Voss - pg. 177

In the heat, after the men had left to muster, Mr. Judd was proceeding methodically. He had a scrap of crumpled paper, on which he would make his own signs. There was a stub of lead pencil in his mouth. One of his thumbs had been badly crushed by a sledge-hammer long ago, and had grown, in place of a nail, a hard, yellow horn. Now, as he worked, he experienced a sense of true pride, out of respect for what he was handling, for those objects, in iron, wood, or glass, did greatly influence the course of earthly life. He could love a good axe or knife, and would oil and sharpen it with tender care. As for the instruments of navigation, the mysticism of figures from which they were inseparable made him yet more worshipful. Pointing to somewhere always just beyond his reach, the lovely quivering of rapt needles was more than that of ferns. All that was essential, most secret, was contained for Judd, like his own spring-water, in a nest of ferns.