* * * * *


Tom was in the bush one morning when his family carried me to the
boat-shed. He had gone for a log of seasoned TOA wood [A hard wood much
used in boat building] to another village. At noon he returned, and I
heard him bawling for me. His little daughter, the fly-brusher, gave an
answering yell, and then Tom walked down the path, carrying two bottles of
beer; behind him Lucia, his eldest daughter, a monstrous creature of
giggles, adipose tissue, and warm heart, with glasses and a plate of
crackers; lastly, old Marie, the wife, with a little table.

"By ----, you've a lot more sense'n me. It's better lyin' here in the
cool, than foolin' around in the sun; so I've brought yer suthin' to
drink."

"Oh, Tom," I groaned, "I'm sure that beer's bad for me."

The Maker of Boats sat on his bench, and said that he knew of a
brewer's carter in Sydney who, at Merriman's "pub," on Miller's Point,
had had a cask of beer roll over him. Smashed seven ribs, one arm, and
one thigh. Doctors gave him up; undertaker's man called on his wife for
coffin order but a sailor chap said he'd pull him through. Got an
indiarubber tube and made him suck up as much beer as he could hold;
kept it up till all his bones "setted" again, and he recovered. Why
shouldn't I--if I only drank enough?

"Hurry up, old dark-skin!"--this to the faded Marie. Uttering merely
the word "Hog!" she drew the cork. I had to drink some, and every hour