Help: Name of a short story.

[SectorVector]

Am trying to remember a short story, that i read in my childhood.

Following are some clues (99% sure):

I think it is set in arid Australia.
It is probably a true story from the author's memoir or so, which i hoped i would read someday in full or maybe it was just a story. But it sounded real.

A boy recounts his childhood; of his father who buys an old wagon or something.
The boy wonders why dad wastes money when there's hardly any and more so when his mother is sick.
I think the dad dies and the house is taken away from them. The old wagon stays.
The story ends with the boy lying on the wagon, looking at the starry Australian night. It is a beautiful and bitter-sweet ending.


I have thought about this for a week and may have possibly added my bit of imagination to the storyline ! But if my memory is intact, the above should be correct.

The only "similar" stories that i dug up were:
1) 'The Pomegranate trees' (William Saroyan) - that's set in California, and
2) 'The Pepper Tree' (Dal Stivens) which is rather similar but am sure it is not what i am looking for.

Any help would be appreciated.
You can even give me names of Aussie authors. I'll proly do the digging up.
Thanks again.

[Spud17]

Did you ever find out what the story was? If you didn't, how short is it, the kind that may appear in a compendium or serialised book format in a newspaper or magazine? Do you remember when the book was set, down to the decade?

Here's a list of Australian authors, but it'll prolly take you weeks to search through unless you can remember any more details.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Au...an_writers

^^that list has 33 subcategories!

[SectorVector]

No. I searched for a few days and gave up.

I guess it would be a little over 500 words. It was part of English prose or non-detailed study in school.
Most of our textbooks are online now. After 30 years or so, the content has remained more or less the same (about 80% I'd say). I wasn't able to find it.

I had a feeling it was Dal Stivens, for some reasons. But that good man seems to have written so much, I decided to check later.
I'll proly start my search again soon. Searching by author is tedious. So am trying to grab any short story books coming out of my country for a hit.

I will try to use the list you have given. Maybe I'd get lucky. I will certainly update this thread if/once I locate the story.
One other point came to mind. As the kid stares at the stars, he dreams of becoming a painter (artist) or something and moving to Sydney or something.
The wagon actually transforms into their new home I think (*) and his mom slowly recuperates. It ends that way.
(*) - It is as though the dad knew the house would be taken away and hence had purchased the wagon.

[spydyrman]

I've searched for things for months, and sometimes years. I've had some really great successes (The Cat Came Back - Fred Penner), and some miserable failures, but I will say that it's completely worth it. The struggle is what makes life worth living

I'll write this out since it is on my brain in the hopes that it will help you and others.

See if you can remember any more details. More importantly, divide your clues that you have into absolutes, ideas (things that happened, but details are hard to pinpoint), and vague memories.

Absolutes - would be something like your wagon, but only if you know for certain that it was called "wagon", making it a searchable term. These are the bread and butter of any search, but can also be the downfall. You can specifically remember a wagon, but what if was never called a wagon? Absolutes are words you know appear in the book/song/whatever.

Ideas - Things you can describe easily that definitely happened, but you can't remember any specific words. The more unusual the better. The home being taken away, his looking into the starry night (not as good, but helps). Ideas are what you start putting into google, one at a time, in conjuction with the absolutes. Ideas are what let other people find your thing for you. They will read your description, and find something that matches.

Vague Memories - for lack of a better term, this is where you list everything you think you remember, that doesn't fall into the two above categories. This would be things that you barely remember, and may be even false memories. This is the section where all your mingling of stories in your brain goes. This section can be safely ignored will searching, but will help find the rare stuff.

You have basically done this in your two posts, but haven't split them up. It wasn't until I started writing down what I was searching for, and defining it instead of searching for it, that I started finding the really hard things.

Was it written in the first person?

[SectorVector]

Thank you spydyrman, for a beautifully written post. You must be a 'consultant' of some sort :-) Just Kidding.

I will take your points on board. It is tedious work searching with very few terms you remember, but I hope to resume search shortly, partly pressed on by you guys :-)

Yes, I think it was written in the first person.

Most of my thoughts now are in the 'vague memories' category.

What am also trying to do is search for the actual text (opening lines typically) of some _other_ short stories from the books I have.
This way I get books which are either textbooks or anthologies. With my very limited clues I find it an easier approach.

Google books seems to be giving me good leads. A few private blogs where someone has reminisced on their childhood memories has helped me at times.

Thank you once again for your wonderful post.

Fingers crossed :-)