Stuart is eighteen, but more boy than man. When his uncle offers him a job rousabouting in the shearing shed during his mid-year break from university, he has no idea what to expect. He’s always been more of an indoors kind of guy. He knows he’ll be working with some pretty rough men. Men who work the shearing circuit, going from farm to farm shearing sheep until there are no more sheep left to shear. His only hope is to try and fit in. As it turns out, he has no choice. His uncle has arranged for him to share a room in the shearer’s quarters with one of the shearers. The very idea makes Stuart, who has always been unsure of himself and insecure, want to back out of the whole deal and return to town, to the comfort of home. But he doesn’t. He is determined to bite the proverbial bullet. The work is hard and Stuart does his best. The shearing shed is a place where a man has to prove himself; to show what he’s made of. Does Stuart have what it takes? What will he learn about himself in the process? About life? About shearers?

Shearers

Finally five o’clock arrived. Knock off time. The shearers hung up their blades and after joking about how many sheep they’d shorn, they said goodbye to my uncle and walked out of the shed. I was about to follow when Uncle Jack called me back.


I looked at him wide-eyed as I indicated with my thumb I’d been about to follow the shearers back to the shearers’ quarters.


In my head I called my uncle every name in the book and then added to the book. In reality, I sighed and willed my exhausted body to follow him over to the baling apparatus.


“Now, you put one of these bags inside, attach it here.” He pointed to the four points where the bag was to be attached. “We fill it with wool.” And so we did. “Then we close up the bag and stencil the side.”


Chapter 2