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grow again. After some hesitation I cut it, when, to my utter amazement, the centre began to sprout up again visibly, so that in half an hour it had sprung up half an inch. Why, Jack's bean-stalk was nothing to this! He also pounded the clay firmly round about it, instead of leaving it loose and friable as I should have done.
Monday.—A blade of a pen-knife ran into my hand to-day up to the handle. I bled like a stuck pig; still I stopped the cut with my thumb, and then bandaged it, without anything further. It cannot be very bad, for I am writing with it now, but holding the pen very gingerly. It is rather unseasonable, for I have been obliged to write out the greater part of an Act to-day, getting it ready for to-morrow.
May 29th.—Returned to-night from Perth. A most melancholy occurrence has just been made known at Perth. A child of John Fleay, a tenant of mine near York, has been missing now for ten days, and no trace can be found of it. The child was about three years old. There are suspicions that it has been carried off and killed by the natives, but I do not think it is so. At present all is uncertain. I have been busied throughout the week about preparing different Acts. One very long one has been postponed for the present, to my great joy; this will relieve me considerably.
Saturday.—The business here is ploughing, sowing, harrowing, threshing, grubbing, and gardening—all at once. Two men are ploughing with six bullocks to one plough—very stiff land, never having been broke up before; one man harrowing with a pair of horses; two men thrashing, one grubbing bushes, one in the garden, one with the sheep, one with the cattle, and one helping in the kitchen. They all make a pretty good houseful. Three sheep a week are consumed about the establishment. I bought a barrel of salt beef a few days ago for eight guineas, and the men have become so saucy they will not eat it. There is no pork to be had. Persons who handle the wheat in which there has been any
