“We had evaporated potatoes and eggs in cans, butter pickled in cans, hot dogs in cans, everything. And the Eskimos,” he threw back his head and laughed. “They’d stand around watchin’ to see what we’d take out of a can next.
“And then we got a phonograph,” he laughed again.
“A phonograph?” Rusty said.
“Sure. First one those little brown boys ever seen. Had a long tin horn to it, that phonograph did. The Eskimos looked at it and tapped the tin horn. They said, ‘Suna una?’ (What is it?) We didn’t tell ’em, so they tapped it some more and said, ‘All same tin can-emuck.’
“Bye and bye we cranked it up and started it going. The record was a white man singin’ ‘Meet me in Saint Louis, Louie. Meet me at the Fair.’
“Well, that was funny!” he chuckled. “The Eskimos just looked and listened for a long time. Then one of them looked at the others and said, ‘Can you beat that! A white man in that tin can!’”
The merry laugh that rang out from the kitchen was heard by those on the porch. Johnny heard it with the others and was glad—glad that that fine girl could laugh even if it wasn’t his joke.
“See that cannery out there?” Red McGee was saying. “Cost a cool million dollars. Paying interest on the investment, too. Also it’s giving two thousand people a living. But these Orientals with their floating canneries—”
“Floating canneries?” Lawrence broke in.
“Sure! That’s what they’ve got. They pick up some big hulk of a ship cheap, install some canning equipment, load on a drove of cheap coolies and steam away. Pretty soon they’re over Bristol Bay, just off the shores of Alaska, but beyond the three-mile limit. Three miles! Bah!” he exploded.