The young wireless operator--with the oyster fleet; how Alec Cunningham won his way to the top in the oyster business

Front matter

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Foreword

HE story of America’s wonderful beds of

A oysters is the same as the story of her matchless forests, her remarkable deposits of oil, her countless herds of bison, and her innumerable flocks of wild pigeons; and that story is completely told in one word of five letters — waste. When our magnificent Pennsylvania forests were cut, millions of feet of lumber were wantonly wasted, left to rot on the ground after the bark had been stripped off. When that unequaled pool of oil was discovered at Spindletop, gushers were allowed to spout for days and hours merely to gratify the vanity of purseproud owners, and oil was wasted by the hundred thousand barrels. We are paying for such wastes to-day in the high price of lumber and oil. And our children and our children’s children will go on paying the price.

I live on the banks of one of America’s noblest rivers, the Susquehanna. A hundred years ago one could throw a line overboard and draw out fish without number. Now, one can fish half a day without getting a nibble. Some day, perhaps, we shall have fish again in the Susquehanna. But it will be in the same way that we are gradually reforesting our denuded Pennsylvania mountains — at

FOEEWOED enormous cost, which means perpetually high priced lumber. It will be the same with our oysters. The enormous beds, which, properly conserved, would have supplied the nation with cheap oysters for generations, are gone.

Most of us know less about oyster production than we do about lumbering or oil drilling. Yet oystering is one of the few truly picturesque occupations that survive in American life. This book, like its immediate predecessor. The Young Wireless Operator — As a Fire Patrol, is written in the hope that young readers may come to understand the real results of such wastes — the permanent imposition of unnecessary and burdensome costs for necessities of life which should be cheap.

The New Captain of the Bertha B .

CONTENTS

XXIII. Adrift in the Storm

XXIV. Misfortunes Never Come Singly

XXV. The Crisis

XXVI. Victory

. 282

. 298

. 309

. 318

Chapter I A Friend In Need

'HE oyster-boat Bertha B lay off her pier at

A Bivalve, the great New Jersey oyster shipping centre. On either side of her were other craft of the oyster fleet, all packed together like cigars in a box, and all held fast to one another by stout hawsers, for the tide in the Maurice River was running out at a gallop, driven by a high northeast wind. Yet an observer could hardly have told whether one boat or a dozen lay off the pier, so dark was the November morning. Heavy clouds obscured the sky, hiding star and moon. Not the faintest sign of daybreak was yet visible in the east. A dense mist, that even in daylight would have made things appear uncertain and indistinct, drove before the high wind, chilling to the bone every one it touched.

For despite the early hour, the oystermen were astir. Lamps glowed in the snug cabins of the oyster-boats. Here and there a lantern bobbed mysteriously in the dark. Red and green lights were being hoisted in the ships’ riggings, and white lights fastened astern of many vessels. Harsh voices were heard calling through the night. The heavy tramp of boots on wooden decks sounded here and there in the darkness. Now and again there was a sharp splash as some sailor dropped a bucket into the tide for water, or a heavy hawser was cast off. On every side was heard the sound of preparation; for the fleet was about to sail for the oyster grounds.

Suddenly the door of the Bertha B's cabin opened. A great shaft of yellow light shot athwart the darkness. Two figures emerged from the cabin.

“ Hello, Jim,” called one of them. There was no answer. After a moment’s pause the speaker called again. This time he raised his voice to a gi’eat bellow and repeated his cry: “ Hello, Jim! ” The second call, magnified by the fog, went roaring through the fleet. Still there was no answer. “ He ain’t here. Cap,” said the man who had called, to the figure by his side. “ Maybe he went ashore to get some tobacco.”

“ Tobacco nothing! ” exclaimed the other angrily.

The skunk got his breakfast and then snuk ashore. I ain’t surprised. He looked like that kind o’ cattle. Though he did work pretty darned good the three weeks we had him! ”

The speaker. Captain Christopher Bagley, paused an instant. Then, “ Scabby trick! ” he ex-

A FRIElsT) IN NEED claimed. “ Leaves us deucedly short handed, and he knowed it. Better go ashore, George, and see if you can find him. If you can’t, get anybody you can pick up. We got to have another hand.”

