On the Manhattan side of the North River, from Twenty-third Street down
for a mile there stretches a deafening region of cobblestones and
asphalt over which trucks by thousands go clattering each day. There are
long lines of freight cars here and snorting locomotives. Along the
shore side are many saloons, a few cheap decent little hotels and some
that are far from decent. And along the water side is a solid line of
docksheds. Their front is one unbroken wall of sheet iron and concrete.
I came up against this wall. Over the top I could see here and there the
great round funnels of the ships, but at every passenger doorway and at
every wide freight entrance I found a sign, "No Visitors Admitted," and
under the sign a watchman who would ungraciously take a cigar and then
go right on being a watchman. There seemed no way to get inside. The
old-fashioned mystery of the sea was replaced by the inscrutability of
what some muckrakers called "The Pool."
"Don't hurry," Eleanore's father had said. All very well, but I needed
money. While I had been making with Eleanore those long and delightful
explorations of the harbor and ourselves, at home my father's bank
account had been steadily dwindling, and all that I had been able to
make had gone into expenses.
"I don't know what to do," said Sue, alone with me that evening. "The
butcher says he won't wait any longer. He has simply got to be paid this
week."
"I'll see what I can do," I said.
I came back to my new hunting ground and all night long I prowled
about. I sipped large schooners of beer at bars, listening to the burly
dockers crowded close around me. I watched the waterfront, empty and
still, with acres of spectral wagons and trucks and here and there a
lantern. I had a long talk with a broken old bum who lay on his back in
an empty truck looking up at the stars and spun me yarns of his life as
a cook on ships all up and down the world. Now and again in the small
wee hours I met hurrying groups of men, women and children poorly clad,
and following them to one of the piers I heard the sleepy watchman
growl, "Steerage passengers over there." I saw the dawn break slowly and
everything around me grow bluish and unreal. I watched the teamsters
come tramping along leading horses, and harness them to the trucks. I
heard the first clatter of the day. I saw the figures of dockers appear,
more and more, I saw some of them drift to the docks. Soon there were
crowds of thousands, and as stevedores there began bawling out names,
gang after gang of men stepped forward, until at last the chosen throngs
went marching in past the timekeepers. Hungrily I peered after them up
the long cavernous docksheds. "No Visitors Admitted."
Then I went into a lunchroom for ham and eggs and a huge cup of coffee.
I ate an enormous breakfast. On the floor beside me a cross and weary
looking old woman was scrubbing the dirty oil cloth there. But I myself
felt no weariness. While all was still vivid and fresh in my mind,
sitting there I wrote down what I had seen. A magazine editor said it
would do. And so we paid the butcher.
The same editor gave me a sweeping letter of introduction to all ocean
liners. This I showed to a dock watchman, who directed me upstairs. In
the office above I showed it to a clerk, who directed me to the dock
superintendent, who read it and told me to go downtown. I recalled what
Dillon had said about strings. Here was string number one, I reflected,
and I followed it down Manhattan into the tall buildings, only to be
asked down there just what it was I wanted to know.
"I don't want to know anything," I replied. "I just want permission to
watch the work."
"We can't allow that," was the answer of this harbor of big companies.
At every pier that I approached I received about the same reply. At home
Sue spoke of other bills. And now that I was in trouble, hard pressed
for money and groping my way about alone, I found myself missing
Eleanore to a most desperate degree. Her face, her smiling blue-gray
eyes, kept rising in my mind, sometimes with memories and hopes that
permeated my whole view both of the harbor and my work with a warm glad
expectant glow, but more often with no feeling at all but one of
sickening emptiness. She was not here. The only way to get back to her
was to make good with her father. And so I would not ask his aid or even
go to him for advice. Testing me, was he? All right, I would show him.
And I returned to my editor, whom my intensity rather amused.
"The joke of it is," he said, "that they think down there you're a
muckraker."
"I'll be one soon if this keeps on."
"But it won't," he replied. "As soon as you've once broken in, and they
see it's a glory story you want, you can't imagine how nice they'll be."
"I haven't broken in," I said.
"You will to-morrow," he told me, "because Abner Bell will be with you.
He's our star photographer. Wait till you see little Ab go to work. The
place he can't get into hasn't been invented. Besides," the editor
added, "Abner is just the sort of chap to take hold of an author from
Paris and turn him into a writer."
