CHAPTER II
THE SECRET OF SUCCESS
“It’s the same old story,” muttered Roy to himself, after a time. “I wonder if they will ever stop saying ‘You’re only a boy.’ That’s what they said at Camp Brady. Yet the wireless patrol ran down the dynamiters when the state police couldn’t find them. That’s what they said here in New York when we were searching for the secret wireless. Yet we found it, even if we were boys. That’s what Captain Lansford says now. Shall I ever be old enough to escape it?”
Yet it was fortunate for Roy that he was but nineteen. At nineteen one possesses the resiliency of youth. One rebounds like a rubber ball. It was so with Roy. A while longer he sat, his head buried in his hands, his heart full of woe. Hardly could he keep the tears back. Then the buoyancy of youth asserted itself.
“Only a boy,” he said presently, straightening up. “Isn’t there anybody in the world who knows that sometimes boys have brains and courage and common sense? What was David but a boy when he fought Goliath? What was General Grant but a boy when he loaded the logs alone? Who fought the Civil War but boys? I don’t care if I am a boy. I can read and send wireless messages with the best of them, and there’s nothing conceited in my saying so, for it’s a fact. Only a boy, eh? All right, I’ll show them what a boy can do. Maybe that captain can run his ship without the help of wireless, but I’ll bet that after he’s had the wireless service for——”
Roy broke off suddenly and his face became very serious. “I almost forgot,” he said to himself soberly, “that I have only three months to serve on this ship. Just as soon as the next class is graduated from the Marconi Institute, I’ll lose my job.”
Roy’s face was very long indeed. “Maybe I’ll never get another place,” he said. “If I can’t make good on this ship, how can I ever get a job on another boat?”
For a while Roy sat in deep thought. Then a wan smile flitted across his face. “You’re doing just what Captain Hardy warned you not to do,” he muttered to himself. “You’re brooding over trouble. If Captain Hardy were here, he’d tell you to get busy and make good before you lose your job. That’s what he would say. Well, I don’t know just what to do, but I’ll make a beginning anyway. And that’ll be to get into my uniform.”
Roy jumped to his feet, opened his case, and took out his shining new uniform. Rapidly he put off his old suit and donned the new. A mirror hung at one end of his room. In this Roy surveyed himself with unqualified satisfaction. The trim, blue uniform fitted him snugly, emphasizing the fact that he possessed unusually broad, square shoulders and a slim waist. He stood up before the glass as straight as a young pine. Any one with half an eye for physique could have told that he was unusually powerful for a boy of his age and that he gave promise of being a man of great strength. His quick turns, as he surveyed himself, first on one side and then on the other, gave ample evidence of his agility. Could Captain Lansford, who admired physical prowess above almost every other quality, have seen Roy now, he might have formed a more favorable opinion of his new wireless man.
The Scriptures tell us that as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. The truth of that saying was illustrated now in Roy’s case. The pride of his new position and his new uniform filled his soul. Gone was the stoop in his shoulders. The expression of gloom had disappeared from his countenance. In its place appeared the old look of cheerful confidence and determination. Straightway Roy began to look about him.
The glow of satisfaction on his face deepened. His little house, perched on the topmost deck like an eagle’s aerie, was snug and comfortable beyond anticipation. To Roy it seemed almost palatial. The portion that was partitioned off for his sleeping quarters contained his bunk, a commodious closet, the fine mirror before which he now stood, and all the other accommodations that would be found in a first-class stateroom. The woodwork was beautifully finished. Generous coils of steam-pipes gave promise of abundant warmth even when the fiercest winter storms were blowing. Convenient electric fixtures were provided for lighting. Altogether his quarters were so snug and inviting that Roy momentarily forgot his troubles.
When he had ended his survey of his little sleeping room and stepped into the wireless room proper, his heart fairly leaped with joy. On one side of the little cabin was the operating table, with its array of shining instruments. A leather-covered couch stood along the opposite wall. There was a small rack for signal and code books, stationery, etc., and a chair or two. But Roy gave scant attention to the furnishings. He had eyes only for the beautiful, glittering instruments on the operating table. The wireless outfit was complete. It included every necessary instrument, and each was of the finest type, with the latest improvements. Exultantly Roy fingered one after another. Never had he dared hope to have such an outfit as was now his. Of course it was not literally his, but nevertheless Roy felt all the joy of ownership. For three months, at least, it would be his. No one else might touch those shining instruments. Not even the captain, Roy fondly believed, would dare to molest them. Like Alexander Selkirk, Roy was monarch of all he surveyed.
But the mere handling of his instruments would never satisfy a boy like Roy. He sat down at the table and eagerly clamped the receivers to his ears. Skilfully he tuned his instrument, now to this wave-length, now to that. Clear as bells on a frosty morning came the voices in the air, and Roy’s eyes sparkled as he listened in.
