Mary Emma & Company (21 page)

“Well, I wasn't planning to get them all; just some of them,” I told him. Then I ran home as fast as I could go, because I knew Mother would have lunch waiting.

It was Friday noon when I talked to Cop Watson about the tides, and on my way back to school I stopped in at the store to ask Mr. Haushalter if he thought it would be all right for Philip to work in my place for a good part of Saturday. I didn't tell him just what I was going to try to do, but I did tell him that I had a very special job to do that might take most of the day, and I thought it was one that would save Mother as much as twelve dollars or more next winter. At first he would only josh with me, telling me that if I had that sort of a job lined up he wished I'd look around and see what I could find for him, because the store business hadn't been very profitable for the past few years. He kept joshing me so long that I had to run all the way to school, but before I left he told me it would be all right for Philip to work in my place.

I'd hoped I'd have time to talk to some of the boys at school that noon, but I didn't. And, of course, I couldn't talk to them at recess, because I didn't have any recesses. But I got sixteen of the biggest ones together just as soon as school let out, and asked how many of them could swim. When they all said they could, I asked how many would be willing to help me make a dollar the next day if I'd help him make that much too. Then I explained that I was really asking each one separately, and that I'd get as much out of the job as all those who helped me put together. Some of the boys said yes right away, but a few wanted to know what the job was before they'd say it. “Well, right now it has to be a secret or none of us would make anything out of it,” I told them. “But I can tell you this much: it's a job that Cop Watson says forty men wouldn't be able to do, and I'll bet we're smart enough to do it without any help.”

Maybe it was the “smart enough” that made them all say they wanted to do it, but anyway they said it. So I told them all to meet me at our house at seven o'clock Saturday morning, and to bring their swimming trunks and lunches, a piece of stout rope, a bean pole, and a piece of six-inch board.

Six or seven of the boys walked from the schoolhouse to the store with me, sort of hoping I might tell my best friends what the job was going to be, but I only had time to talk to Al Richardson and Allie Dion. Allie was my best friend, next to Al, and his older brother had a wholesale candy business. He had the two finest horses anywhere around our end of town, and a wagon fitted up with shelves inside for the boxes of candy and gum. The wagon was a beauty, but it wasn't all new. Allie had told me that the running gear was new the fall before, but that a body like that never wore out.

I didn't give two whoops about the candy wagon right then, but I did want to know if Allie's brother still had the old running gear. When Allie said it was still standing out behind their barn I told him I'd give him a quarter if I could use it for doing part of the job I had lined up. It didn't take him two seconds to say that for a quarter I could use it as much as I wanted to. But when I mentioned the horses he said there wouldn't be any use in even asking his brother, because he wouldn't let a soul on earth touch those horses except himself. Allie wanted to tell me a lot more about his brother and the horses, but we were getting pretty close to the store, and I wanted to talk to Al alone, so I just said, “So long, Allie. See you at my house in the morning.”

I knew I could trust Al with any kind of a secret, so I told him what I was planning to do and how I thought we could do it. Then I asked him where there was the best and shallowest beach along the river.

“There's only one,” he told me, “and it isn't very shallow. It's at the end of Foster's Court, just off Riverside Avenue, and at flood tide the water comes almost up to the roadway.”

“How deep is the sand?” I asked him.

“That's the trouble with Foster's Beach,” he said, “there isn't any sand. It's all hard gravel, and in the spring when your feet are tender. . . .”

“So much the better,” I told him, “but I'll be late for work if I don't hurry. Remember to bring a sharp hatchet, and we'll need a couple of pieces of heavy chain, five or six feet long.”

I didn't think it would be best to tell Mother all about what I was planning to do, but while we were eating supper I told her about the paving blocks and what good kindling they'd make. Then I told her that if Philip could work in my place I thought I could pick up as many as ten bushels, and that a few other boys were coming by our house in the morning to pick up blocks too.

All she said was, “It would be wonderful to have the kindling, but you'll have to make your deal with Philip.” And, of course, that was easy.

