Walter and the Wireless

by Sara Ware Bassett

The Mollie D. The finest ship afloat.

The words had been intended as a tribute rather than a challenge for Jerry was a peaceful soul, but unfortunately they had proved provocative of many a brawl, and had the truth been known a certain odd slant of Jerry's chin could have been traced back to this apparently harmless assertion. Possibly had this mate of the Mollie D. foreseen into what straits his boast was to lead him he might not have expressed it so baldly in all the naked glory of blue ink; but with the sentiment once immortalized what choice had he but to defend it? Therefore, being no coward but a sturdy seaman with a swinging undercut, he had in times past delivered many a blow in order to uphold the Mollie D.'s nautical reputation, after which encounters his challengers were wont to emerge with a more profound respect not only for the bark but for Jerry Thomas as well.

All that, however, was long ago. Since the great storm of 1890 when so many ships had perished and the Mollie D., bound from Norfolk to Fairhaven, had gone down with the rest, Jerry had abandoned the sea. It was not the perils of the deep, nevertheless, that had driven him landward, or the fear of future disasters; it was only that since his first love was lost he could not bring himself to ship on any other vessel.

Accordingly he took to the shore and for a time a very strange misfit he was there. How he fumed and fidgeted and roamed from one place to another, searching for some spot in which his restless spirit would find peace! And then one day he had wandered into Lovell's Harbor and there he had stayed ever since. For several seasons he had taken out sailing parties of summer boarders or piloted amateur fishermen out to the Ledges; but the timidity and lack of sophistication of these city patrons at length so rasped his nerves that he gave up the task and was about to betake himself to pastures new when he fell beneath the eye of Mr. Glenmore Archibald Crowninshield, a New York banker, who had bought the strip of land forming one arm of the bay and was on the point of erecting there a diminutive summer palace.

From that instant Jerry's fortune was made. Mr. Crowninshield was a keen student of human nature and was immediately attracted to the sailor with his ambling gait and twinkling blue eyes. Moreover, the New Yorker happened to be in search of just such a man to look out for his interests when he was not at Lovell's Harbor. Hence Jerry was elevated to the post of caretaker and delegated to keep guard over the edifice that was about to be erected.

In view of the fact that up to the moment Jerry had been the most care-free mortal alive and had never from day to day been able to remember the whereabouts of his sou'wester or his rubber boots, his ensuing transformation was nothing short of a miracle. Promptly settling down with doglike fidelity he began mildly to urge on the lagging carpenters; but presently, magnificent in his wrath, he rose above them, whiplash in hand, and drove them forward. His watery blue eyes followed every stick of timber, every foot of piping, every nail that was placed. There was no escaping his watchfulness. If corners were not true or moldings did not meet he saw and called attention to it. Many a time a slipshod workman was ready to throw him over the cliff into the sea and perhaps might have done so had he not been conscious of the justice of the criticism.

In consequence the Crowninshield house was built on honor; and when the bills began to come in and showed a marked falling off in magnitude the owner of the mansion could not but express gratitude. Jerry, however, did not covet thanks. Instead he tagged along at his employer's heels, proudly calling notice first to one skillful bit of work and then to another. The house and all that concerned it became his hobby. It was to him what the Mollie D. had been, the primary interest of his life. He knew every inch of plumbing; where every shut-off, valve, ventilator, and stopcock was located. Moreover, he could have told, had not his jaws been clamped together tightly as a scallop shell, exactly how much every article in the mansion cost.

Later he superintended the grading of the lawns, the laying out of tennis courts, and the building of garages, boathouses, and bathhouses. By this time Mr. Crowninshield would willingly have trusted him with every farthing he possessed so complete was his confidence in his man Friday.

Jerry, however, was modest. He declared he had only done his duty and insisted that it go at that. But having set this high standard of fidelity for himself it followed that he demanded a like faithfulness in others; and if he were not merciful to those who came under his dictatorship at least no one of them could deny that he was just. Hence Walter King did not shrink from the prospect of working with him, stern though he was reputed to be. One can only do one's best and that the boy was determined to do. Therefore he smiled up into Jerry's misty blue eyes and answered:

"I could begin work when school closes toward the end of June."