{"product_id":"2940013694118","title":"The Race of Life","description":"If any man had told me a year ago that I should start out to write a\u003cbr\u003ebook, I give you my word I should not have believed him. It would have\u003cbr\u003ebeen the very last job I should have thought of undertaking. Somehow\u003cbr\u003eI've never been much of a fist with the pen. The branding iron and\u003cbr\u003estockwhip have always been more in my line, and the saddle a much more\u003cbr\u003efamiliar seat than the author's chair. However, fate is always at hand\u003cbr\u003eto arrange matters for us, whether we like it or not, and so it comes\u003cbr\u003eabout that I find myself at this present moment seated at my table--\u003cbr\u003epen in hand, with a small mountain of virgin foolscap in front of me,\u003cbr\u003ewaiting to be covered with my sprawling penmanship. What the story\u003cbr\u003ewill be like when I have finished it, and whether those who do me the\u003cbr\u003ehonour of reading it will find it worthy of their consideration, is\u003cbr\u003emore than I can say. I have made up my mind to tell it, however, and\u003cbr\u003ethat being so, we'll \"chance it,\" as we say in the Bush. Should it not\u003cbr\u003eturn out to be to your taste, well, my advice to you is to put it down\u003cbr\u003eat once and turn your attention to the work of somebody else who has\u003cbr\u003ehad greater experience in this line of business than your humble\u003cbr\u003eservant. Give me a three-year old as green as grass, and I'll sit him\u003cbr\u003euntil the cows come home; let me have a long day's shearing, even when\u003cbr\u003ethe wool is damp or there's grass seed in the fleece; a hut to be\u003cbr\u003ebuilt, or a tank to be sunk, and it's all the same to me; but to sit\u003cbr\u003edown in cold blood and try to describe your past life, with all its\u003cbr\u003egood deeds (not very many of them in my case) and bad, successes and\u003cbr\u003efailures, hopes and fears, requires more cleverness, I'm afraid, than\u003cbr\u003eI possess. However, I'll imitate the old single-stick players in the\u003cbr\u003eWest of England, and toss my hat on the stage as a sign that, no\u003cbr\u003ematter whether I'm successful or not, I intend doing my best, and I\u003cbr\u003ecan't say more than that. Here goes then.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo begin with, I must tell you who I am, and whence I hail. First and\u003cbr\u003eforemost, my name is George Tregaskis--my father was also a George\u003cbr\u003eTregaskis, as, I believe, was his father before him. The old dad used\u003cbr\u003eto say that we came of good Cornish stock, and I'm not quite sure that\u003cbr\u003eI did not once hear him tell somebody that there was a title in the\u003cbr\u003efamily. But that did not interest me; for the reason, I suppose, that\u003cbr\u003eI was too young to understand the meaning of such things. My father\u003cbr\u003ewas born in England, but my mother was Colonial, Ballarat being her\u003cbr\u003enative place. As for me, their only child, I first saw the light of\u003cbr\u003eday at a small station on the Murray River, which my father managed\u003cbr\u003efor a gentleman who lived in Melbourne, and whom I regarded as the\u003cbr\u003egreatest man in all the world, not even my own paternal parent\u003cbr\u003eexcepted. Fortunately he did not trouble us much with visits, but when\u003cbr\u003ehe did I trembled before him like a gum leaf in a storm. Even the fact\u003cbr\u003ethat on one occasion he gave me half-a-crown on his departure could\u003cbr\u003enot altogether convince me that he was a creature of flesh and blood\u003cbr\u003elike my own father or the hands upon the run. I can see him now, tall,\u003cbr\u003eburly, and the possessor of an enormous beard that reached almost to\u003cbr\u003ehis waist. His face was broad and red and his voice deep and sonorous\u003cbr\u003eas a bell. When he laughed he seemed to shake all over like a jelly;\u003cbr\u003etaken all round, he was a jovial, good-natured man, and proved a good\u003cbr\u003efriend to my mother and myself when my poor father was thrown from his\u003cbr\u003ehorse and killed while out mustering in our back country. How well I\u003cbr\u003eremember that day! It seems to me as if I can even smell the hot\u003cbr\u003eearth, and hear the chirrup of the cicadas in the gum trees by the\u003cbr\u003eriver bank. Then came the arrival of Dick Bennet, the overseer, with a\u003cbr\u003egrave face, and as nervous as a plain turkey when you're after him on\u003cbr\u003efoot. His horse was all in a lather and so played out that I doubt if\u003cbr\u003ehe could have travelled another couple of miles.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47069083599088,"sku":"2940013694118","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013694118_p0.jpg?v=1763584639","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013694118","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}