The sailor, George Bishop, turned without a word and made his way ashore, ducking under ropes and rigging, stumbling over chains and dredges, and stepping carefully from boat to boat, until at last he reache'd the ship at the end of the pier. The tide was near ebb, and the sailor had to climb into the ship’s rigging in order to get on the pier.

The huge shed skirting the shore was dimly lighted by electric lights; and the illumination from these faintly lighted the pier, along which the sailor was now making his way. A great pile of burlap sacks was heaped up near the centre of the pier, and behind these, like a windbreak, stood a long row of barrels, piled one above another, and at least three tiers deep. But the sailor took no note of these things. His glance roved hither and thither through the gi’eat shed and on the various piers, looking for a familiar form. Half-way across the pier, he met a fellow sailor.

“ Hello, Tom! ” he called. “ Seen anything of Jim Hawley? ”

“ No. Did he give you the slip? ”

‘‘ That’s what he did. He come aboard and et his breakfast and then snuk off. And we was short handed at that.”

“ I ain’t surprised. He was drunk last night.”

“ Well, he won’t do it again. Captain Bagley won’t stand for that kind of cattle. Don’t know where we could get another hand, do you? We’re awful short of men.”

“ No, I don’t. Everybody around here that’s willin’ to work was snapped up long ago. I got to get aboard. I’m late myself. Good-bye.”

The sailor hurried on down the pier and swung himself aboard the ship at its end.

Sailor Bishop turned on his heel and started along the pier again, to pursue his search for the missing deck-hand. But hardly had he taken a step before the pile of burlap bags stirred strangely. The topmost rose in air and a human figure crawled out from under them.

“ Hello ! ” called this figure after the hurrying form of Sailor Bishop. “ Do you want another hand? I’m looking for a job.”

Sailor Bishop turned sharply and stared in astonishment at the person before him.

“ Who are you? And where did you come from? ” he demanded.

“ My name’s Alec Cunningham, and I come from Central City, in Pennsylvania.”

“ Ever been oystering? ”

“ No, sir. I never saw an oyster-boat before.”

“ Don’t know whether you’ll do or not,” said the sailor. “ But come aboard and talk to the captain. I’ll be back in a minute. Wait for me here.”

The sailor hurried away, to continue his quest for the missing Hawley. Alec Cunningham returned to the pile of burlap sacks and dug out an old, bat-

A FEIEND IN NEED tered valise. Then he carefully piled the burlap sacks in order again, and when Sailor Bishop returned, he was standing near the end of the pier, stamping his feet and thrashing his arms about his sides, in an evident effort to get warm.

“ Come on,” said the sailor, and the two climbed cautiously from the pier to the ship’s rigging and then dropped to her deck. Carefully they made their way across boat after boat, until at last they reached the Bertha B. Sailor Bishop led the way to the cabin and entered, followed by the stranger.

“ I couldn’t find Jim nowhere. Cap,” explained the sailor, “ but I picked up this fellow here. He ain’t never ketched oysters, but maybe you could use him at that.”

Captain Bagley stepped forward and looked critically at the stranger. He saw before him a tall, rangy lad of eighteen years, keen of face, with dark hair, strong nose, mouth, and chin, and with intelligence plainly stamped on his open, honest countenance.

“ What’s your name? ” demanded the captain.

“Alec C-C-C-Cunningham, sir,” replied the lad.

“ Do you stutter always? ”

“ N-N-N-No, sir. I don’t stutter at all. I’m just a little ch-ch-ch-chilly.” And the lad shivered violently.

“ He was sleeping on the pier in a pile of oyster sacks,” said Sailor Bishop in explanation.

Captain Bagley stepped forward and laid his hand on young Cunningham’s wrist. It was like

14 THE YOUNG WIEELESS OPEEATOB

ice. The captain ran a quick, investigating finger over the lad’s shoulder. “Hell!” he exclaimed. “ The kid ain’t got nothin’ on.”

