"Of course I could. I might have to work after dark sometimes, but I wouldn't mind that."
"We'll try it," said the shipper suddenly, "but what are you going to do about a boat?"
"I've got enough money saved to buy a boat," said Alec, "unless it costs too much. Would you be willing to help me buy it?"
"Certainly."
They found just the boat Alec wanted. It was long, wide, and flat bottomed with square ends and very high sides. It would hold at least fifty bushels of shells when full.
"What do you want such a big boat for?" demanded the shipper.
"Because I'll need it," said Alec. "While I am taking your shells away, I might just as well get some more, too. I'm sure some of the other shippers will give me their shells if I guarantee their removal every day. There's one thing still puzzling me, though. Where am I to dump the shells after I have collected them?"
"I'll fix that," said the shipper. "Old Si Newcomb owns the land along the river below the sheds. It's just the place you want. He'll let you put your shells there if I ask him."
"Thank you," said Alec. "Now I'll take my boat and get your shells."
"I'll ride back with you," said the shipper.
Alec took the sculling oar and shoved off. But when he tried to propel the boat as he had seen men doing, his oar flew out of water and he could not budge his craft.
The shipper laughed. "I thought you might find yourself in trouble. It seems there are still some things an old-timer can teach the young fry. Give me that oar."
He fitted it into place and the boat fairly flew over the water under his skilful strokes. Yet he seemed to be working very little. "Watch that oar," said the shipper. And after a moment, "Watch my wrist."
Alec soon caught the trick of twisting the oar with each stroke, and with a little practice found himself able to propel the boat fairly well. He sculled the craft to the captain's pier and collected his shells. Then he asked the shippers at adjoining piers for their shells, guaranteeing their removal each evening if he could have the shells. Still awkward in the handling of his boat, Alec was slow in finishing his task. When he started for his dumping-ground, the tide had turned and was against him. It was all he could do to force the heavy boat against the swift current.
"I see two improvements I need to make right away," said Alec to himself. "I need lights and I need power. I can buy the lights at once. And when I get a little more money saved, I'll get one of these portable motors to hang over the stern. Then I can work faster and easier."
As soon as he had emptied his shells and made his boat fast, Alec walked over to Port Norris, the nearest town, where he found an acetylene lamp that would answer his purpose. He bought it and some carbide and walked back to Bivalve. He went to his boat, and decided how he would mount the light. Then he started for the Bertha B. But first he paused to look at the little pile of shells he had thrown on the shore. There were only a few bushels and the heap seemed very small indeed.
"I suppose there aren't more than thirty cents' worth altogether," said Alec to himself, "but never mind. Great oaks from little acorns grow. Nobody knows how big this shell pile will become, or what will come of the venture. But one thing's sure. I started at the bottom, and I haven't gotten far yet, but I've climbed one rung of the ladder, anyhow. I'm more than a mere deck-hand. I'm a shell merchant, now," and Alec laughed heartily at the joke. "How long will it be before I'm an oyster merchant?"
Much sooner than he had ever dreamed would be the case, Alec had an opportunity to become an oyster merchant. But it was a sort of oyster business very different from any he had thought of. It was no trouble at all for Alec to secure the shells of additional shippers, for by this time Alec was favorably known to almost everybody at Bivalve. The story of his rescue of Hawley had drawn attention to him. And his modest demeanor, his cheerful way, and his general spirit of helpfulness, attracted every one who met him.
But more powerful than these influences was the fact that Captain Rumford stood behind him. If the captain said a thing would be done, every man at the oyster piers knew it would be done. And the captain was glad to speak to any fellow shipper whose shells Alec wanted, and guarantee their removal. Alec secured those from neighboring piers, so as to lessen the amount of work he would have to do. Nor was there much difficulty about this. The oyster shippers generally had been so dissatisfied with the uncertain manner of collecting shells that they were ready to adopt almost any plan which promised real improvement. So Alec speedily found himself with more shells engaged than he really knew how to handle.
Naturally he did not get shells away from the old collectors without gaining their enmity, too. They cursed him when they met him, and some even threatened him. Alec paid little attention to them; but he was too wise to disregard their threats altogether. He had had one experience with an enemy that nearly cost him his life, and he did not propose to be caught napping a second time. His work after dark made it especially easy for any one to harm him who so chose. So Alec went about with both eyes and both ears open.
One night he had finished collecting his shells and had just pulled into his dumping-ground, when a dark form stepped out of the marsh reeds and leaped aboard his boat. Instinctively Alec picked up his oar and prepared to defend himself. When he saw that the man was Hawley, he gripped the oar tighter than ever and made ready for a struggle. His heart began to beat like a pneumatic riveter, but he stood firm, and tried to appear unconcerned.
"Hello, youngster," said the giant sailor, advancing a step toward him. "You're getting a lot of trade, I see."
"Yes. More than I can handle."
"Exactly what I reckoned," replied Hawley. "Exactly what I reckoned."
Alec wondered why, if the man intended harm to him, he did not attack him at once. "He's just waiting to take me off my guard," he said to himself. Aloud he said, "The oyster business is pretty slack just now, and I can just manage to handle the shells. But I don't know what I would do if the shippers should have a rush of business. I guess I'd have to have help or else quit the Bertha B."
"Exactly what I reckoned," said Hawley. "Exactly what I reckoned. And I come to offer to help you."
Alec nearly tumbled over backward in his astonishment. "I'd like to have your help all right," he said, still eyeing Hawley distrustfully, "but I don't know how I'd pay you."
"Who said anything about pay?" asked Hawley.
"I don't exactly understand what you mean," said Alec. "Of course you'd want pay if you helped me, and, of course, I would expect to pay you. Nobody can afford to work for nothing."
"Exactly what I reckon," said Hawley. "But I've had my pay already. Now I want to earn it."
"I don't understand you."
The big oysterman stepped forward. Alec retreated and raised his oar. "Just stand back, will you?" he said.
