Handlesome

River navigation is a different thing to steering a motor-car on solid dry land. But a thirty horse-power launch, doing thirteen miles an hour, is a handlesome craft, and we soon left behind us.

"[…] Tom, you had better hunt the bitch pack, Dog hounds is none so handlesome […]

She said: "So I sure got my hands full." Handful. To mean: handlesome. Fit to be handed from hand to hand. Hand me down my walkincane.