[Editor: This story is from Bill Bowyang’s column, “On The Track”, in the The Townsville Daily Bulletin, 1932.]
[Algernon the farmer]
“Clemona” writes: Cyril and Algernon were two brothers who had a station in Western N.S.W. Because of a college education they considered themselves a cut above the other cockies, in fact they were what could be classed as gentlemen farmers.
Whether in cowyard, piggery or paddock, Algy was never seen without his white collar. When the threshing machine with its mixed crew of strangers and neighbours made its annual visit, Algy was an object of amusement and ridicule.
Next morning every man started work wearing a more or less white collar. Some wore it outside a black shirt, others with a flannel, one or two had theirs tied on with binder twine above a singlet and still others with no shirt at all. No comment was made and work commenced in a silence which a cane knife would scarcely chip. But as the heat of the day increased and clouds of dust and grain filled the air, collars were discarded till the surrounding saplings and bushes appeared to have burst into a crop of limp white blooms.
When knock off time came, Algy permitted himself a brief but gentlemanly smile. Though perspiration and grime [covered him] to the very eye-lashes he and he alone still wore a white collar.
Source:
The Townsville Daily Bulletin (Townsville, Qld.), Friday 24 June 1932, page 4
[Editor: Added some joining text in square brackets, “covered him”.]
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