"I don't blame you a bit for feelin' that way, seein' as how you never had no reason to trust me," replied Hawley, and he went back to the very bow of the boat. "But I don't mean you no harm, lad. I come to help you. Jim Hawley ain't no copperhead, even if you do have reason to think so. That wasn't Jim Hawley that chucked you into the river. It was old John Barleycorn. Jim Hawley ain't that sort of a feller. I'm done with John Barleycorn, and I want you to know the real Jim Hawley. I want to help you and it won't cost you a cent."
Alec was too much astonished for words. "It's mighty kind of you," he said, "but I couldn't accept any man's services without paying him for them."
"Come, come, lad, don't be foolish," urged the big sailor. "You need me a whole lot more than you think."
"I'd like to know how."
"Well, I didn't want to tell you this, lad. But I'd feel safer about you if I was around. You know them shell collectors you been gettin' shells away from don't love you any too much, and I don't like to think of you out here alone in the dark. It's been worryin' me."
"Worrying you! Why should you worry about me?"
Big Hawley hung his head. "I ain't had a decent night's sleep since I sobered up," he said. "Cap'n Bagley told me what an old villain I'd been and how fine you was about it, not wantin' me put in jail, and I says to myself, says I, 'If ever you touch another drop of booze, you're a worse scoundrel than even Bagley takes you for; and he thinks you're next to the devil.' So I quit drinkin'. Ain't touched a drop since, and ain't never goin' to touch another. But that didn't make it right with you. You done the finest thing I ever heard of when you went overboard after me, and I just can't sleep for worryin' how I'm goin' to make it up to you. So you see you've just got to let me help you with them shells."
Hawley's voice had grown husky and his eyes were actually moist before he stopped talking. There was no doubting his sincerity.
Alec threw down his oar and sprang toward him. "Don't you bother about that another minute," he said, holding out his hand, which the sailor pressed warmly. "I'm glad you are no longer angry at me, and that you want to be my friend. And if you really want to help with the shells, I'll be more than glad. But you must let me pay you when I am able."
"Now don't you ever say another word to me about pay," said Hawley, clearing his throat and seizing an oyster shovel. "We'll just consider the matter settled. And I'm much obliged to you. You've done me a mighty good turn. I won't have to worry no more about you out here in the darkness all alone." And he fell to shoveling oysters as fast as he could.
The winter continued open, and the fleet worked with unusual regularity. There were not many days when the weather was too rough for dredging. So the shells accumulated fast. In a little while Alec was able to buy his portable motor. With the aid of that and with Hawley to assist him, he could care for his shells in a very short time.
"It's almost too bad we don't have more shells," he said to Hawley one day.
"Git 'em!" said the sailor. "You kin. There ain't anybody round here won't give 'em to you if you ask, I reckon."
"I was willing to take old Pete's shells and a few more," said Alec, "but I wouldn't want to put the other collectors out of business."
"What's that to you? They'd put you out of business in a minute if they dared."
"Just the same, it doesn't seem fair. I can't adopt their standards. I've got to stick to my own."
Before many days elapsed, Alec had another opportunity to decide what standards he would follow. One of his competitors came to him and offered to pay him twenty-five cents a basket for the rattlers in his pile of shells.
"You'd be getting eight times as much for the rattlers as you would for the shells, and there'd likely be a basket or two a night in such a big pile of shells. That'd be twenty-five to fifty cents clear velvet every night."
Alec was suspicious. "What do you want them for?" he asked.
"To eat, of course. We can't make enough collecting shells to buy good oysters. These is all right, if we eat 'em soon."
"I'll think it over," said Alec.
When the man was gone, he saw at once the absurdity of the thing. There were only two or three shell collectors to eat the oysters. Only one of them had a family. With Alec's shells they would have access to all the shells in the place. If they could get a basket or two of rattlers from his shells, there must be a number of baskets among all the shells—several bushels in fact. It wouldn't be possible for them to eat all the oysters.
"There's something crooked about this," said Alec. Then he thought of what Hawley had told him of the enmity the other shell collectors had toward him. He decided to ask Hawley about the matter.
"Jim," he said, when he next saw his helper, "old Wallace offered to buy all our rattlers. Said he wanted them to eat. What do you suppose he's up to?"
"Don't know," replied Hawley, frowning, "but you can bet it ain't for no good purpose. Why, that old rip's so crooked he can't even walk straight. You just leave it to me. I'll find out about it."
Three nights later Hawley sought out Alec after the latter had tumbled into his bed on the Bertha B. "I know what them rips is up to," he said. "They're openin' their rattlers, treatin' 'em over-night in soda, and sellin' 'em in cans."
"They are!" cried Alec. "Selling them as Maurice River Cove oysters?"
"Surest thing you know."
"If they do much of that, they'll knock the oyster business into a cocked hat. Anybody that eats one of those things and sees the label 'Maurice River Cove Oysters,' will never want to taste another."
"Exactly what I reckon," said big Jim Hawley.
"I'll tell the shipper about this at once," said Alec.
He glanced at his watch. "Exactly nine-thirty," he said. "The captain will be listening to Pittsburgh if he's at home."
He turned to his wireless telephone, threw over his switch, and began to speak. "3ADH calling 3ARM," he called. There was no reply. Again he called.
Then his receivers began to vibrate. "3ARM answering 3ADH," came the message.
"Hello, Captain," he telephoned. "This is Alec. We have found something going on here that I want to tell you about at once. Can you come down?"
"Yes. Are you in a hurry?"
"No. Any time to-night will do."
"I'll come just as soon as this music's done. Good-bye."
An hour later the shipper, the skipper, Alec, and big Hawley were in conference in the cabin of the Bertha B. Next day Captain Rumford called a meeting of all the shippers at Bivalve. The conference decided to put an end at once to the existing system of shell collecting.
"We've had enough of this haphazard method," said one shipper. "Let us give all our shells to one man and hold him responsible for their proper collection and disposition. Then we shall not have to worry about our scows any longer, and there won't be any of this crooked work going on to ruin the oyster business. It seems to me we couldn't do better than to turn the whole shell business over to that young chap of Cap'n Rumford's. He's a clean, energetic boy, and he'll take care of the shells right. With all our shells to handle, there will be enough in it for him to give his entire time to it."
