The Confessions of a BeachcomberBanfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
History
The Confessions of a Beachcomber
Banfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
Dunk Island (Qld.); Natural history -- Australia -- Queensland
From a European standpoint, "Little Jinny" had little of which to be
vain. She had a fuzzy head of hair. Some, like fur, crept down across
her brows, giving her face a singularly unbecoming cast. I did not
notice this peculiar uncomeliness until she was dying, and I felt then
more than ever that she was not to be judged in accordance with our
standard of beauty--though she had many of our little weaknesses. Her
ignorance of civilised ways was pathetic, yet she was vain and
coquettish as the fairest of her sex. And her besetting vanity was
endeavouring to be a "lady." Work was sordid, for she wore garments
which made her the leader of fashion. She possessed a pair of--well, a
bifurcated garment--and her whole life was spent in trying to live up to
it--or them. She succeeded to a certain extent. Her ways were mincing and
precise, and she lazed away her days quite artistically. A can of water
was too heavy for her to carry, less than two hours "spell" at a time
quite an offence to her ideal of the amount of repose that a lady
wearing the bifurcated garment should permit herself. She was wont to
sit in the shade of the mango-tree and pretend to do a little gardening.
It was all pretence. What she really loved to do was to wander among the
bloodwoods--with Tom, of course--with next to nothing on, the next to
nothing being the drawers. There, you have them. Then you saw her at her
best--or rather worst, for she was a thin sapling of a girl, of a dull
coppery colour, and the garment was not always snowy-white.
Hers, after all, was an ideal existence. She had plenty to eat, as much
tobacco as was good for her, and outer raiment that in gaudiness
outrivalled the flame-tree and the yellow hibiscus. She was the
favourite of two consorts, and only when her pride and scorpion-like
attributes got the better of her was she corrected.
Now, just the other morning, Tom announced that "Little Jinny" was sick
"along a bingey" (stomach), and suggested that salt medicine might do
her good. It was quite a common occurrence for her to be sick. It was
such an easy and excellent excuse for a day's holiday, when she would
bask on the soft grey sand and smoke, gazing across the placid bay and
waiting for meal-times. So no one took her sickness seriously.
Subsequent inquiries, however, elicited the fact that "Little Jinny"
had eaten little or no tucker the day prior to Tom's application for
medicine on her behalf, and that she was really entitled to sympathy of
the most practical kind. But no one had the least suspicion of the fact.
Dinner-time came and she did not appear, though she was strolling about
the flat below the house, apparently only a "little bit sick," as Tom
reported when he came up to his work.
"That one all right to-morrow," was the reply to an inquiry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account