding around the country with her father and brothers deciding which land she might finally select. My aunts must of been very poor but in memory it were a time of plenty and there was duck and chook eggs and fatty mutton with potatoes. Aunt Kate were 4 ft. 10 in. and skinny as a greenhide whip she made what my father called BRUITIN and the Quinns called CHAMP it is potatoes mashed up with a great lump of butter. She had a vegetable garden and she improved the soil so well it could grow anything we pulled up onions 12 in. across it would astound you to see what the land could produce in them days.
    I had not been in Greta 2 wk. when I found an unbranded horse I broke with considerable assistance from Jimmy Quinn who did not have the T burned in his hand like old Ben Gould but he were already a famous thief and there was people in Greta said he’d sold his soul to the Devil. Be that as it may there were no better judge of an animal I ever met and never a