"And what do you think I'm going to do if you take away the best young fellow I ever had in my employ?" asked Captain Rumford.
"That's your lookout," said his fellow shipper. "The oystermen's association is just as keen to get a good man as you are to keep one."
Captain Rumford himself laid the proposition before Alec. The latter was dumfounded. "Give me twenty-four hours to think it over," he said.
It was a crisis in Alec's life. It was an opportunity and yet it was not the sort of opportunity he welcomed. It would take him away from the direct line he had marked out for himself. Then, too, if he became a shell collector only, he would have no money coming to him until the spring planting season, and he did not see how he could get along without some regular income. Finally, he was reluctant to leave the employ of Captain Rumford.
He had almost decided not to accept the offer, when he thought of Hawley. "Why, he could collect most of those shells himself, if he worked at it all day," thought Alec. "He can get around so fast with the little motor that he might be able to do it all himself. Now, how can we arrange it?"
He thought over the matter a long time. Before he fell asleep he had decided what to do. Next morning he sought Hawley on the latter's ship the instant he was up.
"Jim," he said, "the oystermen want me to take all their shells. I'd like to do it. There would be a nice profit in it, but I can't very well give up my job on the Bertha B and go to collecting shells on nothing a week. Now if you would go into partnership with me——"
"On nothing a week?" laughed the big sailor.
Alec joined in the laugh. "Looks as though that's what I want, doesn't it? But listen, Jim. Here's my plan. You stay here and handle the shells. I will be on hand to help you every afternoon. With the motor in our boat we can handle them all easily. I'll draw my pay on the Bertha B and give you ten dollars each week. That isn't much, but it will keep you until we sell the shells. Then you can repay me from your share of the proceeds. I've been figuring out how many we'll have, and there'll be enough to bring us both a good profit for all the time and money we put into it. What do you think of it?"
"If it will help you," said Hawley, "you just bet I'll do it."
"It'll help us both."
"Then that settles it. Here's to the new firm, 'Cunningham and Hawley, shell merchants.'"
And turning to the table, Hawley poured out drinks for them both. But it was only coffee.
"Shall we have a sign painted?" he laughed.
Now that Alec and Jim got all the shells from all the shippers, their pile grew with unbelievable rapidity. Although the number of shells had increased so greatly, yet big Jim Hawley was almost always able to handle the entire day's harvest himself. The powerful little motor shot his boat from point to point with great speed; and the sailor himself was so strong and powerful that he could shovel the shells out of his boat while most other men would have been thinking about it. Thus it happened that Alec seldom had to help his partner, when the Bertha B made fast for the day.
But Alec was not one to waste his time. Whenever Jim did not need him, Alec hustled up to the shipper's office and helped with the clerical work. To his delight, Captain Rumford finally procured a typewriter, the rubber stamps, and some other office equipment suggested by Alec. With the aid of these and the assistance Alec was able to give him, Captain Rumford now easily performed the office work that had previously been such a burden to him. When Sailor Hawley saw the situation, and realised that Alec had a good chance for promotion if he could be regular with the office work, he told Alec that the shell collections had fallen off so much he would not need any help during the remainder of the season. Perhaps he told the truth.
Alec, at any rate, now felt free to give Captain Rumford his time every afternoon. Usually the skipper was able to set Alec ashore by half-past three o'clock. In the two hours that remained before Captain Rumford drove home, the captain dictated answers to all his letters, Alec taking the dictation direct on his typewriter. He had to do this, as he had never studied stenography. Often, now, he wished he had. But he had never foreseen the need of it. His deficiency taught him a good lesson, however.
"It just goes to show that you never can tell what will come useful," said Alec. "I'll worry along all right without stenography, I suppose, but you can just bet that in this oyster game I'm going to know everything I possibly can pick up that has the slightest bearing on the business. I'm not going to wake up after I'm a shipper and find that there is something about my business that I don't know."
As the winter wore on, work declined at the oyster piers and men were laid off. Many beds had long ago been dredged clean of their oysters. Boat after boat was made fast for the season. The fleet dwindled almost daily in numbers. Then there came periods of very rough weather, when all the boats remained at their piers. Those days Alec spent wholly in the office. So his pay continued without interruption. Better still it increased. As a deck-hand he had been getting $17.50 a week. The shipper increased his stipend to $20 a week.
But better even than the increase in pay was the opportunity that came to visit the captain's home. For often at the week-end Alec was now asked to accompany the shipper home. Usually he merely spent the evening there, returning to Bivalve by trolley. But once in a while he was asked to spend Sunday with the Rumfords. Elsa, of course, hailed his visits with delight. And it was not long before Mrs. Rumford was almost as glad to see Alec as her daughter was. About the only welcome Alec ever got from the head of the house was the statement the latter made, when he ushered the lad in at the door, "Well, mother, here's this Alec Cunningham again. He pestered me so to bring him along that I hadn't the heart to refuse."
Of course, there wasn't a word of truth in it, but just the same it always embarrassed Alec a little bit, much to the delight of Elsa. Probably that was why the shipper teased the lad, for Elsa was the apple of his eye. To please her, he would have done things far more foreign to his nature than to crack a joke.
Probably the reason Elsa was so fond of Alec was because he treated her as an absolute equal. There was no hint of condescension on his part when he talked with her, no suggestion of superiority. He never intimated that because she was a girl she shouldn't do this or that thing that he did. Like the majority of American girls of to-day, Elsa was independent, sensible, thoughtful, and able. So her tastes and desires were remarkably like those of any other normal person of her age and training. She liked sailing, tennis, swimming, basket-ball, motoring, camping, and similar sports, and was quite as intelligent about them as most boys would have been. With similar likes himself, Alec understood her feelings exactly and treated her much as he would have treated a boy chum of his own age. Though he was doubtless a little more chivalrous toward her than he would have been to one of his boy friends, he did not carry his chivalry to the point where it interfered with their friendship. So the two became very good chums, indeed. It was a matter of delight to them both that Alec was able to help her with many a knotty point in her studies. In every way the two seemed fashioned to be the best of friends.