22

The Law of Salvage

B
Y FIVE
minutes of seven Saturday morning the boys were all gathered out in front of our house. While we were walking down to the marshes I told them how I thought we could get the big timbers that were stranded in the eel grass, that high tide would be at 9:26, and that we'd have to hurry to be ready for it. First we'd hide our clothes in the old abandoned brick shed, far out on the marshes. Then everybody would scatter out through the eel grass along the river, hunting for the timbers. Whenever anybody found one he'd stick up a pole or a board beside it, and hang his shirt or handkerchief on top. Then, when we had them all marked, we'd decide which ones would be easiest to get into the river.

Finding the timbers and marking them was a harder job than I had thought it would be. We had to wade through muck up to our knees, and the sharp eel grass cut our feet and legs like hacksaw blades. But by half-past-eight we had shirts and handkerchiefs hanging from poles and boards for more than half a mile along the river margin. Some of them were no more than a few yards back from the mud flat, but others were as much as eighty or ninety feet.

I could count twenty-six flags when I called the boys together. I told them that the flood tide would last only a half-hour, so we couldn't take all the timbers, but I thought we might get the eight or ten nearest the mud flats if we practiced till we had a system worked out.

At first we couldn't find a way to budge the heavy timbers. Our legs sank into the soft muck up to our thighs when we tried to drag one with ropes, and we were afraid we'd never be able to move them, even with the help of a flood tide. Each one of them was a foot and a half wide, a foot thick, and nearly thirty feet long. Worse still, there were old bent spikes and bolts sticking out of them that would snag in the eel grass and keep them from sliding.

It was Al Richardson who figured out a way that would work. We all lay on our backs behind the nearest timber, with our bottoms about a foot away from it and our knees doubled up. When I counted up to three we pushed out hard with our feet, and, even without a drop of water under it, the timber rolled over. All we had to do was to keep ooching up and rolling it, and in less than three minutes we had it out on the mud flat.

As soon as that timber was out on the mud, we scrambled up and floundered to the next one, flopped down, and started it rolling. By the time the tide began edging back through the eel grass we had nine timbers afloat.

With every inch the tide rose the timbers rolled easier. And when there was six or eight inches of water in the eel grass we didn't have to roll them. They were so nearly afloat that three boys, floundering along on their knees, could slide one into deep water. I hadn't planned to do any bossing, but somebody had to do it, and the boys didn't seem to mind my shouting and telling them what to do next. I split them into teams of threes, told each team which timber to take next, and what to do when one got snagged in the eel grass.

If you're just sitting on a bank, watching the tide come up or go down, it doesn't seem to rise or fall an inch an hour. But if you want it to stand still it seems to rise and fall like a pump handle. It didn't seem to me that we'd had more than five minutes when timbers would float before the flood was gone, and there was only a shimmer of water draining away between the blades of eel grass. Maybe it was just as well it went so quickly, because the boys, and even I who hadn't done much of the work, were tired and winded. As I looked around the marsh I could see only seven flags left, and they were all far back from the water, so I shouted to the boys and told them we had all we were going to take.

For the next hour we didn't do anything, except to tie our nineteen timbers together into four rafts, anchor them where the water was four or five feet deep, and lie on them while our backs and bellies sunburned. With the tide running out to sea, and with our wanting to get our rafts a mile upriver to Foster's Beach, there didn't seem much reason to do anything else for a while. The tide was too strong to paddle against, but if we waited for it to turn, about all we'd have to do would be to steer.

I think we might have wasted most of the day if the water hadn't been so cold, and if my conscience hadn't started bothering me. I'd told Mother we were going for paving blocks, but we hadn't picked up a single one, so I shouted, “I'll bet I know how we could make a lot more money today. There must be ten thousand paving blocks scattered around the marshes, and each one would make as much kindling as the bundles we sell at the store for six cents. It would be as easy to peddle as hot peanuts.”