By this time he had forgotten all about his rebuff by Captain Lansford. He was himself again, alert, quick, curious as to all about him, intently interested in every new phase of life. And life aboard ship was distinctly new to Roy. The voices in the air he had listened to a thousand times. To him they were an old story. But a great, ocean-line steamship was still a delightful mystery to Roy. He wanted to know more about it.
Laying his receivers on the table, he sprang to his feet, put on his new cap, with its gold braid and its letters wrought in gold, and left the cozy little wireless house. Hardly had he reached the ladder when his eye was caught by the activities on the pier. Though Roy had spent many weeks in New York, he had had small opportunity to see the shipping close at hand. So the scene on the pier below was as novel to Roy as though he had never been near a seaport.
Streaming in and out of the steamer’s hold was a double line of stevedores, each pushing before him a strong barrel truck. Those entering were trundling great boxes or bales. Those emerging pushed only their empty trucks. Boxes, bales, packages and parcels of every conceivable size and shape followed one another into the hold in endless procession, while as endlessly stevedores came empty-handed out of the ship. The steady procession of freight handlers reminded Roy of a double line of ants, some laden, others with nothing to carry. Many a time Roy had watched ants bearing spoils to their nests. Often he had marveled at their strength, as they dragged along objects greater in size than themselves. But never had he marveled at the ants as he now wondered at these brawny stevedores. Enormous boxes, twice or thrice their own bulk, and weighing, Roy felt sure, several hundred pounds apiece, they handled like so many bags of feathers, trundling them swiftly over the uneven plank flooring of the pier, shooting down the gangplank with them, often to the apparent imminent peril of their fellows. Yet never a collision occurred, and never a crate was spilled or upset.
When Roy grew tired of watching the freight handlers, he turned away from the ship’s rail and descended to the pier. For the first time in his life he had a really good look at the inside of a great pier shed. Jutting straight out from the shore, the long, narrow pier, built on pilings and tightly roofed over and walled in, extended an unbelievable distance into the river. With quick appreciation of its real length, Roy saw that one could run a hundred yards straightaway on the pier without covering half its length. In width it might have been seventy-five to one hundred feet. This great warehouse—for in effect it was that—was piled high with mountainous heaps of freight, and a seemingly endless procession of drays and motor-trucks was constantly adding to the store. From these huge piles the stevedores were bringing the freight they were rushing into the hold of the Lycoming.
It was a stirring sight to see the trucks constantly arriving and departing, some piles of freight growing bigger and bigger with every incoming load, while others as constantly dwindled in size. The former piles, Roy soon found, were accumulating for other ships, while the decreasing stacks had been brought on previous days for the Lycoming.
Roy gained thus his first inkling of what was meant by the term commerce. Never before had he seen such huge stacks of goods assembled in one place. It seemed to Roy as though all the wares of all the merchants in Central City would hardly make so great a pile if boxed and stacked together. Yet all these materials were sufficient only to fill two or three steamships of moderate size. When Roy thought of the miles and miles of piers along New York’s water-front, and realized that each pier probably contained fully as many manufactured products as the Lycoming’s pier, it seemed beyond belief. Then he thought of the labor necessary to handle all these mountains of goods. On his own pier dozens of men were at work. Motor-trucks and horse-drawn drays came and went ceaselessly, hour after hour. It was awesome to think about.
“And this,” said Roy to himself, “is only one of scores and scores of piers. And New York is only one of America’s seaports. Then there are all the railway stations and freight depots. My goodness! Think how many hands it must take to move all the stuff——”
Roy stopped in sheer inability to comprehend the vista of American industry he had opened for himself.
“Well,” he muttered after a time, “I see one thing. The whole country is united in a great business. If any part of that business stops it affects all the rest. Suppose all the boats along this river couldn’t make their trips on time. The piers would fill up so they would hold no more. That would throw the truckmen out of work. Shipments from the mills would have to stop. Railroad crews would lose their jobs and the mills would shut down. That would be an awful calamity.”
The idea was so appalling that Roy paused to ponder over it. “I see one thing clearly enough,” he said to himself at last. “Everybody everywhere has to do his part if the whole business is to run right. Our job is to sail the Lycoming safely and right on the minute. Maybe I won’t be with her long, but as long as I am with her I’m going to do my best to keep her safe and right on the dot. That’s my job all right.”
It was. And if Roy had been a bit older, he would have known that it was exactly the way to make good with Captain Lansford in particular and the world in general. Without realizing it, Roy had set forth the fundamental rule of success—to do with your might what your hands find to do.
When Roy had tired of watching the toiling stevedores, he strolled up the pier and out to the street.