To Alec the privilege of coming to the captain's house meant more than he could have told. Alec and his father had lived with a very estimable family. Here at Bivalve he missed greatly that home influence. His companions on the Bertha B and at the piers he had come to esteem greatly; yet they were mostly rough workingmen, uncouth in speech and manner, though pure gold at heart. Alec was at an age and in a situation when he especially needed the refining influence of a good home. He got it in Captain Rumford's home.
Just why Captain Rumford chose to take Alec to his home, the inscrutable oyster shipper never said. But he never did anything without a reason. Outsiders who knew about the matter attached far more significance to it than Alec possibly could. Also they understood much better than Alec did how fortunate a lad he was. With the leading oyster shipper at Bivalve back of him, Alec's future was already secure if he chose to become an oyster-planter himself.
Alec, fortunately, never once thought of the matter in that light. He didn't even know that the shipper was behind him. In his own mind he was simply an employee whom the shipper, for some reason or other, had come to like. And he meant to do everything in his power to retain Captain Rumford's good-will.
It pleased Alec immensely that he had been able to help his benefactor so much with his office work. The changes that had been made seemed to lighten the work daily. Yet the changes already made were not all that Alec hoped to make. He wanted a better system of filing and keeping records. Every time he looked at the dusty pigeonholes in the old rack above the captain's desk, each stuffed full of miscellaneous contents, his fingers itched to tear the whole thing out and install some modern filing cases. But he knew he must bide his time for that.
Very late in the winter, or very early in the spring, when the oyster business was getting toward its lowest ebb and the office work was light, Alec asked permission to clean the office. The shipper looked at him in amazement.
"What for?" he asked.
"Perhaps we could arrange things in a way that would expedite our work," replied Alec, watching his boss out of the corner of his eye.
"Um!" grunted the shipper. "It's likely! Why, I've done business with this office just as it is for more than thirty years and never found it necessary yet to change things."
But in the end, he consented. Alec moved their two desks somewhat, so as to get better light on them and shifted a few other things. But the main thing he wanted to do was to clear out those dusty old pigeonholes, and get the contents arranged better. So he began to take the contents from pigeonhole after pigeonhole, laying the things he took out in orderly little piles and trying to rearrange and classify them. But when he reached the second row in the rack, he suddenly lost all interest in his work. Out of the pigeonhole came a familiar-looking pamphlet, like dozens of government bulletins Alec had seen at the high school in Central City. Alec was about to drop it on the desk when the title caught his eye. It was "Aids to Successful Oyster-Culture." The bulletin had recently been issued by the New Jersey Experiment station.
"Where did you get this?" cried Alec, all afire with interest.
"What?" said the shipper, glancing up from his work. Then, after seeing what it was, "Oh! That! Why, that's something the state got out. Somebody sent me a copy."
"Is it interesting?" asked Alec.
"To tell the truth, I never had time to read it. I stuck it in that pigeonhole and there it's been ever since."
Alec looked aghast. "Never read it!" he cried. "Would you be willing to lend it to me? I'll take good care of it and be sure to return it."
"Take it and keep it. I don't want it."
Alec folded the bulletin and placed it in his pocket as though it were rarest treasure. Into his mind flashed the Master's words: "The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner."
"Who knows?" he said to himself, "but this may be the very corner-stone for the structure I intend to build? It may be the very thing I have been searching for. My entire future may depend upon what I read in this bulletin."
Even a cursory examination of the bulletin told Alec he was right in thinking that the little pamphlet held the secrets for which he had been searching. Here, in this unconsidered little publication that had been consigned to the oblivion of a dusty pigeonhole by a man who was beginning to fall behind the times, was an open sesame to the treasure-house of the deep. Alec wondered how many more of these bulletins were likewise resting in dusty pigeonholes. He was sure there must be many of them similarly tucked out of sight, for the bulletin, which was the very first of a series planned by the state to set forth the knowledge of the oyster that had been accumulated by the scientists of the world, plainly said that the position of the oyster-planter of to-day was very similar to that of the land farmer of fifty years ago, before the application of scientific methods to agriculture. If that were true, Alec knew that little heed would be given to the publication by many of the oyster-planters. They were too old to change. The situation gave him the opportunity to become a pioneer and, he firmly believed, to reap the rewards of the pioneer.
The quality that distinguished Alec's mind from the mind of the average lad of his years was that of understanding or comprehension. At school he had never won unusual grades; yet he had been an unusual student. Indeed, it would have been remarkable had a lad of his wide interests gained high marks. His participation in athletics, his accomplishments with the wireless, his devotion to nature and out-of-door pleasures, and his efforts along many lines not directly connected with his studies, practically precluded the possibility of his being an honor student. Yet no winner of high grades ever understood what he studied better than Alec comprehended the work he covered. Very early Alec had imbibed the idea that the purpose of schooling is understanding, not grades, ability to accomplish, and not diplomas. So he had been more or less indifferent to the marks he received, but very particular to grasp what he studied. To an unusual degree he had gained the essence of education, which is the ability to think. He saw facts as they were, he drew correct deductions from these facts, and he consequently came to truthful conclusions.
Nothing whatever could have meant as much to Alec, situated as he now was, as did this double ability to understand facts and to draw right conclusions from them. He was just starting his life-work. He was building his career. He was erecting a structure to last a lifetime and perhaps many generations longer. He must fight for all he got. There would be few who cared whether he built well or poorly, and fewer still to help him. His alone was the responsibility for the quality of the job he was doing. What he had told Captain Rumford was true: he wanted to know, not only about what oyster-planters had done and were doing, but also what they would be doing in future. Alec had always been like that. He had always wanted to know the whole truth.
As he read the bulletin in his hands, he told himself that he was a fortunate lad, indeed. If oyster-farming is to-day just where land farming was half a century ago, he told himself, he had become an oysterman at exactly the right moment. He had had a great deal more schooling than most of the men now in the business. He could learn the truth more easily. He had the advantage of knowing nothing whatever about the oyster business, so that he had no prejudices to hamper him, no preconceived ideas to hold him back. He was free to learn the truth, and when he found it, to act accordingly. He could make all his plans upon a scientific basis. He could be a pioneer in scientific oyster-culture. And like the farmers who sprayed their fruit-trees while their neighbors laughed at them, and the dairymen who began raising blooded stock while their neighbors ridiculed them, he would reap his reward, the same as those intelligent orchardists and cattlemen had done.
