The Young Supercargo: A Story of the Merchant Marine

KIT SILBURN’S START IN LIFE.

A
BIG black steamship lay beside the wharf in front of Martin’s Stores, in Brooklyn. The cold November night was so dark that from the brick warehouse, a hundred feet away, hardly anything could be seen of her but the lantern that swung in her rigging, a faint light that shone through her cabin portholes, and occasionally one of her tall top-masts standing out against the pale moon that tried with little success to show itself between the scudding clouds. It was bitterly cold, for November; and a stiff wind from the northeast was driving the black clouds seaward at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour.

The steamer was the
North Cape
, arrived the week before from Sisal, in Yucatan, with a cargo of hemp in bales. Though everything was dark and quiet about her on that wintry night, evidences of
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hard work in unloading lay all around. The bales had been taken out of her hold faster than the warehousemen could trundle them into the building, and the hundred feet of space between wharf and warehouse was littered with them. Some were piled up in tiers, and others lay scattered about in confusion.

That open space between the warehouse and the harbor was well sheltered from the cutting wind; and patrolman McSweeny, of the Brooklyn police, with ears and fingers tingling found it a warm corner, and made more frequent visits to it than his duty really required. If he had gone into one of the neighboring coffee-houses to warm himself, he might have been caught by the roundsman and fined; but in going through the brick archway under the building and prowling among the goods on the wharf in search of tramps or thieves he was strictly obeying orders. So on the cold November night he paid particular attention to the wharf of Martin’s Stores, and visited it so often that no burglar in the neighborhood would have had the least chance.

Patrolman McSweeny had been a Brooklyn policeman long enough to understand all the favorite police ways of stirring out homeless tramps who are so desperately wicked as to go to sleep in the warmest corner they can find. Among such goods as bales of hemp, for instance, he took his long nightclub and jabbed it into all the dark spaces that were wide enough for a boy or man to squeeze into. That way, he found, was certain to produce results,
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if anybody was there. Either the soft feeling at the end of the club told him that he had found a victim, or the vigor with which he poked it made the victim cry out with pain.

For a policeman weighing nearly two hundred pounds, and armed with a big club and a revolver, patrolman McSweeny, it must be admitted, made his rounds among the bales with great caution. The ordinary tramp is a mere bag of dirt for the average policeman to prod and cuff and shake as he likes; but about ten days before Mr. McSweeny had stirred up two tramps on that same wharf who had more muscle than most of their clan, and in their anger they had turned upon him and thrown him overboard. So he felt that his dignity needed a little polishing up, and he was ready to polish it up on the next tramp he caught.

And tramps were not his only victims along the wharves. Sometimes he came across a boy,—a frowsy, ragged, shivering, homeless boy; and that always gave him great delight, for a boy, unless he is a big one, is not as troublesome to handle as a hungry and desperate man. Some policemen have big hearts, and would rather buy a cup of coffee and a roll for a hungry boy than take him to the station house and lock him up; but patrolman McSweeny was not of that kind. He was trying to make a record on “the foorce,” and every arrest added to his laurels.

It was about eleven o’clock when the patrolman
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made his fourth trip that evening among the hemp bales. Never very good-natured, he was particularly cross that night. Something at the station had annoyed him; and with his aching fingers and one or two draughts of a stronger beverage than coffee, he was rather a dangerous person to be trusted at large with a club and a revolver and the authority of law. His next victim on the wharf of Martin’s Stores was pretty sure to have an unpleasant time.

He went from pile to pile of the bales, poking his club viciously into every dark nook and corner, always ready for a sudden attack. And he had not gone far before he poked something soft, lying between two bales, and heard a voice cry out, in startled but still sleepy tones:—

“Hey! who’s there?”

The voice was a relief to him, for it was the voice of a boy.

“Git up here, ye young thafe, till I show ye who it is. Will ye come out or shall I fan yer carcase wid me club?”

