Best of all were the brief conversations Alec had with Roy Mercer, when the Lycoming passed. Every time that steamer went up or down the coast, Roy and Alec got into touch by wireless and told each other what they had been doing. And sometimes Roy was able to talk to Charley Russell, another member of the Camp Brady Wireless Patrol, who had become first a fire patrol and then a ranger in the forests of Pennsylvania, and had saved the state's finest stand of timber by the help of his wireless and the powerful battery his fellows of the Wireless Patrol had purchased for him. Often Alec caught Charley's answers himself, without needing to have Roy relay them to him. It was mighty good to hear from his old comrade back among the Pennsylvania mountains.
At last, however, Alec completed his telephone set. He still lacked a battery, but his keen sense of obligation would not let him buy one until he had entirely wiped out his debt to Captain Rumford. For Alec now regarded his indebtedness for the gravestone as an obligation to the shipper rather than to the marble dealer. Every week Alec turned over to Captain Rumford practically all of his pay. This mounted steadily from the ten dollars earned in his first week to full pay. So the debt was extinguished much sooner than Alec had dreamed it would be.
His next expenditure was for a battery. Once he had secured that, he wired up his telephone set and found it worked well. That night he broke his rule about retiring early. He was talking to Elsa. After that the two conversed for a time in the early evening before the great electrical companies began to broadcast their programmes, so as to be done with the instruments before Captain Rumford appeared to listen to the music. The dream of the captain's life was realized. He had music in his home every night, and an amplifying horn made it audible to all.
Alec, needless to say, became a first-class deck-hand. Not a day passed that he did not learn something new about the oyster business. As he had practically no expenses, his savings grew fast.
Cold weather came. From time to time it was too cold to operate the oyster-boats. Then the fleet lay in port and the shippers worried because they could not fill their orders.
"When I get my boat," said Alec to himself, "nothing but the heaviest ice will prevent her from operating. She will be high enough so the men can work in the hold, and there won't be any likelihood of the oysters freezing."
Truly it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The cold days, though they brought loss to shippers and sailors alike, were helpful to Alec. When there was no work for the lad aboard the Bertha B, Captain Rumford brought him into the office. The shipper still clung to the old-fashioned business methods he had learned as a boy. He had no clerical help, but tried to keep his accounts and carry on his correspondence in person. Though it was more of a task than he could handle, for a long time he obstinately refused to alter his methods.
One cold day in midwinter, when every boat in the fleet was tied up, Alec noticed that the captain was fairly sweating under the mountain of clerical work that had accumulated. He was writing some letters, which he had later to copy so as to have duplicates; and there were bills to be made out, bills to be paid, accounts to be entered in the books, correspondence to be answered, and a dozen other tasks to be done.
"Won't you let me help you?" said Alec. "I haven't done a thing since you brought me into the office but run errands. Any ten-year-old can do that as well as I can. In high school I studied bookkeeping, typewriting, commercial correspondence, and a good many other things about business and office work. I've had the training. Won't you let me help you?"
The captain hesitated. In all his life nobody but himself had ever written a business letter for him, or posted an account in his books. He looked at the pile of work heaped up on his desk. Then he looked at the unopened mail Alec had just brought from the post-office.