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

CHAPTER XII ALEC GETS A NEW JOB

Like many another wish, that for the two sets of wireless telephones was unexpectedly slow of achievement. The oyster shipper's instruments arrived promptly enough, and Alec installed them and taught Captain Rumford and his family how to manipulate them. But it was a long, long time before Alec's own set was completed. Needing to save every cent possible, Alec bought only such materials as he could not pick up free, and set about constructing his instruments; but it was a slow job.

For now he was once more back on the oyster-boat; and his plan to learn all there was to learn about oystering, and to spend every minute of his waking hours at work, was more than an idle boast. So he was up by four in the morning or soon thereafter, helping the cook. All day he was busy catching oysters. By the time the Bertha B was scrubbed off and made fast to her pier, darkness was at hand. Alec's evenings were necessarily very brief, as it was absolutely necessary for him to go to bed early if he was to get up early. The only free time he had was that consumed by the trips to and from the oyster grounds. And even that grew steadily less, as he took more and more burdens upon his shoulders.

Like most boys of his age, Alec knew considerable about gasoline motors. In fact Alec was fairly skilled in their handling. Often he had helped a neighbor at home clean and repair his motor-car. His high school physics had taught him a great deal about the theory of gas engine operation. And he had many times driven his neighbor's car. Altogether, he was a handy lad to have about where there were gas engines of any sort.

Down in the hold, where the Bertha's engine chugged so steadily, the air was always tainted with the sickening fumes of exploded gasoline, and the smell of oil. For hours every day, year in and year out, Joe had sat beside his engine, unrelieved. Never before had the Bertha B numbered among her crew any one else who was capable of tending the engine. Now, as Alec, little by little, showed his capacity and won Joe's confidence, he was allowed to handle the big motor. In time, he was permitted, for limited periods, to operate it altogether, while Joe went to deck for a breath of fresh air. Thus Alec learned a great deal about the Bertha B's motor in particular and ship motors in general.

As against his capability in some lines, was balanced Alec's utter ignorance in others. He knew nothing whatever about navigation. But he set himself to learn, and the captain, seeing his desire, aided him. He explained the compass to Alec and showed him how to steer by it so that he could keep a given course, when no landmarks were in sight. He told him how fast the Bertha B ordinarily traveled, and what her maximum speed was. He explained the best speeds for dredging, the proper length of chain to use on the dredges at given stages of the tide, showed him the distant landmarks by which he could locate the Rumford oyster grounds when the stakes were missing, taught him how to find his way into the river at night by the range-lights, and how to distinguish East Point Light from Egg Island Light and all the other lights along the Bay. And the captain taught him about the tides, and how to figure them and take advantage of their flow and allow for drift in steering the boat. He also taught Alec how to find his way through a fog, and how to judge the direction and distance of sounds in a fog. These and many other things Captain Bagley explained to his new hand, delighted, as men of accomplishment always are, to find a lad who was really eager to learn.

Day by day Alec grew in knowledge. All that he needed to make his knowledge wisdom was experience. And with every revolution of the sun he was acquiring that. Occasionally the captain let Alec steer the boat while he himself went back in the cabin for a time. Sometimes the engineer asked Alec to run the motor for a few minutes. And often, when they were all on deck culling oysters, and Alec and Bishop had cleaned up their dredgeful, Dick would call across the deck to Alec and ask if he would look at the roast in the oven, or put a little more water on the beans or stir the potatoes. And Alec would skip inside and execute the commission. So he came to know, not only how to prepare the foods furnished on the Bertha B, but also to know which foods sailors like and which they will not eat. In these and a hundred other ways, Alec was daily making good his assertion that he wanted to know all there was to know about the oyster business, and storing away a vast fund of information that would some day be of the greatest value to him.

Necessarily, therefore, the construction of his wireless outfit was delayed. With the ship pitching and rolling, as it usually did in the Bay, it was difficult to do the fine, exacting work required, such as the winding of the variometer he was making, or the fitting of the parts of a large, loose coupler. Yet every available moment went into the work.

Meantime, Alec had gained Captain Bagley's permission to put up his telegraph set on the Bertha B. He ran a single-wire aerial from masthead to cabin roof and brought his lead-in wire directly into his bunk. He built a shelf at the foot of his bunk and fastened his instruments on it. His cells he secured in a corner of the bunk itself.

In these narrow quarters where he could hardly sit upright he carried on whatever wireless communications he held. They were brief enough. Yet he listened to many a message speeding through the air, and he particularly liked to "take Cape May." Never before had Alec been so near a great wireless plant. The station there, only twenty miles from the Bertha's pier, sent its powerful messages snapping into Alec's ear as distinctly as though the sending instruments were in the Bertha's very cabin.