Perhaps Alec did not actually think the situation out in such detail, but the underlying idea he felt very strongly. He had come into the oyster business at a time when it was about to undergo a change. Not all the oyster-shippers, he felt sure, would toss aside this valuable compendium of information as thoughtlessly as Captain Rumford had done. Few of them, perhaps, were as well qualified as he himself was to carry out the suggestions made in the book; for he had studied biology. He knew how to use the microscope. He was familiar with the work that would be required of the scientific oysterman as suggested by the bulletin.
For this marvelous little publication told him, not only about the life-history and habits of oysters, but also how and where they could best be raised. An open sesame, indeed, was this book. For Alec had long understood that the present method of oyster-culture was largely a game of blind man's buff.
When he had asked the skipper how the oystermen knew good grounds from poor ones, the captain had replied, "They don't. All they can do is to shell 'em and see if they get a set."
That was the doctrine and belief of an experienced and able captain of an oyster-boat. Yet here in his very hands Alec had proof that an intelligent person could discover where the good grounds were, easily and cheaply. It wasn't necessary to own a ship and buy thousands of bushels of shells and employ expensive help to spread them in order to find out whether a given place would make good grounds or not. With very little equipment Alec knew he could test the matter as well as anybody. He almost cried aloud with sheer joy. For though the planted beds covered 30,000 acres, and doubtless included many and perhaps most of the good grounds, Alec did not doubt that there still remained unstaked areas that would make as good oyster-beds as any already "stuck up." His job was to find them while he was getting together the money to buy his equipment.
When Alec had gone hastily through the bulletin once, he again began to read it, this time slowly and painstakingly. He found that Skipper Bagley's assertion that one oyster produces millions of little oysters was not only true, but was almost an understatement, so incredible was the actual number, estimated by the scientists at sixteen to sixty millions, depending upon the size, age, and vigor of the spawning oyster. And it was equally true, as the skipper had said, that one could not see newly-formed oysters with the naked eye; for, even at two weeks of age, when they are about ready to attach to something, they were still scarcely visible.
What fairly astounded Alec was the fact that each tiny oyster larva has a foot, which is later absorbed into the body when there is no longer need for it. For, contrary to what the skipper had told him, the oyster fry not only have the power to move about in the water, but they do not die at once if they sink to the bottom and find no suitable place of attachment. With its tiny foot, each microscopic oyster is able to move about on the bottom, and does move about, a few inches at a time, seeking a place of attachment. It has other methods of locomotion as well. Hair-like growths that act like propellers, give it the power to move slowly through the waters. Thus it creeps and swims, searching here and there until it finds the resting-place it is after. Then it makes fast to the place selected, and its shell rapidly enlarges. In ten hours' time it has become as large as a grain of pepper.
And the bulletin's suggestions as to shelling oyster-beds, Alec noted, were directly at variance with established practices. For Alec knew that ordinarily the shells were spread broadcast, in an effort to cover as much of the bottom as possible, whereas the bulletin advised the planting of shells in windrows, placed transversely to the current, and piled to the depth of ten inches or even a foot, so as to afford more exposed surfaces than could be offered by shells broadcasted and lying flat in the mud. For now Alec learned, to his astonishment, that the tiny oysters do not necessarily drop downward in their search for a place of attachment, but also rise upward. And since sediment does not collect to any great extent on the under surface of bodies held in the water, the under sides will afford the cleaner places of attachment. In proof of this, the bulletin showed several shells that had been suspended in the water for five days during the spawning season. Though they were clean when put into the water, enough sediment had collected in that short time to prevent the attachment of a single spat to their upper surfaces, while one shell alone had seventy-three spats attached to its under surface at the end of five days.
"Why, that's just common-sense," cried Alec. "Of course an under surface stays cleaner in the water than an upper surface. Anybody knows that. And shells heaped in windrows will present a thousand times as many under surfaces as shells thrown flat in the mud. You bet I won't forget that."
There were many other things that astonished Alec. He learned that spawning activities are controlled almost wholly by temperature, oysters never spawning before the water reaches a temperature of at least 68 degrees and generally 70 degrees, while spawning activity increases with the increase in the temperature of the water. Alec saw at once that there might thus be great seasonal variation in the amount of spawn produced, and that a cold, cloudy summer might result in little or no oyster fry being spawned, while a hot, cloudless spring and summer, particularly if the wind did not stir up the water too much, would almost certainly result in a tremendous output of oyster larvæ.
"Looks to me," said Alec, with characteristic insight, "as though it wasn't worth going to the expense of shelling a bed if it happens to be a very cold year," and he was pleased when in reading further he found that the bulletin confirmed his judgment.
Furthermore Alec knew that deep water would remain cold while shallow water grew warm. And as the oyster remains practically at the temperature of the water surrounding it, he saw that here was another problem to be considered in the greatest of all the problems that he believed lay before him. That was the problem of finding a good oyster ground. For Alec had no hope of ever being able to buy a ground already established. Within a very few days such an established bed had changed hands, and the price paid by the purchaser was $25,000. Of course this was a big bed, but Alec knew that any productive bed at all would command a high price. What he must do when he became a planter was to stake out new grounds that he could get from the state merely for the annual rental of seventy-five cents an acre.
To procure such a bed was a simple enough matter, but to procure a bed that would be productive, where the planting of shells would result in a good set of spat, was quite another matter. As the skipper had told him, it was commonly believed that all the good beds had already been "stuck up." That fact had been the most discouraging thing Alec had had to face, as he thought over his plans for the future. But now light was coming to him. One of the factors he must consider in the selection of his grounds was water temperature. Depth was an important factor, and so, too, was the movement of the water, for turbulent water meant cold water, while still water meant warm water.