And this Abner Bell proceeded to do. He was a cheerful, rotund little
man with round simple eyes and a smile that went all over his face.
"You see," he said, when I met him the next day down at the docks, "you
can't ask a harbor to hold up her chin and look into your camera while
you count. She's such a big fat noisy slob she wouldn't even hear you.
You've got to run right at her and bark."
"Look here, old man," he was asking a watchman a few moments later.
"What's the name of the superintendent on the next pier down the line!"
"Captain Townes."
"Townes, Townes? Is that Bill Townes?"
"No, it's Ed."
"I wonder what's become of Bill. All right, brother, much obliged. See
you again." And he went on.
"Say," he asked the next watchman. "Is Eddy--I mean Captain--Townes
upstairs?"
"Sure he is. Go right up."
"Thank you." Up we went to the office. "Captain Townes? Good-morning."
"Well, sir, what can I do for you?" The captain was an Englishman with a
voice as heavy and deep as his eyes.
"Why, Captain, I'm sent here by the firm that's putting Peevey's Paris
Perfume on the market out in the Middle West. They're going in heavy on
ads this Fall and I've got an order to hang around here until I can get
a photo of one of your biggest liners. The idea is to run it as an ad,
with a caption under it something like this: '_The Kaiser Wilhelm_
reaching New York with twenty thousand bottles of Peevey's Best, direct
from Paris.'"
"_The Kaiser Wilhelm_," said the captain ponderously, "is a German boat.
She docks in Hoboken, my friend."
"Of course she does," said Abner. "And I can lug this heavy camera way
over there if you say so, and hand ten thousand dollars worth of free
ads to a German line, stick up pictures of their boat in little
drugstore windows all up and down the Middle West. Do you know how to
tell me to go away?"
Captain Townes smiled heavily.
"No," he said, "I guess I don't. Here's a pass that'll give you the run
of the dock."
"Make it two," said Abner, "and fix it so my friend and I can stick
around for quite a while."
"You're a pretty good liar," I told him as we went downstairs.
"Oh, hell," he answered modestly. "Let's go out on the porch and get
cool."
We went out on the open end of the pier and sat down on a wooden beam
which Abner called a bulkhead.
"If we don't begin calling things names," he remarked, "we'll never get
to feeling we're here. Let's just sit and feel for a while."
"I've begun," I replied.
We sat in the shade of two wooden piles with the glare of a midsummer
sun all around us. The East River had been like a crowded creek compared
to this wide expanse of water slapping and gleaming out there in the sun
with smoke shadows chasing over it all. There was the rough odor of
smoke in the air from craft of all kinds as they skurried about. The
high black bow of a Cunarder loomed at the end of the dock next ours.
Far across the river the stout German liners lay at their berths--and
they did not look like sea hogs. What a change had come over the harbor
since I had met that motorboat. How all the hogs had waddled away, and
the very smoke and the oil on the waves had taken on deep, vivid
hues--as I had seen through Eleanore's eyes. "What a strange wonderful
purple," her low voice seemed to murmur at my side.
"She's going away from here," said Ab. I started:
"Who is?"
"That Cunarder. Look at the smoke pour out of her stacks. Got a
cigarette about you?"
"No," I answered gruffly.
"Damn."
In the slip on our other side a large freight boat was loading, and a
herd of scows and barges were pressing close around her. These clumsy
craft had cabins, and in some whole families lived. "Harbor Gypsies." A
good title. I had paid the butcher, but the grocer was still waiting. So
I dismissed my motorboat and grimly turned to scows instead. Children by
the dozen were making friends from barge to barge. Dogs were all about
us and they too were busy visiting. High up on the roof of a coal
lighter's cabin an impudent little skye-terrier kept barking at the
sooty men who were shoveling down below. One of these from time to time
would lift his black face and good-humoredly call, "Oh, you go to
hell"--which would drive the small dog into frenzies. Most of the barges
had derrick masts, and all these masts were moving. They rose between me
and the sky, bobbing, tossing and criss-crossing, filling the place with
the feeling of life, the unending, restless life of the sea.
An ear-shattering roar broke in on it all. Our Cunarder was starting.
Smoke belching black from her funnels, the monster was beginning to
move.
