Yet he was clean and
glowing with health and cheerfulness; self-reliant, splendidly
independent. Had he allowed his mind to dwell on clothing his
independence would have been less. He might have required the aid of a
black boy to navigate his boat, and the continual presence of a black
boy in a small boat does not make for sweetness and light.
SINGLE-HANDEDNESS
Another grandly free man sailed his cutter into the bay one fine
morning. He knew the water and ran her on the sand, brought his anchor
ashore and shoved her off, to swing lazily the while. When I paid him a
ceremonious visit, I found that he had but one arm. The empty right
sleeve was the more pathetic when I saw him mixing his flour for a
damper, and in the cunning twists and wriggling by which the fingers
freed each other of the sticky dough and other dextrous manipulations,
I soon came to recognise that with his left hand he was as deft as many
men with their right and left. He had sailed the boat ladened with wire
netting and heavy goods from Bowen, 200 miles south, and was on his way
to his selection, 100 miles further north. A wiry, slight man though a
real "shellback," one who had been steeped in and saturated with every
sea, was "giving the sea best," nerve-shaken, so he said--and yet
sailing a cutter with but 3 or 4 inches of free board "single-handed.
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