He turned to the cook who was just cleaning up the breakfast dishes. “ Dick,” he said, “ give this boy some grub and a bowl of coffee, and make it hot, too.”

Again he turned to the lad before him. “ Get over beside the stove,” he said. “ Why in the deuce didn’t you tell a fellow you were freezing to death? Sleep out in a pile of oyster sacks I Why didn’t you tell a fellow you had no place to sleep? You could have had a bunk on the Bertha B.”

Alec Cunningham tried to exj)ress his gratitude, but the right words were hard to find.

“ I — I — I’m much obliged to you,” he said. “ I didn’t get here till late last night and I didn’t know anybody, and I didn’t want to disturb strangers. But it was cold.”

“ Didn’t get here till late last night,” repeated the captain. “ Where do you come from, and what did you come here for, if you don’t know anything about oystering and don’t know anybody here? ”

“ I thought maybe I could find my uncle,” replied Alec.

“ Then you do know somebody here,” said the captain sharply, and again he looked searchingly at the lad before him.

“ No, sir, I don’t,” replied Alec. “ You see, sir, my father died recently. My mother has been dead since I was a little baby. I have no one to live

A FRIEND IN NEED with. So I thought I would look up my uncle. My father used to tell me about him, but I never saw him. He is an ovsterman here at Bivalve.”

“ What’s his name?*”

“ Thomas Robinson, sir. He was my mother’s brother.”

Captain Bagley turned square around. “ Now don’t that beat the deuce,” he said to himself. After a moment he turned about and faced Alec again.

“ My lad,” he said in a strangely altered voice, “ you just put your things in that bunk. The Bertha B is your home as long as you want to stay on her and work — that is, it is if you don’t play us any scabby tricks like that scoundrel who left us in the lurch this morning.”

“ But you know I don’t know anything about the oyster business,” said Alec with hesitation.

“ Neither does anybody else when he’s born,” growled the captain. “We all had to learn. And unless I can’t read faces any longer, you can learn as good as anybody.”

“ Then you’ll take me as a hand? ”

“ You’re engaged already.”

“ Oh, sir! I don’t know how to thank you. I — I — I was awfully in need of work. I haven’t a cent left. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found work pretty soon. You won’t be sorry you hired me.”

Aji idea struck the captain. “ When did you eat last? ” he demanded suddenly.

“ Yesterday morning, sir,” replied the lad.

‘‘ Dick, you darned good-for-nothing cook,” stormed the captain, “what are you standing around looking at the kid for? Get busy, or I’ll fire you.”

The cook merely smiled. The captain went blustering off to the wheel-house. Alec looked puzzled, almost alarmed. In perplexity he turned to the cook.

“ What about my uncle? ” he inquired. “ Won’t the captain let me try to find him? What did I do to make the captain angry? ”

“ Lad,” said the cook kindly, “ there ain’t no use trying to find your uncle. He went overboard last spring, when they was h’isting an anchor on the Mary Ford and the anchor purchase parted. We never seen him again. He was a buddy of the captain’s. If you just behave yourself, you’ve got a job with Captain Bagley for life. Now, get busy and eat your breakfast, for we’re going to cast off in a few minutes.”

Alec picked up the steaming bowl of coffee that the cook had placed before him and was about to take a swallow from it when a crashing sound rent the air and the Bertha B swayed violently at her moorings. The captain stepped from the wheel-house and ran out on deck. The sound of angry voices arose. A moment later Captain Bagley came back.

“ That old fool, Tom Hardy, has fouled us,” he said angrily. “He had too much sail up. But he’ll pay for his foolishness. His bowsprit carried

A FEIEND IN NEED away. I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here now. The tide’s jammed him fast! Anyway, you’ll have plenty of time to eat, lad. So go to it. Now mind you fill him up, Dick.”

CHAPTER II OME over here to the table and set down,”

said the cook, with a kindly smile. So tiny was the cabin that one step took Alec to the proffered stool. Ravenously hungry though he was, his surroundings were so new and interesting that for a moment he almost forgot to eat, as he looked around the cabin.