In answer to this gentle summons a boy’s head and shoulders appeared above the bales, and the big policeman seized the section of coat collar that was visible and snatched the rest of the boy out with a jerk.

“Stop that! Let go of me!” said the boy.

Such resistance as that almost took the policeman’s breath away. He was accustomed to having boys beg him to let them off, and promise to go
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home, or go to work, or almost anything else, to get out of his clutches. But here was a boy who demanded his liberty instead of begging for it. In such a case it would have made no difference, probably, even if it had been light enough for him to see that instead of an ordinary vagabond or river thief this boy was clean and well dressed.

“Lit go av ye, then, is it!” he repeated, giving his prisoner another shake; “it’s in the cells I’ll lit go av ye, an’ not before, ye young thafe. Yer caught in de act, an I’ll run yer in.”

“I am no thief,” said the boy, “and you have no business to poke me with your club or shake me. If you want to arrest me, I will go with you peaceably; but I have done nothing to be arrested for.”

“Done nothin’!” the policeman exclaimed, letting go of the boy’s collar and taking him by the sleeve; “didn’t I ketch ye stealin’?”

“What was I stealing?” the boy asked.

“Hemp, av coorse,” said the officer.

Indignant as he was, the boy could hardly help laughing at the idea of his stealing five hundred pound bales of hemp.

“I was sleeping there,” the boy answered, “because I had nowhere else to sleep.”

“Thin I’ll give yer a safe place ter slape!” the policeman declared. “You come wid me;” and he started toward the archway, still holding his prisoner by the sleeve.

They were just about to turn from the outer end
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of the arch into the almost deserted street when they nearly ran into a man who came along the sidewalk at a swinging gait and turned short about to enter the dark tunnel.

“Hello, officer; what’s this?” said the man, stopping to look at the young prisoner under the gas lamp.

“Good avenin’ to you, Captain Griffith,” the policeman answered, in a very different tone from the one he had used in speaking to the boy. “It’s one of them loafin’ wharf rats I’ve caught among your bales of hemp, sir. But I’ll put him where he won’t be sn’akin’ around the wharves for one while, sure.”

“Why, this is no wharf rat, officer,” the newcomer said, taking the boy by the shoulder and turning him around under the lamp to have a better view of him. “He looks like a respectable boy. What were you doing on the wharf, my boy?”

“I went there to sleep between two of the bales, sir,” the boy replied, “because I had nowhere else to go.”

“Well, that’s no crime,” said the man; “we all have to sleep somewhere, I suppose. I think I wouldn’t lock him up just for that, officer. He’s a decent-looking boy, and I can give him a place to sleep aboard the ship. It’s no wonder a youngster hunts a warm place on such a night as this.”

“Af ye think best, Captain,” the policeman readily answered, releasing his hold on the boy’s
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arm. “It’s in luck ye are, bye, that Captain Griffith of the
North Cape
put in a good word for ye, or ye’d a been in a cell by this toime. Then I lave the bye with you, Cap’n.”

“Very good,” said the Captain. “Good night, officer; you’ll have cold work to-night. Come along, my boy.”

The next minute the boy was retracing his steps through the tunnel, no longer a prisoner, but sure of a warm place to pass the night. He had no time to wonder why it was that the captain of a freight steamer had so much influence with the Brooklyn police; and no matter how much he had wondered he could hardly have guessed the truth, that every time the
North Cape
lay at Martin’s Stores policeman McSweeny received a five-dollar tip for keeping extra watch over her at night. The big patrolman was too shrewd not to oblige his patron whenever he could.

Captain Griffith led the way up an inclined gangway to a lower part of the deck, then up an iron ladder to a higher deck amidships, then down a companionway to the snug little cabin of the
North Cape
, where he turned up the big cabin lamp that had been burning dimly. That done, he threw off his overcoat, sat down in a revolving-chair at the head of the cabin table, and looked at the boy for several minutes as if he intended to look right through him, clothes and all.