I wasn't a bit sure the boys would want to wade around in the mud any more, but it seemed to me that if I led the way they might follow. So I dived over the side and swam as fast as I could toward the mud bank. In Colorado I used to think I was a pretty good swimmer, but those Medford boys, brought up right beside the Mystic River, made me look like a mud turtle racing a school of trout.

It's funny how fast you can learn to do things by doing them. When we first came onto the marshes that morning we could hardly take a step without sinking up to our knees in the muck, but before we'd each picked up half a dozen armfuls of blocks there wasn't one of us who was sinking above his ankles. Without more than glancing, we could pick out the solidest tufts, and bounce from one to another—snatching up a block as we went—before we had time to break through. When the twelve o'clock whistle blew at the brickyards we had a pile of blocks at the edge of the mud bank that was nearly as big as a chicken coop. As soon as the whistle blew I shouted, “It's noon! Let's go eat our lunches.”

“Why go over there?” somebody shouted back. “Why not let a couple bring our stuff over here while the rest of us go clamming?”

Scattered through the marshes there were pot holes, some of them as much as twelve or fifteen feet deep, and twenty feet or so wide. I think they were made by the tide dissolving and carrying out pockets of real fine clay, leaving the sides and bottoms firm and gravelly. The fattest clams to be found anywhere around Boston grew in the bottoms of the pot holes, and the Medford boys had a system for getting them out.

As soon as we'd drawn lots and the boys who lost had gone for our stuff the rest of us went clamming. I went with Al and Allie, but I wasn't very much help to them. Al led the way to a place where there were two big pot holes, right close to each other. He picked up a short, pointed stick that was lying near one of the holes, drew a deep breath and dived in. After a few seconds a gray cloud drifted up to the surface of the water, then a few bubbles, but I was scared to death that Al had drowned before he popped to the surface. And when he popped he came up as if he'd bounced off a springboard. His whole chest came above the water, then he rolled onto his back, ducked his head just enough to comb his hair, and swam to the bank. Before he was out of the water, Allie had picked up a stick and dived.

As soon as Al could catch his breath enough to talk, he told me, “It's your turn next. There's a big rock down there with a wire 'round it. Grab hold of the wire to keep yourself down, and plow up as much bottom as you can before you run out of breath. You'll have to dig deep if you want to get the fattest clams.”

The only diving I'd ever done had been in the Platte River, and there weren't many places where it was more than knee-deep, so I'd never been under water for more than a couple of seconds at a time. Of course, I didn't tell that to Al, and as soon as Allie popped to the surface I grabbed a stick and dived in. But I didn't do any good. I wasn't more than three or four feet under water before I came to the top. “You can't make it in a dive alone,” Al shouted at me. “You've got to swim to get down there.”

I ducked my head and swam as hard as I could, but instead of going down I bumped into the bank. “Don't dog-paddle, you goop!” Al yelled at me when I had to come up for air. “Swim like a frog!”

I'd seen frogs swim plenty of times, so I pulled my knees up beside my ribs and kicked with my legs spread wide apart. Nothing happened, except that Al and Allie rolled around and laughed as if they'd gone crazy. After I'd tried a few more times, Al dived in and said, “Here, let me show you, you dumbbell!”

If I hadn't known I'd made a monkey of myself, I wouldn't have let Al call me a dumbbell, but I kept still and let him show me. He flipped over, so that his bottom stuck up like the tail of a feeding duck, then swept both arms back as he fluttered his feet. Within two seconds he was out of sight in the murky water.

I had to make five or six tries before I could get deep enough to grab hold of the wire on the rock, and by that time my lungs were so close to exploding that I had to come right up. But Al and Allie were experts. After they'd plowed up the bottom of the first hole, they let the clay settle while they plowed the second. Then they dived down with a leaky old bucket, and picked up the clams they'd dug loose.

I guess I slowed Al and Allie up more than I realized. We were the last ones back to the rafts, and we must have brought the fewest clams. There was nearly a bushel piled up in the middle of each raft, and the boys were opening them. Most of their jackknives were big toad-stabbers, and they didn't seem to mind how much they dulled the blades. A boy would pick up a clam, wiggle the blade of his knife into the crack between the shells, give it a little swing, and flip the top shell into the river. Another flip of the knife would turn the clam around in the bottom shell, and the boy would gulp it down as if it were a raw egg.