But what was this woman doing close by us? Out of the cabin of a barge
she had dragged a little rocking chair, and now she had brought out a
baby, all dressed up in its Sunday best, and was rocking expectantly,
watching the ship. Thundering to the harbor, the Cunarder now moved
slowly out. As she swept into the river the end of the pier was revealed
to our eyes all black with people waving. They waved until she was out
in midstream. Then, as they began to turn away, one plump
motherly-looking woman happened to glance toward us.
"Why, the cute little baby," we heard her exclaim. And the next minute
hundreds of people were looking. The barge mother rocked serenely.
Abner grabbed his camera and jumped nimbly down on the barge, where he
took the baby's picture, with the amused crowd for a background.
"The kid's name," he remarked on his return, "is Violetta Rosy. She was
born at two a. m. at Pier Forty-nine." He was silent for a moment and
then went on sententiously, "Think what it'll mean to her, through all
the storm and stress of life, to be able to look fondly back upon the
dear old homestead. There's a punch to Violetta. Better run her in."
"I will," I said.
"And that little thing of mine," he queried modestly, "about the dear
old homestead."
"I've got it," I replied.
"I hand quite a few little things to writers," Ab continued cheerfully.
"If you'll just give me some idea of what it is you're looking for----"
"I'm looking for the punch," I answered promptly.
"Then we'll get on fine," he said. "The editor got me worried some. He
said you'd trained in Paris."
"Oh, that was only a starter," I told him.
Presently he went into the dockshed on his unending quest of "the
punch." And left to myself I got thinking. What did Paris know about us?
De Maupassant's methods wouldn't do here. I noticed two painters in
overalls at work on that large freighter. With long brooms that they
held in both hands they were slapping a band of crude yellow paint along
her scarred and rusted side. That was what I needed, the broom! All at
once the harbor took hold of me hard. And exulting in its bigness, the
bold raw splattering bigness of my native Yankee land, "Now for some
glory stories," I said.
I went into the dockshed, and there I stayed right through until night,
till my mind was limp and battered from the rush of new impressions. For
in this long sea station, under the blue arc-lights, in boxes, barrels,
crates and bags, tumbling, banging, crashing, came the products of this
modern land. You could feel the pulse of a continent here. From the
factories, the mines and mills, the prairies and the forests, the
plantations and the vineyards, there flowed a mighty tide of
things--endlessly, both day and night--you could shut your eyes and see
the long brown lines of cars crawl eastward from all over the land, you
could see the stuff converging here to be gathered into coarse rope nets
and swept up to the liners. The pulse beat fast and furious. In gangs at
every hatchway you saw men heaving, sweating, you heard them swearing,
panting. That day they worked straight through the night. For the pulse
kept beating, beating, and the ship must sail on time!
And now I too worked day and night. In the weeks that followed, Abner
Bell came and went many times, but for me it was my entire life. Though
small of build I was tough and hard, I had not been sick for a day in
years, and now I easily stood the strain. Day by day my story grew, my
glory story of world trade. Watching, questioning, listening here,
making notes, writing hasty sketches to help keep us going at
home--slowly I could feel this place yielding up its inner self, its
punch and bigness, endless rush, its feeling of a nation young and
piling up prodigious wealth. From the customhouse came fabulous tales of
millionaires ransacking the world. Rare old furniture, rugs and
tapestries, paintings, jewels, gorgeous gowns poured in a dazzling
torrent all that summer through the docks. One day on a Mediterranean
ship, in their immaculate "stalls de luxe," came two black Arab horses,
glistening, quivering creatures, valued by the customhouse at twenty
thousand dollars each. And into the same ship that week, as though in
payment for these two, in dust and heavy smell of sweat I saw a thousand
cattle driven, bellowing and lowing.
I exulted in these symptoms of our crude and lusty youth. I watched my
countrymen going abroad. Not only through the Summer but straight on
into the Fall they came by tens of thousands out of the West, people who
had made some money and were going to blow it in, to buy things and to
see things, to learn things and to eat things. One day at noon, on the
end of a dock, when the ship was already far out in midstream and all
the crashing music and cheers had died away, a meek old lady wiped her
eyes and murmured very tearfully, "I suppose they'll be eating their
luncheon soon." And then the loud voice of her daughter replied:
"Eat? Why, ma, God bless their hearts, they'll sit on that boat and eat
all day!"