What he saw standing by the cabin table, hat in
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hand, was a manly-looking boy of about sixteen or seventeen, perhaps a little large for his age, strong of build, with a good honest face and bright bluish-gray eyes, and wavy dark brown hair, and hands and face bronzed by the sun.

“No place to sleep, eh?” the Captain asked, at length.

“No, sir,” said the boy.

“What are you doing in Brooklyn without a place to sleep?” the Captain went on.

“I came to New York to look for work, sir,” the boy replied. “This afternoon I answered an advertisement in Brooklyn, but did not get the place.”

“Where do you live?” the Captain asked.

“In Huntington, Connecticut, sir,” the boy replied.

“What’s your name?”

“Christopher Silburn, sir; they call me Kit.”

“And how did you happen to come to New York to look for work without any money?” the Captain continued.

“I had some money when I came, sir,” Kit answered, “but I have been here for three days, and it is nearly all gone. What little is left I am saving to buy food with.”

“Have you no friends?” the Captain asked, looking at Kit’s clothes, which though evidently not of city make, were clean and whole.

“I have a mother and sister, sir,” he answered, “and it is on their account that I have come to the
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city, for they need what I can earn. My father is dead—at least, I am afraid he is.”

“Afraid he is!” the Captain repeated; “don’t you know whether he is dead or not?”

“Not for certain, sir,” Kit replied. “He was first mate of the schooner
Flower City
, which sailed from Bridgeport for New Orleans with machinery nearly a year ago. She was sighted by a steamer off Hatteras, but she has never been heard from since, nor any of her crew. She was given up long ago, and there is hardly any hope.”

“Lost at sea!” the Captain said thoughtfully; and it was evident that from that moment he took a greater interest in the boy he had rescued. “The old story, I suppose. No money; family at home; wife and children left to starve.”

“Not quite as bad as that, sir,” Kit answered, “but very nearly. My father left us a little house in Huntington, nearly all paid for, and my mother earns some money by sewing. It is a hard pull; but if I can find something to do, it will make things a little easier.”

“Well, Mr. Kit Silburn, of Huntington,” the Captain said, after another long look at him, “you tell a very straight story. I thought out in the street that you looked like an honest boy; that’s the reason I got you away from the policeman. But I don’t judge boys by their faces; some of the best faces are owned by the biggest rogues. I have a sure way of my own of finding out whether a boy is likely to steal my
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spoons and cushions. I judge a bank by what it has in its safes, and a boy by what he has in his pockets. Empty out your pockets here on the table, till I see what you carry.”

Kit was a little surprised at this request, which was delivered more like an order on deck; but he obeyed promptly. He began with the trousers pocket on the right-hand side, and laid out an old knife, a key-ring without any keys on it, and a small foot rule. Then from the left-hand pocket he took a well-worn pocket-book.

“What’s in the purse?” the Captain asked.

Instead of replying in words, Kit opened it and held it upside down over the table, and there rolled out a half-dollar, a bright quarter, a five-cent piece, and two pennies.

“That your whole stock?” the Captain asked.

“Yes, sir, that is all the money I have left,” Kit answered. Then he began on his vest. From the upper pocket on the left-hand side he took a toothbrush, and a pocket comb fastened to the back of a small mirror. In a lower pocket, on one side, he had four collar buttons; and on the other side a card with his name and home address written upon it, prepared by his mother, as he explained, in case anything should happen to him.

Then he began to empty the pockets of his coat. From the breast pocket he took his handkerchief, and two clean handkerchiefs, folded, that were beneath it.

From one of the lower pockets he took a morning
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newspaper, with several of the advertisements marked with pencil. Then he put his hand up to the inside breast pocket, but paused.

“Well, go on,” said the Captain.

With a little hesitation Kit took from the pocket two clean collars, folded in the middle, and laid them on the table. Then a little pocket testament with gilt edges. Then a letter that had been opened, addressed to “Mr. Christopher Silburn, General Post Office, New York.”