When Alec studied that portion of his book that dealt with tides and currents, he fairly hugged himself for joy. Now he knew how to determine the other factors in the problem of locating his beds. For the bulletin told him that with the ebb and flow of the tide certain main currents are produced over an oyster-bed which are quite definite in direction and which vary but little from year to year, while the configuration of the shore and the bottom produces smaller currents and eddies in conjunction with these main currents. And these currents would have very much to do with the matter of locating an oyster-bed.
For an abrupt ridge, or raised area of the bottom, will produce one or more eddies, thus resulting in a region of slack water. Along the margin of every well defined channel, areas occur where the water lags behind that in the channel itself. And these areas are often so sharply marked off that one may follow them without difficulty for miles, owing to the appearance of the water. "Any one who has noticed these 'slicks,'" said the bulletin, "has noticed the foam and surface debris which collect there."
Many a time had Alec noted these slick stretches of water and wondered at them, seeking a reason for their smoothness. Here it was explained. But the full connection between a slick and an oyster-bed below it was not apparent to Alec until he read, "The oyster larvæ, though free-swimming, move so slowly that they are carried about by the currents much as grains of sand would be. They, therefore, tend to collect in these regions of slicks and eddies, along with a host of other microscopic plants and animals. In such places there occurs a heavier set of spat than elsewhere in that neighborhood. Find the oyster larvæ in the water, then get your shells under them."
There was the secret Alec had been searching for. Now he knew how to go about the selection of his oyster grounds. "Find the oyster larvæ in the water and get your shells under them."
One difficulty alone seemed to present itself. As a deck-hand he would be busy until the end of June, and by that time he feared spawning might be nearly ended. How could he do his duty to his employer and at the same time study the waters in the oyster-beds as he saw he would need to do? But he was reassured as he read further and found that in the Delaware Bay and other deep waters in New Jersey, spawning is a more or less continuous process, running from the first of July to the latter part of August.
Not even on that first morning at Bivalve, when he suddenly found his condition changed from that of a shivering, hungry, penniless lad, to a situation where he had a warm place to sleep, plenty of good food to eat, and a generous wage coming to him daily, did Alec feel more elated than he felt now. He had had a very rough experience. He had gone through an unforeseen crisis, when all the supports had been knocked from under his young life and he had suddenly had to stand wholly on his own feet. At first he had had to choose what he would do merely to exist. Later he had had to decide what he meant to make of himself. Even when chance had put him on shipboard, and circumstances had almost seemed to drive him to choose oystering as his calling, the situation had seemed hopelessly difficult, so much of both knowledge and capital were necessary, and both seemed so hard to acquire. And now, here in his very hand, he suddenly found the map that showed him his path clear and distinct.
No wonder he cried aloud for joy. Now he knew, not only where he was going, but also how to get there. To be sure, it would take him years to attain his goal. But that would have been true, no matter what he attempted. There was nothing discouraging about that. There was nothing discouraging about any aspect of his situation. He had a steady job and was saving money, even though half his wages went to support his partner in the shell business. The shell venture was certain to net him a generous return. With his father's gravestone paid for, Alec had practically no expenses, save for clothes and incidentals, and these were small enough. He had no time for nightly diversion at some neighboring town, even had he desired it, and he used neither tobacco nor strong drink. The clothes he had worn upon his arrival were of good cut and material. He had had them cleaned and pressed when he got rougher garments for his daily labor, and these good clothes would last for a long time. So he could save a goodly sum each week even on half of his wages. If he continued to work hard and take advantage of every opportunity that offered, he knew his income was certain to increase and his savings multiply accordingly. No wonder Alec felt jubilant. No wonder he felt as though he were already standing at the wheel of Old Honesty, the ship of his dreams. No wonder, either, that he could not discern the rocks that rose ahead with evil portent.
Weeks passed. The oyster business grew duller and duller. More and more ships were laid up for the winter. For days at a time the Bertha B lay fast at her pier. To a lad of Alec's energetic, impatient nature, it was a trying period. There was so little that he could do. From bowsprit to taffrail he already knew every rope and stick and implement on an oyster-boat, and the uses of them all. He knew the various parts of the engine and comprehended their functions. He had already learned how to splice a rope, reef a sail, bend on a line, cast a hawser, and do a thousand other tasks aboard ship. Ashore, he had inquired into every phase of the oyster business he could think of. Like Alexander, he sighed for more worlds to conquer; for it seemed to Alec as though there was nothing new left for him to do. He felt like a soldier marking time. He was going through the motions, perhaps, but not advancing. And to Alec's impatient nature, that meant that he was wasting his time, throwing away the only capital he possessed.
In reality his time was far from wasted. Though he did not realize it, he was continually picking up knowledge that was to be of use to him. Always he was on the alert. Ever he was asking questions. Continually he was weighing this and that practice in his mind. And from night to night, as he sat in the warm cabin of the Bertha B, talking with the skipper and Joe, both of whom lived aboard with him, he absorbed a vast fund of useful and practical information.
Of this fact Alec was hardly conscious. To him it seemed as though he were merely killing time by listening to the engaging yarns of the skipper; for Captain Bagley, like all real sailors, could tell the most fascinating stories of the sea. But through the medium of these stories Alec unconsciously picked up a great deal of information about the waters he would have to navigate as an oysterman, about the currents, the tides, the winds, the storms, the calms—in short about the very things he needed to know. Whenever he heard the least thing that was likely to be of use to him, he unconsciously singled it out and put it away in the storehouse of his memory.
For to Alec, as to every real thinker, it was given to learn through the experiences of others quite as much as through his own experiences. Indeed, Alec early had seen the folly of learning through his own experience if he could possibly learn through that of another. It might be true, he knew, that experience is the best teacher. But he quickly saw that he is a fool who learns only through his own experience. So, although the time seemed to drag, and he chafed under the enforced idleness, Alec was really acquiring something worth while all the time. Any one does who is really desirous of learning.
But on one account Alec was not sorry because things were so dull. He saw a great deal of Elsa. Alec's bright, cheerful ways had endeared him to the entire Rumford family. The shipper welcomed him to his home because he felt that he would rather have Elsa associate with Alec than with most of the lads he knew. The others might be all right or they might not be. Alec was true as steel. In a hundred ways the shipper had seen him tested. He knew about Alec.
