CHAPTER IV DREDGING OYSTERS
Suddenly Sailor Bishop appeared on deck. He drew off the cover of the forward hatch and dropped into the hold. Then broad-bladed oyster shovels, oyster baskets, culling hammers, and other implements were shoved up through the hatchway.
"I can help him with that," said Alec, and leaving the pilot-house, he made his way forward. But the sailor was already out of the hold and replacing the hatch cover. He grinned at Alec's offer of assistance and said there was nothing to be done. Nor was there much to do. The necessary shovels and baskets were placed amidship, where they could be reached easily by the men at the dredges. Then the two stood side by side on the deck, looking at the animated scene. The wind still blew fresh and the air was cold. But with the warm coat outside of him and a good breakfast inside, Alec was not the least bit chilled. The fresh air was invigorating.
The members of the Wireless Patrol had always been told to keep their eyes and ears open and their mouths closed; and Alec now tried to practice what he had been taught. The oyster-dredges interested him keenly. These were huge iron frames, shaped like wish-bones, with ends that curved over like hooks, and that were connected by a straight iron bar. This bar was armed with huge iron teeth, like those of a rake. This toothed bar was intended to drag along the bottom and rake up the oysters, as pebbles are raked together with a garden rake. The oysters so caught were held in a bag or network, made of iron rings and links, that was fastened to the frame of the dredge.
On either side of the ship lay one of these dredges, ready to be put overboard. Immediately before each dredge, and mounted in the ship's rail, was a horizontal iron roller, and just back of this was a vertical roller. It was perfectly evident that the horizontal roller was intended for use in pulling the dredge in and out of the ship, while the vertical roller would revolve under pressure of the dredge chain as this paid out after the dredge was tossed overboard. The chain, in each case, was fastened to the apex of the dredge, or what might be called the top of the wish-bone; and these chains, one from each side, led directly to the winders amidships, which were simply revolving drums or spools of iron that wound up the dredge chains.
Alec was more than eager to see the outfit work, but the ship went on and on at full speed.
"How far do we have to go before we begin to dredge?" he finally asked his companion.
"I reckon our grounds are about eight miles out," replied the sailor.
Alec opened his eyes wide, but said nothing. By this time they were far offshore. They could still see the trees and haystacks on the meadows but the shore-line was becoming more and more indistinct. The oyster-boats had scattered in every direction, and now that the ships had separated there did not seem to be nearly as many of them.
"There's Egg Island Light," said the sailor, pointing ahead to starboard.
Alec looked, and finally made out what seemed to him a tiny, dark column in the gray waves. With every minute the expanse of water widened and the shore grew more indistinct. Suddenly Alec's attention was attracted by something far ahead in the water. He saw at once that it was a little cluster of saplings, such as he had seen lashed to the side of the Mary and Hattie. Their bushy tops gave them the appearance of a tiny thicket growing right in the water. Then he saw a second cluster of stakes, and beyond them, at intervals, other stakes. All these little groups of stakes were in a straight line, so that the effect was, indeed, not unlike a long fence-row. As the Bertha B drew nearer to the oyster-beds, Alec could see stakes in every direction. Most of them, he noticed, were just bare poles, that stuck out of water two or three feet, like the tips of so many fishing poles. But some groups of stakes were still bushy at the top, like the first clusters he had seen. He asked his companion why two sorts of stakes were used.
"They was all alike when they was put down," said Sailor Bishop, "but most of them have lost their tops. The waves and the ice and the oyster-boats themselves break off the little branches at the tops, leaving only the bare poles."
"Then why aren't all the tops broken and not just some?"
"Oh! Those bushy ones have just been put down. You see the oystermen like to mark their beds well in the fall. It makes it so much easier to find their grounds when spring comes."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, if this happens to be a cold winter, every pole in sight may be broke off by the ice. If a skipper has put down fresh poles just before winter, he can find his bed pretty easy when spring comes."
"How?" asked Alec in amazement. "How can he ever tell where his grounds are if his stakes are gone?"
"Well, they won't be gone altogether. Just the tops are broke off. At low tide there'll be some stumps sticking up. A skipper just sails out and gets the range of his beds and then hunts for his stakes till he finds them. Then he puts down new stakes."
"But how can he ever get his range, as you call it?"
"Oh! He knows his landmarks. You see Egg Island Light over there, and just behind it that tall clump of trees? Well, if we had an oyster-bed right here, that light and those trees would always be in a line when we are over our bed. Now if he had some landmarks in this other direction, too, a skipper could always tell when he was right on this spot, for he'd have to have both sets of landmarks in line."
"Why, that's nothing but triangulation," said Alec. "We studied that in school."
"I don't know what they call it in school, but that's the way a skipper finds an oyster-bed when his stakes is gone."
"What I don't understand," questioned Alec, "is why the ice doesn't take the stakes away altogether, instead of just breaking off the branches at the tops of the stakes."
"Lord bless you, son! You couldn't pull them stakes up with a derrick."
"Why not?"
"Because they're down in the mud five or six feet and it holds them tighter'n a porous plaster sticks to your back."