“That’s all, sir,” he said.

“Where do you carry your matches?” the Captain asked.

“I don’t carry any matches, sir,” Kit answered.

“Nor cigarettes?”

“No, sir, I never smoke.”

The Captain picked up the testament and opened it at the fly-leaf and read, written in a neat womanly hand, “Christopher Silburn, from Mother. ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.’”

“Now, my boy,” the Captain continued, “I see you have a letter there. Letters always tell their own story. If you want to tell me more about yourself, you can read that letter to me. But you need not do it unless you choose.”

“I am quite willing to read it, sir,” Kit replied, taking up the letter. “It is from my sister, with a few lines added by my mother.”

He took it from the envelope and stepped up closer to the light. The body of the letter was in a
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scrawly, girlish hand, and the postscript was written evidently by the same hand that wrote the inscription in the testament.

My dear Kit
[he read]: We are so worried about you for fear something will happen to you in that big city. Mamma says it is more than fifty times as big as Bridgeport, and I am always a little afraid when I go there. I cried half the night last night, and I know Mamma was crying for you in the evening, though she didn’t think that I saw her. Dear old Turk was so quiet all day, I know he missed you, too.

I do hope you will find some situation you like, and get a good start. But if you don’t find one, we want you to come home, Kit; Mamma says so.

I bought stamps with one of my dollars to-day and send them to you in this, for fear you may run out of money. If you don’t get anything to do, send me a postal card, and I will send you the other one too, so you can come home in the boat. I do wish you were here this evening.

Your loving sister,

Genevieve.

Then he read the postscript:—

My darling Boy
: Sister has written for me, as my eyes ache in the evening. We hope to hear from you by to-morrow. Be sure we both miss you very much. God bless you, my boy, and take care of you. Remember what I told you before you started.

Mother.

“And you have spent your sister’s stamps, I suppose?” the Captain asked, when Kit, having finished, refolded the letter.

“No, sir, I was robbed of them,” he replied. “I
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took them into a little shop in one of the avenues to have them changed into money, and the man put them in the drawer, but would not pay me for them. He accused me of stealing them. ‘You’re not the first office boy has stolen his boss’s stamps and come here to sell them,’ he said. ‘Go and bring your boss, till I give him back his stamps.’”

“And being a country boy, you did not think of taking the address of the shop, I suppose?” the Captain asked.

“No, sir,” Kit answered. “He threatened to call a policeman if I didn’t go away, so I went.”

“Looks as if the shopkeeper was the thief himself,” said the Captain, smiling at Kit’s innocence. “Well, put your things back in your pockets. How old are you?”

“Sixteen, sir,” Kit answered; “nearly seventeen.”

“Ever been to sea?”

“No, sir. I know very little about the water, for a sailor’s boy. Huntington is ten miles back from the Sound, and a good many of the people there are seafaring men, but the boys don’t see much of salt water.”

“Would you like to go to sea?” the Captain asked, looking up at him suddenly.

“Yes, sir; I should like it very much indeed,” Kit answered promptly.

“Well, I haven’t taken all this trouble with you just for amusement,” the Captain went on. “I am in need of a cabin boy; and when I saw you in the
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hands of the policeman I rather thought that fate had sent me one without farther trouble. I never take a boy who has run away from home, and for that reason I wanted to find out about you by what you had in your pockets. And I find that you have not run away, and that you have very good references. A boy with a Bible in his pocket and a letter from his mother and sister has as good references as I want. I’m not very much of a church man myself; know more about log books than prayer books, maybe; but I like to see a boy who’s started out right. Would you like to be my cabin boy?”

“Yes, sir; I should like very much to have the place,” Kit replied.

“Then I’ll tell you what the place is, so you’ll know what you’re about,” the Captain continued. “You know what a tramp steamer is, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered. “It is a steamer that belongs to no regular line, but goes wherever she can get freight to carry.”