Tiny it was, indeed. And yet everything in it was so compactly arranged that half a dozen men could live in it. In one corner stood a small, square stove, now delightfully hot, with its top guarded by a slender iron railing, like a miniature fence. Alec knew at once that this was to keep the pots and pans from sliding off the stove when the ship was pitching about. Even the dishes were suggestive of rough weather; for the cook had given Alec his coffee in a big bowl, and the huge plate which he was filling up with pork-chops, fried eggs, and steaming fried potatoes, was nothing but a great soup plate. Beside the stove stood a little cupboard, and this, with the stove, practically filled the stern end of the cabin. A coal-oil lamp was fastened to the wall between stove and cupboard.

There was just room enough left in this part of the cabin for the men to pack themselves around the table. The table, however, occupied less space than any table Alec had ever heard of, for it was nothing but two smooth, unpainted boards, perhaps four feet long, and hinged so as to fold together lengthwise. One end of this table now rested in a frame on the port side of the cabin, while the other end was slung from the cabin roof by a rope.

Alec thought he had never tasted anything so good as the pork-chops and fried eggs. Before he knew it, the cook was filling up his plate again, and pouring him a second bowl of coffee. Alec dumped some sugar in it and poured out a generous supply of condensed milk from the tin can the cook shoved toward him.

Now he noticed that the little cabin had a window and a door on each side. The stove and the cupboard occupied the stern end of the cabin. The forward end of the cabin contained bunks, built one above another, along the sides, where several men could sleep. The forward end of the cabin had been converted into a little pilot-house, with glass windows along its entire front and a door at each side, where the captain operated the boat.

For, like most of the oyster craft, the Bertha B had been changed from sailing ship to power boat. The four-cylindered gasoline engine that drove the ship and operated the oyster-dredges stood immediately below the cabin bunk room. Alec could see the engine, for a little hatchway in the floor of the cabin led directly to the engine room. The hatch was open and Alec could see a man oiling and adjusting the engine, preparatory to getting under way.

When Alec had eaten his fill, the cook began to wash the dishes. Alec picked up a dish towel and dried them. The cook seemed surprised and pleased. Alec stacked the dishes away in a tiny cupboard behind the bunks, at the cook’s direction, while the cook folded up the table and stowed it in a rack overhead, leaving the tiny cabin clear and orderly.

“ Thanks,” smiled Dick, when they had finished; and the way the cook spoke made Alec feel that he had won a friend.

“ If a little thing like drying the dishes will win friends for a fellow,” said Alec to himself, “ I’ll wipe them every time I get a chance. I never realized until the last few weeks how much friends mean to a fellow.”

To the cook he said, “ Will it be all right for me to go on deck? ”

“ Sure,” said the cook. “ But put this on.” And from a bunk he pulled a heavy reefing- jacket.

Gratefully Alec pulled on the coat and stepped out on deck. By this time the eastern sky was aglow. The fog-bank had dissipated. The sun was not yet up, but there was sufficient light for Alec to see.

The first thing to catch his attention was the ship that had fouled the Bertha B and the boats alongside of her. These craft, as close together as the fingers of one’s hand, lay with their noses pointing up-stream. Across the bows of the outermost was jammed the offending vessel, the rushing ebb-tide holding her fast. The end of her bowsprit dangled helplessly and a broken jib-stay was waving about in the wind. Jammed tight in her rigging was the bowsprit of one of the ships she had fouled, holding her tight, like an apple spitted on a stick. But no damage had been done excepting to the offending vessel herself. Men were pushing against the ship with boat-hooks, while Captain Hardy’s own crew were pumping at a capstan from which a hawser, stretched tight as a fiddle string, ran to an up-stream pier.

The master of the boat was an evil-looking fellow, as burly as he was hard-featured. In a great, roaring voice he was cursing his crew, blaming them for the mishap he was responsible for himself. With angry impatience Captain Bagley watched the efforts that were making to free the boat.