I wasn't much better at opening clams than I was at digging them. Every one I picked up was as stubborn as a mule. The first one kept his shells pinched so tight that it took me five minutes to wiggle my knife between them, and when I tried to pry the top shell off the blade snapped. “Not that way!” Al told me. “You've got to cut the muscle before you can flip the shell off.”

I'd never known clams had muscles until Al opened one and showed me, and even after that I wasn't much good at opening them. But it was just as well. When I got one open I could hardly make myself swallow it.

Some of the boys made their whole lunch on clams, and then we rested and swam for about an hour before we went back to pick up more blocks. By quarter of four, when the tide turned, we had all four rafts stacked nearly three feet high with blocks, and only enough room at the front and back for a couple of boys. As soon as the tide began running upriver in good shape we gathered our boards, and one of the boys who could handle the hatchet real well cut them into paddles. With a boy kneeling at each corner, they edged the loaded rafts out into the current and paddled away up the river toward Foster's Beach.

Allie and I didn't go on the rafts, but put on our clothes and went to his house for the old running gear from his brother's wagon. The wheel hubs and turn plate had to be greased, and a couple of the tires that were loose had to be wedged tight. By the time we had it ready and pulled down to the beach the rafts were coming around the last bend in the river. We were barely undressed again before the first one turned in for a landing.

We were so anxious to see if my idea would work that we didn't wait for the last raft to get in before we tried it. We tossed part of the blocks off the first raft in, separated one timber from the others, and backed the running gear astraddle of it. As the wheels left the ground we pushed the axles along until the timber floated evenly, then chained the bolsters to it, leaving the front chain just loose enough that the wheels would turn. By the time we had half a dozen pull-ropes tied to the running gear the last raft was in, so I had part of the boys weight down the back end of the timber while the rest of us pulled on the ropes. When the wheels touched bottom the big timber hung evenly from the axles, and came up out of the water with a rush as we ran up the beach, howling like wild Indians.

Everything worked fine till we reached the upper edge of the beach, where it curved down steeply like the rim of a saucer. Then both ends of the timber dragged, and the front dug into the gravel like a plow. We were trying to drag it along when a voice from above us called, “For glory's sake, why don't you fetch it up slonchways? You'll never in this livin' world pull it up at all, at all, by main strength and awkwardness.”

When we looked up Cop Watson was standing at the rim of the beach, twirling his night stick in a cartwheel and watching us. “Get it back in the water where 'twill float,” he told us, “and drift it to that far corner, yonder where the eel grass commences. Then you can come up in a widenin' curve, and 'twill fetch you over the rim at the end o' the roadway.”

Cop Watson not only told us how to get the timber up to the roadway, but he helped us. As soon as we'd pushed it back into the water and floated it into place, he came down and picked up the end of the wagon pole. He told us he was only going to do the steering for us, but he pulled harder than any four of us put together. It didn't take us a minute to get up onto the roadway.

We were all a little winded when we reached the roadway, and while we were resting Cop Watson said, “And now I've a notion I'll be havin' a fight to deal with when you go to divvyin' it up.”

“No, sir,” I told him. “We had our deal all made before we started: I get half for having the idea, and everybody else gets share and share alike.”

“A half?” he said, and looked at me out of one corner of his eye.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “But it was my idea, and none of us would have got any if I hadn't thought of it, and one of these timbers must be worth. . . .”

I stopped because I could see that Cop Watson wasn't listening to me. He stood for a minute, looking at the ground and rubbing his mustache across his cheeks with the back of a hand. Then he looked up, nodded his head, and said, “'tis fair enough; fair enough, lads. 'tis ever the man what gets the idea and sets it to goin' that gets the gravy, not them what works with their hands. Now you take old John D. Like as not he never done a day's work with his hands in all the livin' world. And look where he's at now. How many o' them timbers did you salvage?”