“That’s it,” the Captain assented. “And the
North Cape
is a tramp steamer. She belongs to no regular line, but goes wherever she can get freight to carry. She is chartered for one more voyage to Sisal after hemp, and after that she will go wherever business offers. It may be on one side of the world and it may be on the other. So if you go with me, you are just as likely to be in China six months from now, as to be in New York.”

Such a prospect made Kit’s eyes sparkle.

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“I should like that very much, sir,” he answered.

“Very well, then,” the Captain resumed. “Your pay will be six dollars a month, and you are not to go ashore without leave. That is not very much pay, but on the ship you will get your board, so you will have more money at the end of the month than you would have with more pay on shore. Your work will be to do whatever you’re told, and you’ll have to walk a very straight line. Don’t think because I have talked to you so much to-night that I’m going to pet you, for I’m not. When a ship leaves port, there is only one law for everybody on board, and that is the captain’s orders.”

He paused a moment, and then went on:—

“There is another boy on this ship, the engineers’ mess-room boy. You’ve heard the old saying, I suppose, that one boy is half a boy and two boys are no boy at all. But it’s not so on the
North Cape
. Each boy has to be a whole boy here, from the top of his head to the soles of his boots. I don’t allow any skylarking, or any quarrelling.”

Kit saw that he was expected to make some reply, so he said, “I will try to please you, sir.”

“I think you will,” said the Captain. “Now you have a start,—not a very big one, but as good as most boys have,—and the rest lies with yourself. You can push your way up in the world, or you can make a fool of yourself and go to the dogs. Nobody but yourself can say which it shall be.”

“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” Kit answered.
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“I found it pretty hard to get the start, but now that I have it I shall try to make the most of it.”

“It’s time to turn in,” said the Captain, glancing at the cabin clock and seeing that it was almost midnight. “To-morrow you must write home for whatever clothes you have. No matter what they are, they will be good enough when we are at sea. And you must ask your mother’s permission to go; I won’t take you without that, but as soon as you get it, I will let you sign the crew list; and you can begin your work to-morrow morning, while you’re waiting for it. We’ll not be away from here for a week yet, and there’s plenty of time. You can sleep on one of the cabin sofas to-night.”

With that the Captain turned the big lamp down low, picked up his overcoat, and disappeared through a door at the end of the cabin, leading, as Kit learned afterward, to his own stateroom.

Kit was a little dazed at first by the rapidity with which things were happening. Late in the afternoon he had concluded to go without any supper, because he was not very hungry and he could not afford to eat just because it was meal time. Then he had looked about for a place to sleep outdoors, having no idea how many thousand homeless people in New York are doing that same thing every night, nor how vigilant the police are to drive them away or arrest them. He had spent two nights in cheap lodging-houses in the Bowery, but everything was so foul and uncomfortable there that he preferred
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the open air. Then he had gone to sleep between the hemp bales, only to be poked with a club and shaken and put under arrest. And now here he was an hour later with as good a situation as he had hoped to find; and a chance to sleep in as snug and comfortable a cabin as he ever dreamed of; and a prospect of breakfast in the morning that would not have to be paid for out of his poor little eighty-two cents.

He went around the table to the longest of the three sofas in the cabin, and found it covered with soft leather cushions. There was even a leather pillow at the end. He lay down and tried to think things over. He had no doubt that his mother would consent to his going, for it had always been intended that he should go to sea with his father. Then he thought about Genevieve and her stamps, and about Turk, and in five minutes he was fishing in his dreams, in Bonnibrook, the stream that runs through Huntington.

A noise in the cabin awoke him. It was the steward giving the place its morning cleaning; and half asleep as he still was, Kit saw that the sun was streaming through the port-holes.

“Hello, there,” said the steward, “where did you come from?”

Kit sat up and looked around. He had to think a moment before he could tell where he did come from.

“I’m the new cabin boy, sir,” he said.

“Get up, then, and stir yourself,” said the steward.

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