The Young Wireless Operator—With the Oyster Fleet / How Alec Cunningham Won His Way to the Top in the Oyster Business

by Lewis E. Theiss

By the time the Rebecca was in commission again the oyster season was at hand. Orders began to appear for oysters. As was usual at the beginning of the season, there were too few oyster orders to pay the expenses of operating. Some shippers did not start their boats promptly; but Captain Rumford had built up his big business as much by providing service as by selling good oysters. It was his idea that as an oyster merchant it was up to him to provide oysters whenever they were in season. So the Bertha B started promptly.

Now it seemed as though misfortune had marked the shipper for her very own; as though, balked of her prey on that stormy day in August, she meant to pursue the shipper until she got him. An unbroken succession of little accidents occurred on the Bertha B. Now a dredge was lost and valuable time consumed in grappling for it. Now a propeller blade was snapped off by something in the water—perhaps the submerged remains of an oyster stake. Then a piston-rod in the engine broke. One mishap followed another. And it required both time and money to repair each. The shipper's repair bill alone made him look serious.

But bad luck did not end there. From the very start it was evident that it was to be a poor year for oysters. The shipper's boat worked long hours and caught relatively few oysters. As more orders came in, other boats were put in commission. The result was the same. Day after day the boats came in with only half loads. Nor was this situation peculiar to Captain Rumford. Few, indeed, were the shippers who had many oysters that year. In his shallow water beds, or such of them as contained oysters old enough to dredge, the captain got a fair catch. But all the profit he made from these beds, and more too, was eaten up by the expense of working his deep water beds. So far as he could, the shipper took his oysters from his inner beds. But these had been dredged so close in the humming oyster seasons just past, and did not begin to contain as many oysters as the shipper needed.

What was worse, when he had taken the present season's crop from these inner beds, there would be no more to dredge for three years. For these were the beds he had seeded in the spring—these and the new bed far out that Captain Flint had seeded so heavily and that Hardy had tried to raid. Week after week the oyster-boats continued their work, and with every week the captain found himself a poorer man. But there was nothing to do but go on—to borrow money, if necessary, and then borrow more and more. If he expected to retain his customers for future years when oysters were plentiful and profitable again, he must carry his load of loss now. And of course the captain went on.

He was not a superstitious man, was Captain Rumford, but like all sailors he came near to being one. It seemed to him that the loss of Captain Bagley was directly connected with his misfortunes; as though that loss were the first link in a chain of misfortune. Close on Bagley's loss had come the accident to the Rebecca. Then had followed a big string of accidents to Bagley's old ship. Of course, big Jim Hawley, the new commander, was in no way responsible for these, and yet it almost seemed as though there was a direct connection between his coming aboard and these accidents. What Captain Rumford forgot was the fact that the Bertha B, like the one-hoss shay, had reached a point where she was almost ready to go to pieces. She was the oldest boat in the captain's fleet. She had seen continuous service for dozens of years. Her engine was the very oldest in use among the oyster-boats. Nothing can wear forever, and the Bertha B was reaching the point where she would have to be laid on the shelf. It was big Jim Hawley's misfortune that he assumed command of her at that particular moment.

Had Captain Rumford only thought of it, he could have balanced a whole string of fortunate events against this string of unfortunate ones; and these had begun with the coming of Alec. The largest bead in this string was the fact of their rescue on the Rebecca. There were other beads that at present Captain Rumford failed to note at all, or even to understand that they were pieces of good fortune, as, for example, Alec's survey of the oyster waters. In good time, however, he was to see that matter in its true light.

As for Alec, he had never toiled so hard in his life. A year of unremitting labor had taught him how to work. Not only was he able to hold himself rigidly to his tasks, but he could accomplish more in a given time than he had ever done before. Nor was that strange. He was merely acquiring the skill that comes of practice. For now Alec felt like an old hand in the oyster business. He had passed a full year as an oysterman. He had seen every phase of the oyster business. He had learned as many actual facts about oystering as almost anybody at Bivalve knew; and he had acquired many that most of his fellow oystermen would never understand. What he still lacked was the wisdom that comes from long experience. Only time could give him that. Yet he was a generation ahead of his fellow oystermen. He was the first of the oyster pioneers of the new school.

Hard, indeed, must have been the luck that followed the Bertha B, when with two men like Alec and Captain Hawley aboard her she was still a failure. For Captain Hawley was a new Hawley, indeed. He still had all his old strength and courage, all his innate good-nature, all his deep knowledge of oystering as it had been practiced. And he had more. He had been recreated. His ambition had been again aroused. He had been fired afresh with the determination to climb up in the oyster business. His unexpected elevation to the captaincy of a ship had stimulated and aroused him to the utmost. His association with Alec had brought out the best that was in him. And these two comrades, Alec and Captain Jim, worked to make things go for the shipper, as few men ever worked for another. They drove the ship, they drove the crew—by example rather than compulsion—they made everything work as close to one hundred per cent. efficiency as is humanly possible—and yet they failed. No matter what the obstacles, they could have dredged the oysters, had there been oysters to dredge; but they could not make oysters.

Again and again Alec went over with Jim the life-history of the oyster, for now Captain Hawley was as eager to learn the real truth about oysters as once he had been indifferent to that truth. In his study of the oyster-beds in future years, Alec knew he would no longer have to work alone. Now they tried to account for the poor yield of oysters. For everywhere the yield was poor. Nobody had a good crop. And more than one shipper saw bankruptcy looming in the offing. Every aspect of oystering Alec and Captain Jim considered as they sat by the cabin fire in the Bertha B at night. The tide, the bottom, the storms, the quantities of seed used. And here Captain Jim's memory was of wonderful help. Apparently he knew all about the weather for years past. Eventually they hit upon the truth. The year in which the present season's catch was planted had been the coldest in a decade. Storm had followed storm. And finally, seed had been scarce.