Steve and the Steam Engine, Sara Ware Bassett [8 ebook reader txt] 📗
- Author: Sara Ware Bassett
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"That was one way of getting business!" laughed Steve.
"And often a very effective way, too," rejoined Mr. Ackerman. "In June of 1847 a tremendously exciting race took place between the Oregon and the Vanderbilt, then a new boat, for a thousand dollars a side. The steamers left the Battery at eleven o'clock in the morning and a dense crowd turned out to see them start. For thirty miles they kept abreast; then the Oregon gained half a length and in passing the other boat bumped into her, damaging her wheelhouse. It was said at the time that the disaster was not wholly an accident. Certainly there were grounds for suspicion. As you may imagine, the calamity roused the rage of the competing boat. But the commander of the Oregon was undaunted by what he had done. All he wished was to win the race and that he was determined to do. He got up a higher and higher pressure of steam, and used more and more coal until, when it was time to return to New York, he discovered that his supply had given out and that he had no more fuel."
"And he had to give up the race?" queried Dick breathlessly.
"Not he! He wasn't the giving-up kind," said Mr. Ackerman. "Finding nothing at hand to run his boilers with he ordered all the expensive fittings of the boat to be torn up and cast into the fire—woodwork, furniture, carvings; anything that would burn. In that way he kept up his furious rate of speed and came in victorious by the rather close margin of twelve hundred feet."
"Bully for him!" cried Dick.
But Stephen did not echo the applause.
"It was not a square race," he said, "and he had no right to win. Anyway, his steamboat must have been pretty well ruined."
"I fancy it was an expensive triumph," owned Mr. Ackerman. "Without doubt it cost much more than the thousand dollars he won to repair the vessel. Still, he had the glory, and perhaps it was worth it to the company."
"Were there other races like that?" Dick asked.
"Yes, for years the racing went on until there were so many fires, explosions and collisions, that the steamer inspection law was put through to regulate the conditions of travel. It certainly was high time that something was done to protect the public, too, for such universal recklessness prevailed that everybody was in danger. Boats were overloaded; safety valves were plugged; boilers carried several times as much steam as they had any right to do, and many lives had been sacrificed before the government stepped in and put a stop to this strife for fame and money. Since then the traffic on the Hudson has dropped to a plane of sanity and is now carried on by fine lines of boats that conform to the rules for safety and efficient service."
"And what became of Mr. Vanderbilt?" interrogated Dick, who was a New Yorker to the core and had no mind to lose sight of the name with which he was familiar.
"Oh, Mr. Vanderbilt was a man who had many irons in the fire," replied Mr. Ackerman, smiling at the boy's eagerness. "He did not need to be pitied for just about this time gold was discovered in California and as the interest of the country swung in that direction Vanderbilt, ever quick to seize an opening wherever it presented itself, withdrew some of his steamers from the Hudson and headed them around to the Pacific coast instead."
"And your family, Mr. Ackerman, were mixed up in all this steamboat rumpus?" commented Steve suddenly.
"Yes, my grandfather was one of the Hudson River racers and quite as bad as the rest of them," the man replied. "Nevertheless he was a stanch, clever old fellow, and because he did his part toward building up the commerce and prosperity of the nation I have always regarded him with the warmest respect. I do not approve of all his methods, however, any more than I approve of many of the cut-throat business methods of to-day which sometime will be looked back upon with as much shame as these have been. There are moments, I must confess, when I wonder if we, with all our supposed enlightenment, have made any very appreciable advance over the frank and open racing done by our forefathers on the Hudson," reflected he half-humorously. "Perhaps we are a trifle more humane; and yet there is certainly much to be desired in the way we still sacrifice the public to our greed for money. An evil sometimes has to come to a climax to make us conscious of our injustice. Let us hope that our generation will not be so blind that it will not heed the warnings of its conscience, and instead delay until some such catastrophe comes upon it as pursued the racing boats of the Hudson River."
It was with genuine regret that Mr. Tolman and Stephen parted from Mr. Ackerman and Dick when the train reached New Haven.
"We shall not say good-by to Dick," Mr. Tolman declared, "for he is not to be very far away and I hope sometime he will come to Coventry and spend a holiday with us. Why don't you plan to do that too, Ackerman? Run over from New York for Thanksgiving and bring the boy with you. Why not?"
"That is very kind of you."
"But I mean it," persisted Mr. Tolman. "It is no perfunctory invitation. Plan to do it. We should all be delighted to have you. There is nothing in the world Mrs. Tolman loves better than a houseful of guests. Doris will be home from college and I should like you to see what a fine big daughter I have. As for Steve—"
"I wish you would come, Mr. Ackerman," interrupted the boy.
Mr. Ackerman hesitated.
"I tell you what we'll do," replied he at length. "We'll leave it to Dick. If he makes a good record at school and earns the holiday we will accept your invitation. If he doesn't we won't come. Is that a bargain, youngster?" he concluded, turning to the lad at his side.