"How do you ever get them down so deep?"
"Oh! They go down easy as a rule. You just take a stake under your arm and work it down into the mud. It goes down easy enough, but it won't come out for nothing. Sometimes, though, when the mud's tough or the bottom sandy, they won't go down nohow. Then we have to pump them down."
"Pump them down!" cried Alec in astonishment. "What do you mean?"
"Why, we fasten a hose to the sharp end of the stake, and the engine sucks the mud or sand up through the hose as we work the stake down. I tell you them stakes never comes up!"
"Does it take long to stake out an oyster-bed?" asked Alec.
"Well, that depends upon the weather and the mud and a lot of other things. If an oyster captain is too busy to put down his own poles, he can get a stake sticker to do it for him."
"What's that?"
"Oh! There's lots of men with little boats, who ain't got money enough to start oystering themselves, that make a business of putting out stakes for men who have beds. They charge a dollar a stake, and in a good day they can put down twenty-five or thirty stakes."
"Whew! There must be big money in that. I should think everybody would become stake stickers instead of oystermen."
"It ain't as good as it sounds. A man has to own a boat before he can be even a stake sticker. And he's got to hire two or three men to help him, and pay for the poles as well. And then it's work that lasts only a little while each year. So I reckon there ain't so much in it after all."
"Likely not," said Alec. "It's like a lot of other things in life. The less you know about it, the better it looks."
Just then the captain's voice was heard. "Hey! Kid! Come here."
Alec turned and saw the captain beckoning to him. He made his way back to the pilot-house.
"We're almost to our grounds," said the captain, "and we don't want to lose a minute. Pull on them oilskins. You can't ketch oysters in them duds of yourn. You'd soon be soaked."
The captain pointed to a suit of oilskins hanging above his bunk. Alec pulled the waterproof clothes, which were bright yellow in color, over his other clothes, and exchanged his cap for the captain's sou'wester. Then he took off his shoes and got into the captain's boots.
"Bishop will tell you what to do, young 'un," said the captain, "and be darned careful about them winder chains. More'n one man's had his arm took off in this fleet by winder chains."
Alec went forward. "What do you want me to do?" he asked the sailor.
"You help me handle this dredge. We pull it in this way," and he indicated how he and Alec were to take hold of it. "And then we grab them round rings and dump the oysters out on the deck. Then we shove the dredge overboard again and go to culling. I'll show you how to do that when we get some oysters. We're almost there now. See them four bunches of stakes? They're the corners of our grounds."
"How big is this bed?" asked Alec.
"I reckon about ten acres, but Cap'n Rumford's got a good many other beds farther out. I reckon he must have more'n a thousand acres of oysters."
"Cap'n Rumford?" asked Alec. "Who's he? I thought our captain's name was Bagley."
The sailor looked at Alec and laughed. "So it is," he said. "But he's merely the cap'n of this boat. Cap'n Rumford's the owner of the outfit. We're just workin' for him."
"Do you dredge all the oysters from those thousand acres?"
"Lord bless you!" laughed the sailor. "It takes a whole fleet to do that. Cap'n Rumford has three or four boats going all the time."
"Isn't that an awful lot of oysters—a thousand acres?"
"I reckon it's just about the biggest oyster-bed down here. You're dead lucky to start oystering with the Rumford outfit, lad. As long as you do the right thing by the cap'n, he'll sure treat you white."
Just then the cook and the engineer came on deck. "Now me and you will handle this dredge," said Sailor Bishop, "and Dick and Joe'll take care of the other. Just git over on that side of the dredge. And watch them chains. We're almost ready."
The Bertha B passed one of the clumps of stakes that Sailor Bishop had pointed out.
And at once, "Let go your dredges!" came the order from the pilot-house.
Alec and the sailor seized the starboard dredge by which they stood, and Dick and Joe grasped the other; and both dredges shot overboard at the same instant. The chains paid out against the vertical rollers with a loud rattle. Alec stood silent, eagerly awaiting the first haul. He wondered what would be in the dredge. The engine continued to churn up the water, and the Bertha B forged ahead, dragging her heavy, clumsy dredges behind her.
"How deep is this bed?" asked Alec.
"About eighteen or twenty feet, I reckon."
"Are they all as deep as that?"
"No. Some of them ain't more than ten feet deep. It all depends upon——"
Suddenly there was a loud, clanking sound in the hold. The chain of the starboard dredge began to grow taut.
"Look out for that chain," warned the sailor again, as it began to reel up.
Suddenly the dredge shot out of water and followed the chain over the roller. Alec and the sailor grabbed it and shoved it to the deck. In another second they had thrust the dredge back over the side.
The sailor picked up a culling hammer, which was very much like an enlarged tack-hammer, and fell to sorting oysters. The very largest he put in a basket by themselves. These were "primes," and there were few of them. The remaining oysters, the "culls," he dropped into another basket as fast as he could sort them out. Many old oyster shells had come up with the dredge. These and the "rattlers" (oysters with cracked or broken shells), the sailor raked into a little pile by themselves with his culling hammer. The rattlers were detected by tapping the shells with the hammer. They gave forth a hollow, rattling sound.
