Laying his receivers on the table, he sprang to his feet, put on his new cap, with its gold braid and its letters wrought in gold, and left the cozy little wireless house. Hardly had he reached the ladder when his eye was caught by the activities on the pier. Though Roy had spent many weeks in New York, he had had small opportunity to see the shipping close at hand. So the scene on the pier below was as novel to Roy as though he had never been near a seaport.
Streaming in and out of the steamer’s hold was a double line of stevedores, each pushing before him a strong barrel truck. Those entering were trundling great boxes or bales. Those emerging pushed only their empty trucks. Boxes, bales, packages and parcels of every conceivable size and shape followed one another into the hold in endless procession, while as endlessly stevedores came empty-handed out of the ship. The steady procession of freight handlers reminded Roy of a double line of ants, some laden, others with nothing to carry. Many a time Roy had watched ants bearing spoils to their nests. Often he had marveled at their strength, as they dragged along objects greater in size than themselves. But never had he marveled at the ants as he now wondered at these brawny stevedores. Enormous boxes, twice or thrice their own bulk, and weighing, Roy felt sure, several hundred pounds apiece, they handled like so many bags of feathers, trundling them swiftly over the uneven plank flooring of the pier, shooting down the gangplank with them, often to the apparent imminent peril of their fellows. Yet never a collision occurred, and never a crate was spilled or upset.
When Roy grew tired of watching the freight handlers, he turned away from the ship’s rail and descended to the pier. For the first time in his life he had a really good look at the inside of a great pier shed. Jutting straight out from the shore, the long, narrow pier, built on pilings and tightly roofed over and walled in, extended an unbelievable distance into the river. With quick appreciation of its real length, Roy saw that one could run a hundred yards straightaway on the pier without covering half its length. In width it might have been seventy-five to one hundred feet. This great warehouse—for in effect it was that—was piled high with mountainous heaps of freight, and a seemingly endless procession of drays and motor-trucks was constantly adding to the store. From these huge piles the stevedores were bringing the freight they were rushing into the hold of the Lycoming.
It was a stirring sight to see the trucks constantly arriving and departing, some piles of freight growing bigger and bigger with every incoming load, while others as constantly dwindled in size. The former piles, Roy soon found, were accumulating for other ships, while the decreasing stacks had been brought on previous days for the Lycoming.
Roy gained thus his first inkling of what was meant by the term commerce. Never before had he seen such huge stacks of goods assembled in one place. It seemed to Roy as though all the wares of all the merchants in Central City would hardly make so great a pile if boxed and stacked together. Yet all these materials were sufficient only to fill two or three steamships of moderate size. When Roy thought of the miles and miles of piers along New York’s water-front, and realized that each pier probably contained fully as many manufactured products as the Lycoming’s pier, it seemed beyond belief. Then he thought of the labor necessary to handle all these mountains of goods. On his own pier dozens of men were at work. Motor-trucks and horse-drawn drays came and went ceaselessly, hour after hour. It was awesome to think about.
“And this,” said Roy to himself, “is only one of scores and scores of piers. And New York is only one of America’s seaports. Then there are all the railway stations and freight depots. My goodness! Think how many hands it must take to move all the stuff——”
Roy stopped in sheer inability to comprehend the vista of American industry he had opened for himself.
“Well,” he muttered after a time, “I see one thing. The whole country is united in a great business. If any part of that business stops it affects all the rest. Suppose all the boats along this river couldn’t make their trips on time. The piers would fill up so they would hold no more. That would throw the truckmen out of work. Shipments from the mills would have to stop. Railroad crews would lose their jobs and the mills would shut down. That would be an awful calamity.”
The idea was so appalling that Roy paused to ponder over it. “I see one thing clearly enough,” he said to himself at last. “Everybody everywhere has to do his part if the whole business is to run right. Our job is to sail the Lycoming safely and right on the minute. Maybe I won’t be with her long, but as long as I am with her I’m going to do my best to keep her safe and right on the dot. That’s my job all right.”
It was. And if Roy had been a bit older, he would have known that it was exactly the way to make good with Captain Lansford in particular and the world in general. Without realizing it, Roy had set forth the fundamental rule of success—to do with your might what your hands find to do.