“ The old fool,” he muttered, and to Alec he said, “ That fellow ought to be doing time at Trenton. He’s always up to something crooked. The last time they caught him, he was dredging illegally in the natural beds. He got off with a fine, but I reckon the next time he gets caught in any crooked business, he’ll go to prison.”

For a few moments Alec watched the sailors pumping at the capstan. Then his gaze shifted to other interesting sights about him.

Down-stream and up, rose a forest of masts ; for the pier off which the Bertha B now lay was only one of a score or more parallel piers. And off each pier were moored six or eight vessels, with still other ships at greater distances, tied along the shore beyond the great pier shed. There were scores and scores of boats, mostly two-masted schooners. Across the river, which was perhaps 1,000 feet wide, was a second great pier shed that extended along the shore for hundreds of feet, also with piers running out from it into the river every few rods. And here, and along the shore above and below the piers, were anchored other scores of boats. Altogether, the oyster fleet numbered some hundreds of vessels.

On every ship were signs of activity. In every rigging red and green lights already sparkled, or men were about to hoist them. On some ships white lights glimmered aloft; while more and more boats were showing white lights at their sterns.

Fascinated, Alec watched the scene. For ship after ship, on either side of the river, now cast off her lines, swung gracefully with the current and headed down-stream. On every hand rose the steady put-put-put of ships’ motors. For although most of the oyster craft still carried sails, practically all of them were driven by gasoline, their sails being used merely as auxiliaries to their engines, or to steady them when dredging in a wind.

And now Alec saw something that made his eyes fairly pop open with astonishment. Down-stream came a shapely schooner, sails set and bellying in the wind. But it was neither wind nor tide that drove her so fast. For behind her, immediately below her white stern light, was a chugging motor-boat, nose hard against the schooner, pushing her along at a merry pace. Alec could hardly trust his eyes. For the little motor-boat was fastened with its nose high in air and its stern deep in the tide, and had not a soul aboard of her. But above her, at the wheel on the stern of the schooner, stood a silent steersman. While Alec was debating with himself as to whether he should believe what he saw or not, a second oyster-boat came slipping by, also driven by a little power boat astern. Before he reached the oyster-beds, Alec saw dozens of boats so operated; and the cook told him that when the oyster-boats changed from sail power to motors, some ships, like the Bertha B, had had engines installed in their holds, while others were driven instead by small power boats.

Presently the ship across their bow was pulled loose, freeing the little fleet. The outer vessel immediately cast loose, swung in the tide, and headed down the river. Meantime, a bell rang, there was a sudden chug-chug-chug alongside, the clank of machinery was heard below, and the Bertha B began to vibrate. The captain was warming up his motor.

Then, “ Cast off! ” came the order from the pilot-house. The hawsers were hauled aboard. The Bertha B moved forward, described a great arc in the river, and headed for the sea.

Wonderful was the sight that now greeted Alec’s eyes. Like a flock of closely herded sheep, the oyster-boats were making for the dredging grounds. Before him, beside him, and behind him, their sails showing faintly in the dim light, Alec saw scores of moving ships. Now he understood the purpose of all the lights he had seen hoisted. Ahead of him dozens of stern lights shone white, showing exactly where each ship was riding. And astern, red and green lights flashed their guiding signals.

As the light grew stronger, the scenes around the Bertha B stood out more and more distinctly. Accustomed as Alec was to mountains and limited views, the pictures that now unfolded before his eyes were like visions of a new world. The view was boundless. At least, it stretched level to the distant horizon in every direction. East, west, north, south, look where he would, the land was as level as a floor. The river wound about like a snake, and after the Bertha B had traversed one or two of these serpentine reaches, she seemed to be in the centre of a vast marsh-land. Everywhere stretched limitless areas of salt meadow. Cattails, tall rushes, reeds, salt hay, sedges, and other marshy growths, standing dead and sere, painted the marshes a monotonous brown. The slightest thing that rose above the general level seemed magnified into a great bulk. Here and there distant stacks of salt hay stood up against the sky-line; but they seemed huge, gigantic, unlike any haystacks Alec had ever seen. And here and there, also, stood solitary trees or groups of trees, seemingly thrusting their heads into the very clouds.

