Australian Tales of the Bush Author:Marcus Clarke General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1897 Original Publisher: G. Robertson Description: Originally published under title: Australian tales. Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this bo... more »ok you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: POOR JOE. was the ostler at Coppinger's, and they called him Poor Joe. Nobody knew whence he came ; nobody knew what misery of early mutilation had been his. He had appeared one evening, a wandering swagman, unable to speak, and so explain his journey's aim or end -- able only to mutter and gesticulate, making signs that he was cold and hungry, and needed fire and food. The rough crowd in Coppinger's bar looked on him kindly, having for him that sympathy which marked physical affliction commands in the rudest natures. Poor Joe needed all their sympathies : he was a dwarf, and dumb. Coppinger -- bluff, blasphemous, and good-hearted soul -- dispatched him, with many oaths, to the kitchen, and when the next morning the deformed creature volunteered in his strange sign-speech to do some work that might " pay for his lodging," sent him to help the ostler that ministered to King Cobb's coach-horses. The ostler, for lack of a better name, perhaps, called him " Joe," and Coppinger, finding that the limping mute, though he could speak no word of human language, yet had a marvellous power of communication with horseflesh, installed him as under-ostler and stable-helper, with a seat at the social board, and a wisp of clean straw in King Cobb's stable. " I have taken him on," said Coppinger, when the township cronies met the next night in the bar. "Who," asked the croniest, bibulously disregarding grammar.' " Poor Joe," said Coppinger. The sympathetic world of Bullocktown approved the epithet, and the deforme...« less