SANG A HYMN AND SAID THE LORD’S PRAYER.
“The assistant wireless operator was right next to me, holding on to me and kneeling in the water. We all sang a hymn and said the Lord’s prayer, and then waited for dawn to come.
“As often as we saw the other boats in a distance we would yell ‘Ship ahoy!’ but they could not distinguish our cries from any others so we all gave it up, thinking it useless. It was very cold and none of us were able to move around to keep warm, the water washing over her almost all the time.
“Towards dawn the wind sprang up roughing up the water and making it difficult to keep the boat balanced. The wireless man raised our hopes a great deal by telling us that the Carpathia would be up in about three hours. About three thirty or four o’clock some men on our boat on the bow sighted her mast lights.
“I could not see them as I was sitting down with a man kneeling on my leg. He finally got up and I stood up. We had the second officer, Mr. Lightholler, on board. We had an officer’s whistle and whistled for the boats in the distance to come up and take us off.
“It took about an hour and a half for the boats to draw near. Two boats came up. The first took half and the other took the balance, including myself.
“We had great difficulty about this time in balancing the boat, as the men would lean too far, but were all taken aboard the already crowded boat and in about a half or three-quarters of an hour later we were picked up by the Carpathia.
“I have noticed second officer Lightholler’s statement that ‘J. B. Thayer was on our overturned boat,’ which would give the impression that it was father, when he really meant it was I, as he only learned my name in subsequent conversation on the Carpathia and did not know I was ‘Junior.’”
Little Arthur Olsen, eight years old, said that America was a pretty good place, and that he was going to like it.