A New Girl Up At Whites
By Edward Dyson
There's a fresh track down the paddock
Through the lightwoods to the creek,
And I notice Billy Craddock
And Maloney do not speak,
And The Snag is slyly bitter
When hes criticising Bill,
And theres quite a foreign glitter
On the fellows at the mill.
Sid MMahons turned out a dandy
With a masher coat and tie,
And the engine-driver, Sandy,
Curls his whiskers on the sly:
All the boys wear paper collars
And their tombstone shirts of nights,
So its ten to one in dollars
Theres a new girl up at Whites.
Shes a charmer from the river,
But she steeps the lads in gloom,
With her blue eyes all a-quiver
And her hair like wattle-bloom;
Though shes pretty and beguiling,
And so lit up, like, with fun
That the flowers turn to her smiling,
Just as if she was the sun.
But I wish shed leave the valley,
For the camp is dull to me,
Now the mill hands never rally
For the regulation spree,
And theres not another joker
Gives a tinkers curse for nap.,
Or will take a hand at poker
Or at euchre with a chap!
Tom wont stir us with his fiddle
By the boilers as he did
While Bob stepped it in the middle,
And we passed the billy-lid.
Ah! we had some gay old nights there,
But the boys now dont agree,
And they hang about at Whites there,
When theyve togged up after tea.
With the gloves we have no battle;
Now they sneak away and moon
Round with White, discussing cattle
All the Sunday afternoon.
Theres a want of old uprightness,
Too, has come upon the push,
And a sort of cold politeness
Thats not called for in the bush.
Theyre all off, too, in that quarter;
Kate goes sevral times a week
Seeing Andy Kellys daughter,
Jimmys sister, up the creek;
And this difference seems a pity,
Since their chances are so slim
While they are running after Kitty,
She is running after Jim.