Alec dropped on one knee, in imitation of his companion, and also began to cull the oysters. At first he was somewhat clumsy; but with a little practice, he acquired considerable dexterity. In the heap with the oysters were a few clams, a small crab, a conch shell, and an evil-looking fish, that the sailor struck in the head with his culling hammer and contemptuously called a "Cape May minister." When the sailor had filled his basket with cull oysters, he dumped it in the middle of the deck hard against the pilot-house. Then he dropped a single oyster in a basket that stood in front of the winders. Alec filled his basket and the sailor dumped it also and dropped another oyster in the basket. It was the method of keeping tally.
Meantime the other dredge had come aboard, and Dick and Joe were also hard at it. The captain, operating the dredges from the pilot-house, brought up the dredges at frequent intervals. When the starboard dredge chain began to wind up again, Alec and the sailor seized their shovels and shoveled the old shells and rattlers overboard again. But try as they would, they could hardly cull their pile of oysters before another dredgeful came aboard. Alec observed that Sailor Bishop was much the quickest of the three men at the dredges. He determined to watch him closely and try to become just as expert himself.
Also he understood why the captain had had him don water-proof clothes. The deck was adrip with water from the oysters, and every few minutes a wave splashed against the side of the boat, drenching the schooner with spray. Without the oilskins Alec would soon have been wet to the hide.
He found, too, that he needed more than oilskins to protect him. His fingers were rapidly becoming raw, and he saw that they would soon be cut to the bone by the sharp shells. His companions all wore rubber finger-stalls and Alec sighed with relief when he found that he could borrow some for his own fingers.
Presently Alec noticed that another oyster-boat was dredging in the adjoining bed. As the two boats sailed back and forth, passing and repassing each other, Alec couldn't help thinking how much like two farmers they were, plowing in adjoining fields. The other boat was one of the few ships in the fleet that still operated by wind power. Alec thought her a beautiful sight as she heeled over before the sharp wind, and sent the waves foaming from her bow and the spray dashing high. And she was far more picturesque than the Bertha B, which spread no sails at all. For this ship had all her sails set, and her steersman stood on deck in the open, vigorously twirling his steering-wheel.
The day wore on. Monotonously the Bertha B's propeller churned the yeasty waves. The winders rattled and clanked. Regularly the dredges came aboard and were dropped back again into the waves. The wind blew fresh. The sun shone bright. The waves sparkled. The pile of oysters before the pilot-house grew larger and larger. From time to time the cook slipped into the cabin, and Bishop stepped across the deck to help Joe with the other dredge. Now that he had acquired some facility in handling the oysters, and his fingers no longer smarted with the salt water, Alec enjoyed every moment. He didn't feel the least bit seasick, and the cool, fresh air was delightful to breathe. But he could see that in cold, stormy weather it would be anything but fun to work on the open deck of an oyster-boat. Time passed faster than he dreamed. For suddenly the Bertha B's whistle blew. The oystermen stopped work as though they had been shot.
"What's wrong?" asked Alec.
"Nothing," said Bishop. "It's time for dinner."
"But it can't be noon yet," insisted Alec.
"It isn't. We eat dinner at ten o'clock on an oyster-boat."
"Well, I'm not sorry to hear it," said Alec. "It can't come too early for me."
After dinner, dredging was resumed. By mid afternoon more than four hundred baskets of oysters were heaped up on deck of the Bertha B. Then the dredges were stowed aboard, and the ship headed for the mouth of the river. From every direction other boats were making for the same point. But this time there was no bar visible. There was water aplenty. Up the river raced the oyster-boats, sometimes three and even four abreast, every ship piled high with oysters. On the way up the river supper was served. Before five o'clock the Bertha B had reached the oyster piers. She pulled on past them to a huge float, on which the oysters were shoveled to allow them to lie in the brackish water to fatten. Then the deck was washed and the implements stowed in the hold. Captain Bagley headed the Bertha B down-stream once more, and in a few minutes she was moored snugly to the very pier on which Alec had sought shelter the night before.
But it was a very different world to Alec. He had a warm place to sleep on the Bertha B; he had all he could eat; he had a job; and he had found friends. He didn't know yet how much his job would pay him, for it hadn't occurred to him to ask. It was enough for the present to know that he had work and would no longer have to go hungry. About his new friends he knew almost nothing; but he felt sure they were going to be friends, for they all had treated him in a kindly fashion. Concerning his future he had as yet little idea. A few weeks previously it had never occurred to him that he would ever be an oysterman. But now that he had had a taste of oystering and had begun to get an insight into it, he saw at once that it was entirely possible that he might become an oysterman. He knew that men could rise in the oyster business as well as in any other. Like the sensible boy he was, Alec told himself that he would work as hard as he could, learn all he could, and earn and save all he could. If he got ready for an opportunity, the opportunity might come. Now that he did have to support himself, he meant to make the best job of it he knew how.