Had Alec realized these things he would have been both gratified and puzzled—gratified to know that the captain really did think so well of him, yet puzzled to know why it was so. For in some ways Alec was singularly childlike. At the captain's home or in the captain's presence he had not acted in any way different from the way he always acted. What Alec did not realize was how fine at heart he really was. But though Alec did not comprehend these things about himself, the shipper understood them readily enough. And he knew, as well as he knew anything, that if he himself lived his allotted time, he would see the day when Alec stood at the very top of the oyster business. It is just as impossible to keep down a lad like Alec, as it is to dam back forever the waters of a stream. Either may be held back for a time. In the end both will break through.
One thing these days of idleness did for Alec that he did not comprehend at all. They gave him to the last measure the full coöperation and sympathy of Elsa. In an intangible way that neither understood or appreciated their relationship underwent a very real change.
By this time Alec's plans for the future were beginning to take tangible form. His ideas had crystallized. They were concrete enough to talk about in exact terms. And Alec wanted to talk about them. He wanted to discuss them with some one who could comprehend and sympathize with his plans, and yet criticize them in a friendly, intelligent way. Jim Hawley, though big of heart, hadn't the kind of mind to grasp what Alec was aiming at; Captain Bagley would have been indifferent to the matter; and Captain Rumford would have regarded Alec's plans as the veriest rubbish. Besides these three, there were no men in the oyster fleet with whom Alec would have been willing to discuss his plans.
Elsa met every requirement. When Alec told her what was in his mind she comprehended exactly what he meant, she sympathized fully with his position, she passed judgment on his schemes with the friendliest sort of criticism. It was exactly the sort of help Alec needed most. It gave him increased confidence in his own plans and stiffened his courage. He knew that Elsa understood him and sympathized with him fully and he needed such sympathetic understanding and encouragement if he were to win through.
As the days lengthened and winter drew near to spring, there was more activity in the oyster fleet. Planters began to inquire for shells. Farmers began to bring loads of stakes with which to mark the oyster-beds afresh. Boats were overhauled. Propellers were removed from power craft or boxed in such a way as to render them useless, for the law prohibited any power boats from going on the natural oyster-beds. Nothing but sails could be used in dredging seed-oysters.
Then at last came the planting season itself, the great event in the oysterman's year. From far and wide a huge fleet assembled. Every boat that could still carry a sail and drag a dredge joined the assembly. The river was fairly jammed with oyster-boats. At every pier ship after ship made fast until the rows of boats extended far out into the stream. The piers themselves took on new life. Now they fairly hummed with activity. Ships were freshly provisioned. New supplies of all sorts were brought aboard. Chains and dredges were examined and stowed in the holds. Great crews were recruited, double or triple the size of the crews ordinarily carried. From miles around came every able-bodied man to join the fleet. Ships were continually passing to and from oyster-beds, where new stakes were being put down and everything possible done in advance to get ready for the actual planting.
Then came the great day, the first of May. On the afternoon before, ship after ship cast loose and headed for the oyster grounds. Now Alec saw a sight that stirred his blood and made his heart beat faster. Down the river went the fleet, ship after ship, dozens, scores, hundreds of them, heeling in the wind, their sails shining in the sun, like a wondrous flock of huge, white birds.
Like schoolboys on a lark were the men aboard these ships. Like Alec, they had chafed at their enforced idleness. The feeling of spring was in their blood. The spirit of fun was abroad among them. Laughter rose from every deck. Across the water voice called to voice. Old friends greeted one another across the dancing waves. Skipper hailed skipper. To right and left challenges were flung, and boat after boat picked up her heels to prove her master's assertion that she was faster than her neighbor. A dozen races were staged at once.
So the fleet proceeded, like a great covey of birds, out of the sheltering river and into the open Bay. Across the oyster-beds raced the rolling vessels, now spread out in wide array, pressing on and on until they joined their fellows who had come before, and dropped their anchors at the very side of the Southwest Line, where the state had said, "Thus far and no farther, shalt thou go."
Now Alec witnessed a sight that thrilled him as few things in all his life had done. Nightfall found practically every ship in the fleet anchored near the line. North, east, south, and west of the Bertha B oyster-boats lay at rest. Aloft a white light glimmered on every ship. And as the boats moved ever so slightly in the gentle swell, these lamps aloft swayed slowly back and forth, as though signalling one to another. The weather was balmy, the night was lighted by a radiant moon. The gentlest of breezes sighed through the rigging. The beauty of the night drew Alec on deck as irresistibly as a powerful magnet draws a piece of steel. For a time he stood by the ship's rail, looking at the gently heaving water, studying the swirls in the tide, as they shone and sparkled in the moonlight, listening to the gentle slap! slap! slap! of the waves against the oaken sides of the Bertha B.
From her cabin, and from the cabins of sister ships arose the sound of laughter, the noise of raucous voices. In the calm and holy beauty of the night they seemed out of place. To Alec's sensitive soul they were as discordant as the rasping tones of a horse fiddle. He wanted to get away from them, where he could drink in the beauty of the scene undisturbed; where he could steep himself in the spirit of the night. So he clambered up the rigging and perched himself on the crosstrees.
Now he was like one in a tower. He could see far and wide. Beneath him the white ships, huddled together, made him think of a flock of sheep, herded for the night. And afar off on the dancing water Alec saw the laggards of the flock hastening toward the fold. Like little white specks they seemed in the far distance. Then, as they drew nearer and nearer, their sails seemed to grow larger and larger, until suddenly they appeared gigantic. With majestic flight, like the sweep of darting gulls, they bore to right or left, seeking their places of rest. Then came the faint splash of anchors, the rattling sound of tackle blocks as the great white wings were lowered, and presently peace.
One by one the cabin lamps were doused, until only sailing lights shone throughout the fleet. One by one the raucous voices were stilled, and peace enfolded the nestling ships as a hen hovers above her little ones. Still Alec sat in the crosstrees, watching the swaying lights, studying the swirling waters, peering along the moon's broad path of gold that seemed to lead straight from the little fleet to the Shepherd keeping watch above.
