I worked and studied till the end of the school year, late November or early December. Uncle Hermann offered me work with him building houses at Morisset. This was to enable me to earn money for next year’s fees so that I would not have to work so much and allow me to take more studies. But this was not a high paying job either. There was too much broken time, so I took a job at Muller’s saw mill which paid me seven shillings per day, good wages those days, and I felt at home behind a saw bench. Here, too, I took to riding race horses for a trainer who also worked at the mill. This was exciting adventure, for he had some high grade imported stallions from England, thoroughbreds and full of spirit. One two-year-old half broken in had a habit of doing a lot of prancing and walking on hind legs. Once he fell over backwards on me, having shied at a bicycle crossing his path.
Here I batched in a hut near the mill, did a lot of cornet practice after work, and rode over to the college for the weekend. I still kept my college interest, played in the band, and spent as much time there as possible. In fact the mill hands used to call me “Peanut”, a way of relating me to our factory and vegetarian diet. Muller operated two fine mills. The larger one took the big logs, processed heavier timber and contained a variety of machinery for making wagon wheels and sulky wheels, besides shaped weatherboards and flooring boards. The smaller mill, some half-mile away, took the smaller logs from approximately 2 feet 6 inches diameter. We also cut house timber, sulky shafts, and handles of all kinds, such as axe, hoe and broom handles. I worked on all these machines, but mainly on the saw benches. Work was no drudgery to me; I was at home with timber and enjoyed it.
Early in 1915 I received a call from Narrandera in the west of New South Wales where Father was in the hospital with typhoid. I took time off from the mill and made my journey by train. On arrival I found him recovering somewhat, but he told me that he was afraid of his heart at night. After a week when we thought he was making good progress, I was stunned to learn on Sabbath morning that Father had passed away during the night. He was generally a strong and vigorous man, rarely ill, always in excellent spirits and robust health. The owner of the mine where Father was engineer, Mr. McLean, arranged the funeral, and his son accompanied me to the Narrandera cemetery.
That was a sad and lonely experience. I felt bereft and forlorn. Father was in his late fifties and I was his youngest at seventeen. Mother had died some five years earlier. The other members of the family were in New Zealand and Tasmania – Gordon was either at the college or away selling books. I was taken out to the mine, gathered his few belongings, and made my way back to Morisset and notified the other members of the family. Father was a fine Christian gentleman who, like Abraham, “commanded his children and his household after him”. He was always held in high esteem, was an asset to any community, being competent and helpful wherever there was a need. It may be a spiritual problem, an engineering difficulty, a bit of carpentry repair, a stubborn clock or watch refusing to go, or doing the work of an undertaker, including the making of the casket. He was the one to whom people came in the days of our Bismarck sojourn. As a family we owe our moral standards, our diligence, our integrity and our efforts to achieve, to the basic Christian training which Father gave us and insisted on in our home. We never had much money, but we had a contented and happy home.
