Chapter 2

DICK GOES TO SEA

Three days after Dick's talk with his mother, he boarded a Key West steamer just as it was leaving its New York pier. He sat on the deck and watched busy ferry-boats in the river, fussy tugs and chug-chugging launches in the harbor, and the white-winged yachts and great ocean steamers in the lower bay. He looked back from the Narrows upon the receding city, to the east upon Coney Island with its pleasure palaces, and to the southwest upon the great curve of Sandy Hook. Every step upon the deck near him brought his heart into his mouth in dread of what he knew he had to face. When the steamer was opposite Long Branch and there was small chance that he could be sent back, he inquired for the captain, whom he found talking to some young girls among the passengers. This somewhat reassured Billy, for he felt that the captain wouldn't eat him up in the presence of the young ladies, and he stood waiting with his cap in his hand until the captain spoke to him.

"Do you want to see me, my boy?"

"If you are Captain Anderson, I do, sir."

"All right, go ahead."

"I want you to set me to work, sir."

"Why should I set you to work? Do you belong on the boat?"

"Not yet, but you see it's this way. I had to get to Key West and I thought I'd work my passage with you."

"Why didn't you ask me before we left the dock?"

"Because I was afraid you wouldn't take me, if you could help it, and I had to go."

"You cheeky little devil, I believe I'll chuck you overboard."

"Oh!" said a brown-eyed girl who stood beside the captain, "you mustn't do that!"

The captain laughed and said to Dick:

"I hope you understand that you owe your life to this young lady. Now, go and report yourself to the cook and tell him to put you on the worst job he's got."

"Thank you very much, Captain, but couldn't you make it the engineer instead of the cook? I'd rather work than wash dishes."

"I'd like to oblige so modest a boy. Report to the chief engineer, give him my compliments and tell him you are to have the hottest berth on the boat. He'll probably set you to shoveling coal."

Dick thanked him again; then looking into the face of the girl, he said:

"Thank you, Miss Brown-Eyes, for saving my life," and, bowing low, turned away.

"Captain, couldn't you see that he was a gentleman? What made you give him such hard work?" asked the girl.

"Because he was such a cheeky gentleman that if I let him stay on deck he would take command of the boat by to-morrow and all you young ladies who helped him would be guilty of mutiny and would have to be executed."

Dick was put to work in the engine-room, oiling the machinery. Some of the work was easy and safe, some of it was easy but not safe. Oil cups had to be filled as they flew back and forth, bearings must be oiled after great steel rods had flashed by and before they returned. The swift, silent play of the great piston and the steady motion of the resistless, revolving shaft, half hypnotized the boy and he stood, dazed and in danger, until called down by the sharp rebuff of the engineer.

"'Tend to your business, there. Don't watch that shaft or you'll go dotty."

On the second day of the trip there was trouble in the fire-room. The steamer had started on the trip short of firemen and now a fireman who had fallen in the furnace-room, striking his head on the steel floor, was lying unconscious in his berth. The pointer on the steam-gauge fell back, the engine slowed down, crisp commands came from pilot-house to engine-room, sharper messages passed between engine and fire rooms, while overworked men grew sullen and threatened to throw down their shovels.

Dick offered to do the work of a fireman, but the engineer shook his head and said:

"That's a man's work, boy."

"Give me a shovel and a chance."

And they were given him. He soon learned to throw the coal evenly and feed the furnaces like a fireman, but his unseasoned body shrank from the fierce heat; he staggered back from the hot blast every time he swung open a great furnace door and, until the clang of its closing, he could scarcely draw a breath. He threw off his jumper and his white skin fairly gleamed in that grimy place. The other firemen looked curiously at that slight, boyish form which was doing a man's work like a man and there was no more shirking in front of those furnaces. The fireman nearest the boy often pushed him aside and spread shovelfuls of coal over his grates, rushing back to his own work that it might not fall behind. A strong beam wind sprang up and the boat rolled badly, while Dick, with his hands blistered, fought fiercely to keep off seasickness and to keep up his fire.

Up in the main saloon and around the deck a young girl wandered as if she wanted something without quite knowing what it was. She climbed stairs under the sign "passengers not allowed," went in and out of the pilot-house and, meeting the captain, asked if she couldn't go wherever she wished on the boat. He replied:

"Yes, Miss. I appoint you third mate, with power to give any orders you please and go wherever you wish."