But ever the young oysterman’s roving eye came back to the moving fleet. Two, three, and sometimes even four abreast, trailing close on one another’s heels, the white oyster-boats moved out to sea in majesty. Overhead sailed innumerable gulls, watching for the scraps thrown from nautical breakfast tables. And when some cook stepped to his deck and dumped his table scrapings overboard, gulls came darting from far and near and settled down to fight and cry over the spoils.

Suddenly Alec heard the captain’s voice. “ Come in here, youngster. I want to talk with you.”

Alec made his way through the cabin into the pilot-house, which was just deep enough to allow a person to stand comfortably or to sit on a stool. The floor of the pilot-house was considerably higher than the deck level, and Alec could see much better here. Also, it was warm. And although he had been so fascinated by the scene that he had momentarily forgotten about the weather, he now realized that he had been cold out on the deck.

A flash of light caught his eye. Then another light blinked at a much greater distance. “ What are those lights? ” Alec asked the captain.

“ Those are the range-lights, to show the way into the harbor. And off there you can see East Point Light.”

Alec followed the pointing Anger of the captain and saw, off the port bow, a third light gleaming.

“ We seem to be catching those fellows ahead/’ commented Alec.

“ I reckon they’re stuck in the mud,” said the captain. “ This northeast wind’s been blowing hard for eighteen hours. It will make pretty low water.”

“ How much water does the Bertha B draw? ” inquired Alec.

“ Four or five feet,” said the captain.

“ Then we ought not to have any trouble,” said Alec. “ It looks as though this river was pretty deep.”

“ Oh! There’s plenty of water in the river; but there’s a bar across the mouth of it, and with this wind blowing there won’t be much water over it.”

Rapidly the Bertha B drew near the boats ahead of her. “ They’re all fast,” commented the captain, as they passed a schooner on which a sailor was sounding with a pole. “ Don’t believe he’s got three feet of water,” the captain added. “And look there! The bar’s clear out of water, with a fiock of gulls on it. That’s a sight you don’t often see — the bar out of water.”

Alec looked where the captain was pointing, and there, a long distance off the port bow, where the river entered the Delaware Bay, was a distinct black streak ip the water, roughened at one end. The rough spots were gulls. But Alec would never have known that the black streak was a strip of mud and the knobby end was a mass of birds, had not the captain told him.

“Are we going to get through? ” asked Alec, for the Bertha B was still slowly forging ahead.

“ I don’t know,” said the captain. “ We’re in the mud now, but we’ve got a good engine and if we can keep in the channel, maybe we can make it. But she’s hard to steer in the mud and most of those boats are right in the channel.”

Slowly the Bertha B continued to move through the mud. A short distance ahead of her a schooner lay directly in the path. The captain turned his wheel and tried to swing the Bertha B to one side, but she would not turn. Nearer she came and still nearer to the stranded schooner. But the captain could not turn her. A collision seemed inevitable.

“ Let go that starboard dredge,” cried the captain to Sailor Bishop, who was still on deck. At the same instant the captain signalled sharply to the engineer. For a single moment the propeller ceased to turn. Then the Bertha B trembled from end to end, as the engine started again, full speed astern. The effect was instantaneous. The Bertha B almost stopped in her tracks. Before ever the sailor could reach the dredge and heave it overboard, the oyster-boat swung slightly to one side and lay still. ‘

“ Never mind that dredge,” called the captain. To Alec he said, “ We’re done. All we can do is to lay here and wait for the tide to float us.”

Chapter III

T he Bertha B now lay as motionless as “ a painted ship upon a painted ocean.” The captain released his hold of the steering-wheel and turned toward Alec, studying his face again.

“ How old are you? ” he asked.

“ I’ll be nineteen on my next birthday.”

“ You are pretty big for your age.”

“ I’m five feet, ten inches,” laughed Alec, “ and I don’t believe I’m done growing yet.”

“ No. You’ll be a six footer before you’re done. Was your father a large man? ”