When or how Alec got to bed he never knew. It seemed to him as though he had only just turned in when he heard Dick punching up the fire. In a moment he was afoot, for this was no time for laggards. It was well enough to dream in the moonlight, when the day's work was done; but this was the time for action, the time to turn his dreams into something tangible. For before them lay the prize, free for the taking the moment the sun's rising disc should touch the horizon. He who would grasp it must be ready.
Throughout the fleet arose the sounds of preparation. Lights glowed in every cabin. Lanterns bobbed on every deck. From every direction came the creak of tackle blocks as sails were hoisted. Here and there capstans clanked, as enterprising skippers hoisted anchor, to jockey for more advantageous positions. For the moment the sun arose, the entire fleet would sweep over the line in the race for the coveted oyster-seed. Some boats were heading east and some were going west in the hope of bettering their positions.
As the light increased, the breeze freshened. The water began to dance beneath its touch. Over all rested a slight haze, intensified here and there, by wisps of smoke from cabin fires. And curling upward from the surface of the Bay, rose little cloudlets of mist or fog. Streaks of color crept into the eastern sky, growing, little by little, until the firmament was a gorgeous, glowing tapestry of gold, shot with purple, pink, and orange.
From every side now rose the rattling of anchor chains, the clank of capstans, the creaking of the tackle. In increasing numbers the oyster-boats spread their wings and slipped away. Soon not a ship lay at anchor. Like a mammoth flock of giant gulls, the oyster-boats were darting here and there, their fresh, white sails shining in the morning glow, as they bellied in the wind. Rare, indeed, was the sight; rare and wonderful. For hundreds of ships were now in motion, the waves foaming white at their bows, the spray splashing upward on their decks, and in their wakes yeasty patterns of swirling water. At every stern stood a silent figure, twirling his wheel now this way, now that, watchful of the east and the mounting color there.
Now sweeping near the line, now darting away, now weaving in and out among her sister ships, the Bertha B skimmed over the waves with the grace of a gull, about to swoop on its prey. Her crew were on deck, ready to spring to dredge or tackle. Her captain stood at his wheel, silent, watchful as a hawk.
Suddenly the fiery rim of the sun peered over the edge of the world. A thousand watchful eyes beheld it, and a great shout went up from the fleet. Over went the rudders, around swung the ships, and the entire fleet darted straight for the line that marked their goal.
"Let go the dredges!" thundered the skipper, as the Bertha B swept over the mark, and a splash arose on either side of the boat as the dredges struck the waves.
From hundreds of other craft dredges were falling into the sea. With every sail set, the speeding oyster-boats tugged at their loads as restive dogs straining at the leash. Now there was no engine to do the hoisting; but men stood in pairs at the winders, ready to reel up the windlasses and lift the laden dredge. How they worked! How they turned their reels! How the dredges came plunging over the rollers! How the oysters poured out on the decks! How the nimble fingers flew to cull the glistening piles! How the shovels flashed, and the shells glinted in the sun, as strong arms heaved them back into the sea! How the piles of tiny oysters grew!
What a sight it was! From far and near, from east and west, from north and south, from every oyster town about the Bay, came scores of boats to add their shining sails to the great fleet. Look where he would, Alec could see ships sweeping along before the breeze, their decks crowded with toiling men, bulking high with oysters. Never, as long as he lived, would he forget that scene.
Hour after hour the work went on. Basket by basket the piles of oysters grew. The bow was full of them. The after deck was buried under them. The cabin was hidden by them. Still the work went on. The Bertha B sank lower and lower in the water, as ton after ton was piled on her deck.
Suddenly there was a sharp command from the skipper. The dredges went overboard no more. The Bertha B heeled far over in the wind, swung wide to avoid her sister ships, and headed for her oyster grounds. Heavily she rode the waves, plowing bodily through them. Through the fleet she sailed, over the Southwest Line, and on to her planting grounds. Near and far, other laden ships sailed with her. And now she had reached her grounds. How the shovels flew, how the tiny oysters went splashing into the sea, flung far and wide from either side. Back and forth, back and forth, sailed the Bertha B, while skilled hands spread the precious seed.
Now her deck was empty. To the last oyster it had been cleaned. Sharp about swung the little vessel, crowding on all sail, taking advantage of every wind, hastening back to the seed grounds.
Day after day, in rain and in shine, in fog and when the sun shone clear, with the wind whistling sharp and in days of calm, the Bertha B sailed back and forth over the breeding grounds, and to and from her planting beds. And every hand aboard of her toiled to his utmost. No more did the little vessel nightly seek her harbor. No more did the fleet sail in and out with each rising and setting of the sun. And when the planting was finished, came the shelling of the grounds, the Bertha B daily bringing huge deck loads of shells to scatter on the bottom of the beds.
During the spring planting days Alec learned what it meant to sleep in the cradle of the deep. Sometimes the moon fell soft on the sleeping waters, when he sought his bunk. And again inky clouds blotted out the stars, and the wind soughed ominously through the rigging, or storms whistled past the ship's bare poles, as she wallowed at her anchor in the rolling waves. But soon it was all one to Alec. He was doing a man's work. He was toiling like a Trojan. And neither the lure of the moonbeams nor the roar of a storm could long keep him from his bunk, once night had come.
By the end of June, when the planting season was over, and the Bertha B for the last time lifted her anchor and homeward winged her way, Alec had become a sailor as well as an oysterman. He had learned a tremendous lot, not only about oysters, but also about handling a ship. Once he had thought he was a sailor, when he manœuvred his little boat at home. Now he smiled at the memory of those earlier efforts. They seemed childish, indeed. For more than once he had been allowed to handle the Bertha B as she flew across the Bay. And he had picked up a tremendous lot of information about currents, eddies, drifts, shoals, tides, slicks, and storms. He was getting his tool-kit thoroughly stocked indeed. It was well, for he would soon have need of all the skill and knowledge he possessed.