The boy flushed.
"It is a rather stiff one, sir," he answered, with a laughing glance.
"I think that's playing for too high stakes, Ackerman," Mr. Tolman objected. "It is a little rough to put all the burden on Dick. Suppose we divide up the responsibility and foist half of it on Stephen? Let us say you will come if both boys make good in their studies and conduct."
Dick drew a breath of relief at the words, regarding the speaker with gratitude.
"That is a squarer deal, isn't it?" continued Mr. Tolman.
"I think so—yes," was Dick's response.
"And you, Steve—do you subscribe to the contract?"
"Yes, I'll sign," grinned Stephen.
"Then the agreement is clinched," exclaimed his father, "and it will be the fault of you two young persons if we do not have a jolly reunion at Thanksgiving time. Good-by Ackerman! Good-by, Dick. Good luck to you! We are pinning our faith on you, remember. Don't disappoint us."
"I'll try not to," the boy answered, as he stepped to the platform.
"Dick is a fine, manly young chap," observed Mr. Tolman, after the train was once more under way and he and Stephen were alone. "I have a feeling that he is going to make good, too. All he needed was a chance. He has splendid stuff in him. There isn't a mean bone in his body."
Stephen moved uncomfortably in his chair and a guilty blush rose to his cheek but apparently his father did not notice it.
"You liked Mr. Ackerman also, didn't you, son? Indeed there is no need to ask for he is a genius with young people and no boy could help liking a man of his type. It is a pity he hasn't a dozen children, or isn't the leader of a boy's school."
"He is corking at story-telling!" was Steve's comment.
"He certainly is. I caught some fragments of his Hudson River tale and did not wonder that it fascinated you. What a remarkable era that was!" he mused.
"There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask him," Stephen said.
"Such as?"
"Well, for one thing I was curious to know what happened after the steamers on the Hudson were proved a success."
"I can answer that question," replied his father promptly. "After the river boats had demonstrated their practicability steamships were built for traffic along short distances of the coast. Owing to the War of 1812 and the danger to our shipping from the British, however, the launching of these new lines did not take place immediately; but in time the routes were established. The first of these was from New York to New Haven. You see, travel by steam power was still so much of a novelty that Norwich, first proposed as a destination, was felt to be too far away. It was like taking one's life in one's hands to venture such an immense distance from land on a steamboat."
Stephen smiled with amusement.
"But gradually," continued Mr. Tolman, "the public as well as the steamboat companies became more daring and a line from New York to Providence, with Vanderbilt's Lexington as one of the ships, was put into operation. Then in 1818 a line of steamers to sail the Great Lakes was built; and afterwards steamships to travel to points along the Maine coast. The problem of navigation on the rivers of the interior of the country followed and here a new conundrum in steamboat construction confronted the builders, for the channels of many of the streams were shallow and in consequence demanded a type of boat very long and wide in proportion to its depth of hull. After such a variety of boat had been worked out and constructed, lines were established on several of the large rivers, and immediately the same old spirit of rivalry that pervaded the Hudson years before cropped up in these other localities. Bitter competition, for example, raged between the boats that plied up and down the Mississippi; and in 1870 a very celebrated race took place between the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee. The distance to be covered was 1218 miles and the latter ship made it in three days, eighteen hours, and thirty minutes. The test, however, was not a totally fair one since the Natchez ran into a fog that held her up for six hours. But the event illustrates the keen interest with which men followed the progress of American shipping; and you can see how natural it was that after the river boats, lake steamers, coastwise vessels and tugs had had their day the next logical step (and very prodigious one) was the—"
"The ocean liner!" ejaculated Stephen.
"Precisely!" nodded his father. "Now there are two separate romances of our ocean-going ships. The first one is of the sailing vessels and is a chronicle of adventure and bravery as enthralling as any you could wish to read. I wish I had time to tell it to you in full and do it justice, but I fear I can only sketch in a few of the facts and leave you to read the rest by yourself some time. You probably know already that whalers went out from Gloucester, New Bedford, and various of our eastern ports and often were gone on two or three-year cruises; and when you recall that in those early days there not only was no wireless but not even the charts, lighthouses, and signals of a thoroughly surveyed coast you will appreciate that setting forth on such a voyage for whale-oil (then used almost exclusively for lighting purposes) took courage. Of course the captains of the ships had compasses for the compass came into use just before the beginning of the Fifteenth Century and was one of the things that stimulated the Portuguese and Spaniards to start out on voyages of discovery. The Spaniards built ships that were then considered the largest and finest afloat, and probably Columbus caught the enthusiasm of the period and with the newly invented compass to guide him was stirred to brave the ocean and discover other territory to add to the riches of the land he loved. It was a golden age of romance and adventure and the journeys of Columbus
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