All That Swagger by Miles Franklin — Read

The desolation of a camp mat is empty all day, enfolded Burrabinga homestead with the loss of the two young women. Winter had come. The mountain tops were white with snow, the gullies slippery with unmelted frost. The icicles rose nightly like stubble on ungrassed spaces and crunched underfoot. Callers ceased. The Delacy men were not driven by table greed or other spurs to comfort. Their meals fell back to primitive consistency. They shut up the house, awaiting the girls' return, and pigged in the kitchen.

O'Neill sometimes lingered half a week when he beat his way down for rations. In the glow of the big log fires scores of muzzles were whittled from the light but tough woolly-butts, and thrown aside to dry for the next weaning. Harry knew by heart the few books left by his final tutor; Danny had read every line, including the advertisements, in newspapers of London and Sydney, months old when packed up from Keebah. Ned Callahan, a stockman, had a greasy song-book, dearly prized, from which Harry read him the songs and to which Ned put tunes he had heard. He had an ear and played hop-jigs and song-tunes on the mouth organ and jew's harp. He was also a Grinling Gibbons with a pen knife. The Delacys had no accomplishments. They had been reared only to bushcraft. William had no other interest, but Harry was famishing for intellectual contacts. A few great novels would have released him into another world.