A little later, with a dark waterproof drawn tightly over her light dress, she opened the door leading to the engine-room, and clinging to the heavy brass rail, climbed slowly down the narrow, greasy iron stairway till she stood beside the mighty engine. The engineer hastened to her side.

"It's against the rules and very dangerous, Miss, for a passenger to come into this room."

"But the captain told me I could come."

"All right, but please be very careful and hold tight to that rail. I am afraid I haven't any right to let you stay, anyhow."

"Thank you very much and I'll be very careful."

The girl watched the engine for some time and then crept slowly along a steel bridge that looked like a spider's web, from which she could look into the furnace-room, with its roaring fires, scorching heat and constantly clanging iron doors. For some minutes she gazed silently, then turning quickly, hurried across the bridge, up the greasy stairs and on to the main saloon where she found her father in a big arm-chair, buried in a book. The girl first pulled the book out of her father's hands, then, sitting on the arm of his chair, clasped her hands on his shoulder and whispered eagerly into his ear.

"Daddy, I want you to get that boy out of that hot place down in the bottom of the boat where he is at work. I know he's sick, for I saw him lean up against the wall and shut his eyes and he was just as white--"

"Why, Molly, where have you been to see all this?"

"First, I went where the big engine is, then I went a little farther and saw--Oh! Daddy, hurry, please; if you don't I know he'll die."

"So you want me to get this boy up in the saloon to play with you?"

"I don't mean that at all, Daddy. I should think you'd hate to see anybody worked to death down in that hot hole."

"Well, I'll see the captain about it as soon as I have finished my book."

"Don't you think you'd better see him now? I'm quite sure you won't enjoy your book while I'm here and I've decided to stay with you for the present."

"All right, Molly, come along," and they hunted up the captain, whom they found sitting near the pilot-house.

"Captain, I have taken an interest in that stowaway of yours. Is there any objection to having his name put on the cabin list, at my expense, of course?"

"No kick coming from me," said the captain, "though we _are_ short-handed in the fire-room and the boy has been doing a man's work there. I don't believe he will accept your offer, for he's an independent little cub and, as I have put him to work, I can't insist upon it."

The captain sent a deck-hand for Dick, and the boy appeared on deck in overalls and jumper, cap in hand.

"Dick," said the captain, "this gentleman has put your name on the passenger list. The purser will give you a room and a seat at the table."

"Oh, Captain, please don't take me from my work. I know I've got to leave it if you say so, but--"

"No, you haven't," interrupted the captain; "you are on the pay-roll and can hang on to your job as long as you do your work."

Dick's face was still troubled as he turned toward Molly and her father, meeting a reproachful look from the girl, which made him wonder if he had seemed ungrateful for the kindness shown him, and said:

"I want to thank you a thousand times for your kindness and I will come to the cabin if you think I--Have you any boy of your own, sir?"

"Yes, I have a boy of about your age."

"If he were here, in my place, what would you like to have him do?"

"I'd be proud of him if he did just what you're doing, my boy."

Tears were in Dick's voice as he said:

"Thank you very much, sir," then, turning to Molly, a roguish smile lit up his face as he bowed to her, saying:

"Thank you again, Miss Brown-Eyes."

The next day when Dick was off duty, instead of going to his bunk, he dressed himself carefully and went up on the promenade deck. It was quite contrary to the rules, but the officers only smiled and looked away, while many of the passengers spoke to him, for the story of his having refused cabin passage was pretty well known on the boat. He walked about restlessly, as if in search of something or somebody, until he caught sight of a girl in the extreme bow of the boat, looking down upon the water twenty feet below her. Dick suddenly discovered that he wanted to look over the bow, too. A minute later he was leaning on the rail behind the girl, looking down upon a school of porpoises, or herring hogs, which were playing about the boat. A jet of water and spray curled upward from the cutwater of the steamer, which was running at high speed, but the graceful little creatures kept abreast of her without apparent effort. There were twenty or thirty of them, gliding in and out as gracefully as if they were moving to the measure of a waltz. Sometimes one touched the prow or side of the boat; usually they kept pace with the steamer as evenly as if they were a part of it; but occasionally one darted ahead at a speed which left the boat behind as if it were standing still. At last the girl, long conscious that some one was standing beside her, putting out her hand to that somebody, said:

"Aren't they dears? Oh!" she added, as her hand was taken and she looked around, "I thought it was Daddy. Please excuse me."

