Peck's Bad Boy in an airship

by George W. Peck

Launches came by the dozen, bringing people ashore, but no one was allowed to go out to the ships. Finally the last launch came, and it was manned by “Connecticut” men, and when I showed my ticket and was going to get on, the boss said “skiddoo,” the boat moved away with one of my feet on board and the other on the dock, and I promptly fell in the water, the boss of the boat yelled to some one on the dock to “get a boat hook and pull it out,” and soon I came up strangling, a hook caught me in the pants and I was hauled out on the dock, they rolled me on a barrel and stood me on my head to empty the water out of me, and a soldier took me into the kitchen of the hotel to have me dried out by the gas boiler, and I felt deserted and demoralized. The guns boomed, the bands played, and I looked out of the kitchen window and saw the fleet sail away south without me, and I realized that Bob Evans had been “stringing” me, and that he never intended I should go around the horn with the fleet, and I thought that may be, if he was a liar, and used profane language, and was subject to rheumatism, it was better that I did not go, as I might be spoiled. But they can go plumb with their old fleet, and if the Japs get Bob Evans and roast him over the coals, all I hope is that he will be sorry for treating me as he did.

The Boss of the Boat Ordered Me Pulled Out with a Boat Hook.

But I always light on my feet. After I got dried out, I met a man who was picking up a crew to go to Europe from Baltimore on a cattle ship, and he pictured to me the easy life on the ocean wave with a load of steers, and hired me to go along, and I thought it was the chance of my life to meet up with Pa, who is over there hunting airships for his government, so we went to Baltimore, and that night we were in the cattle ship and I slept in a hammock and ate my bread and beef out of a tin basin.

Gee, what a change it was over my former trip to Europe with Pa, on a regular liner, with a bed and meals in the cabin. But when a boy goes out in the world to gain his own living, and travel on his face, he has got to take what comes to him.

The next morning my work began. Our vessel went up to the stock yards, and began to load steers for shipment, and all I had to do was to act as a “twister.” When the cattle came through the shute, and landed on the deck, and refused to go into the dark places, we had to take hold of the tails of the cattle and twist them so they would move on, and of all the bellowing you ever heard, that was the worst.

Whether the bellowing was caused by the tail twisting, or because the cattle were home sick, and did not want to be kidnapped or “shonghaid” on board a foreign-bound vessel, I don’t know, but it was more exciting than the sea fight at Santiago and about as dangerous, for the cattle hooked with their horns and kicked, and I was kicked more than forty times, and would have quit, only the man that hired me said if any of us were injured we would be put on the government pension list, and be supported in luxury the balance of our lives, so I worked for two days, and finally we got a thousand or more steers down in the hold, sliding them down on skids, and they were lined up in stalls, with a hay rack in front of them, and a bar across behind them, and we sailed for the ocean, after feeding the cattle bailed hay and giving them water and bedding.

It seemed to me those cattle were almost as comfortable as steerage passengers on a liner, but they kicked and bellowed, and pawed the planks off the deck, and mourned like lost souls.

The first day out I found that I was not a passenger, but a crew. Instead of the easy life I had expected, loafing along across the ocean, I had to get up before daylight and skin potatoes, and help stir soup, and pulverize hard tack, and carry the food up into the cabin for the officers, and be sea sick, and wash dishes and wait on table, and feed cattle, and do everything anybody told me to do. After a few days I mutinied, and went to the captain and complained. He was an English nobleman, and after hearing my tale of woe, he told me if I didn’t like it I could go to ’ell, and I went down cellar to the cook room, which was the nearest to ’ell I could go on that vessel. I found the man that hired me, and told him I seemed to be doing the most of the work on the excursion, and that I wanted an assistant. He said if I thought I was working much now, I better wait until we run into a storm, when I would not only have to be cook and waiter and chamber maid to the steers, but I would have to be trained nurse down in the cattle regions, for when the steers began to be sea sick that was a time when any man who had a heart could use it to the best advantage, for there was nothing more pitiful than a steer with a pain under his belt. He said steers were not at all like the Irishman who was on the bow of the boat on the last trip, feeding the fish, when the captain came along and said, “Pat, your stomach seems to be weak,” and Pat said, “O, I dunno, I am throwing it as far as any of them.” He said when there was a storm at sea the animals acted perfectly human. They would get down on their knees and roll their eyes heavenward, and moan, and cry, and tears would be in their eyes, but they never lost their cud, only they swelled up and bellowed.

Well, it wasn’t an hour before a storm came from towards Cuba, and the boat was rocking and pitching, and the captain blew three whistles, which was a signal for all hands to go below and nurse the steers, and we all made a rush down to the very bowels of the ship, where the cattle were, and such a sight I never saw.