Part II He Knew Himself Naked
“On the Flinders.
“In a western billabong, with a stretch of plain around, a dirty waterhole beside me, I sat and read the WORKER. Maxwellton Station was handy; and sick with a fever on me I crawled off my horse to the shed on a Sunday. They invited me to supper; I was too ill. One gave me medicine, another the WORKER, the cook gave me milk and soup. If this is Unionism, God bless it! This is the moleskin charity, not the squatter’s dole. The manager gave me quinine, and this is a Union station. I read ‘Nellie’s Sister’ (from THE WORKINGMAN’S PARADISE) in you last. A woman’s tenderness pervades it. Its fiction is truth. Although my feelings are blunted by a bush life, I dropped a tear on that page of the WORKER.”