Dick looked as if he might be persuaded to forgive her, and for some minutes they stood in silence, leaning over the rail and looking at the playful porpoises beneath them, when he said:

"I hope you don't think I didn't appreciate your father's lovely offer. You will never know how grateful I really was to him--and to somebody else, too, who, I think, had something to do with it."

"Of course I don't think you were ungrateful, but I did hate to see you at work down in that hot place and I don't see why you couldn't have come up in the cabin and been comfortable and not had to wear such greasy clothes."

"How did you know where I was at work?"

"I happened to be looking at the big engine and I walked along a little way and saw you way, way down near the bottom of the boat in front of a hot furnace, shoveling coal into it."

"Now I know where that offer came from," said Dick, "and I want you to see why I couldn't accept it. I wanted very, very much to get to Key West and I was very glad of the chance to work my passage. Perhaps it was wrong to come aboard the way I did. I guess it was. But Captain Anderson gave me a job and made it all right. Now I'm not ashamed to look anyone in the face, even when I have on my fireman's clothes, while if I gave up my work and let a stranger give me what I could earn myself I would feel like a charity scholar and I don't think I'd have the cheek to speak to you or any one else on board."

Molly told her father of her talk with Dick and he said:

"I can use that kind of a boy in my business. I'll have a talk with him when we get to Key West."

Three days later the great steamer lay beside her wharf in Key West. Dick was paid the full wages of a fireman for the trip and when he said he wasn't worth so much, was good-naturedly told to shut up and advised that if he refused to take money that was offered him in that town he was likely to be caught and exhibited as a freak. He shed his jumper and overalls and exchanged hearty good-byes with the whole crew of the steamer. He walked through the saloons, but it was early, most of the passengers were yet in their berths and neither Molly nor her father was to be seen. Dick went out on the dock to inquire for a boat to Chokoloskee, Caxambas or Marco. He was referred to a Captain Wilson, who told him that the boat for Chokoloskee had just sailed, was beyond hailing distance and wouldn't leave again for a week, and that there was no Caxambas or Marco boat in port. Dick found the captain so genial and friendly that he told him something of his story.

"I'll fix you out," said Captain Wilson. "I own a sponging outfit and am just starting out on a cruise, but I'm one man short. So you come in his place. It will be a short trip, not over four weeks. You'll make good wages and I'll find you a chance to get to Chokoloskee when we get back. You can live on board till I find it. If you stay here you are bound to lose a week and your board anyhow."

"I'd like to go first rate, but I don't know anything about sponging."

"You'll learn fast enough. Can you scull?"

"A little. I can row better."

"Have to scull in sponging, but you'll pick that up. Can you come aboard now? I want to be off."

"I need some clothes and would like to say 'good-bye' to some friends on the steamer."

"I can fit you out on board with all the clothes you will need on the cruise, so hurry up and see your friends. I'll wait here for you."

But Molly and her father had left the steamer and Dick went with Captain Wilson aboard his sloop, which sailed at once.

The captain hunted up some clothes for Dick to wear while sponging and as the boy came on deck after putting them on, his first glance fell on the white sails of a schooner yacht which had just passed them, but was then two hundred yards away. The beauty of the boat appealed to Dick and his eyes rested lingeringly upon her. How much greater would have been his interest had he known that the two forms which he could see on the deck of the yacht, near the companionway, were the Molly of whom he was thinking at that moment, and her father, and that they were talking of him. What a pity that he couldn't have known that Key West had been searched for him and that Molly's father had offered a reward for his name and address! Had Dick come on deck two minutes sooner the bow of the yacht _Gypsey_ would have been thrown up in the wind and that tiny launch lowered from the boat's davits in less time than it takes to tell of it. And then, had Molly's father known Dick's name, he would have taken the boy to his yacht, if he had had to tie him to do it, but if Dick had once heard the name of Molly's father it would not have been necessary to tie him. However, if either had known the name of the other this story would not have been written.