And I echoed her wish with a keen delight. God bless their hearts and
stomachs. Oh, hungry vigorous Yankee land, so mightily young--eat on,
eat on!
And the land ate on.
* * * * *
My work here rose to a climax a week or two before Christmas, when the
newest liner of them all pulled off a new world's record for speed. With
the company's publicity man, who had become a friend of mine, I went on
the health officer's tug down the Bay to meet her, on the coldest,
darkest night I've ever known on water. Shortly after nine o'clock the
big boat's light gleamed off the Hook and she bore down upon us. She
came close, slowed down and towered by our side, weird as a ghost with
snow and ice in glimmering sheets on her steel sides. She did not stop.
We caught a rope ladder and scrambled up, and at once we felt her
speeding on.
And she was indeed a story that night. Bellowing hoarsely now in warning
to all small craft to get out of her way, she was rushing into the
harbor. Suddenly she slowed again, and three dark mail tugs ranged
alongside, and through canvas chutes four thousand sacks of Christmas
mail began to pour down while the ship moved on. Up her other side came
climbing gangs of men who began to make ready her winches and open up
her hatches. Now we were moving in close to the pier, with a whole fleet
of tugs around us. Faint shouts rose in the zero night, toots and sharp
whistles. One of the gang-planks was down at last and two hundred
dockers came up on the run. Off went the passengers and the luggage,
reporters skurrying through the crowds. But the ship did not rest. For
she was to sail again the next night. This was to be a world's record
for speed!
All night long the work went on, and I watched it from a deck above,
going in now and then for food and hot drinks. On her dock side,
forward, Christmas boxes, bales and packages were being whipped up out
of her hold to the rattle of her winches. One sharp whistle and up they
shot into the air till they swung some seventy feet above. Another
whistle and down they whirled into the dockshed far below from which a
blaze of light poured up. At the same time she was coaling. Along the
black wall of her other side, as I peered over the rail above, I saw far
below a row of barges crowded with Italians. Powerful lights swung over
their heads in the freezing wind, swung above black coal heaps and the
lapping water. It was an inferno of shifting lights and long leaping
shadows.
I watched till daylight blotted out the yellow glare of the lanterns.
Then I went home to get some sleep. And late that night when I came back
I found her almost ready to sail.
Out of taxis and automobiles chugging down in front of the pier, the
passengers were pouring in. Many were in evening clothes, some just come
from dinners and others from box parties. The theaters had just let out.
The rich warm hues of the women's cloaks, the gay head dresses here and
there and the sparkling earrings, immaculate gloves and dainty wanton
slippered feet, kept giving flashes of color to this dark freezing ocean
place. Most of these people went hurrying up into the warm, gorgeous
cafe of the ship, which was run from a hotel in Paris. What had all this
to do with the sea?
"Come on," said the genial press agent. "You're the company's
guest-to-night."
And while we ate and drank and smoked, and the tables around us filled
with people whose ripples and bursts of laughter rose over the
orchestra's festive throb, and corks kept popping everywhere, he told me
where they were going, these gay revellers, for their Christmas Day--to
London, Brussels, Berlin and Vienna, Paris, Nice, Monte Carlo, Algiers.
"Now come with me," he said at last, and he took me along warm
passageways to the row of cabins de luxe.
First we looked into the Bridal Suite, to which one of the Pittsburgh
makers of steel, having just divorced a homely old wife, was presently
to bring his new bride, a ravishing young creature of musical comedy
fame. They had been married that afternoon. A French maid was unpacking
dainty shimmering little gowns, soft furry things and other things of
silk and lace, and hanging them up in closets. It was a large room, and
there were other rooms adjoining and two big luxurious baths. The cost
of it all was four thousand dollars for the five days. There were tall
mirrors and dressing tables, there were capacious easy chairs. Low
subdued lights were here and there, and a thick rug was on the floor.
Over in one corner was a huge double bed of cream colored wood with rich
soft quilts upon it. Beside the bed in a pink satin cradle there lay a
tiny Pekinese dog.
"Next," he whispered. We peeped into the next stateroom, and there
divided from her neighbors by only one thin partition, a sober, wrinkled
little old lady in black velvet sat quietly reading her Bible. Soon she
would be saying her prayers.
"Next," he whispered. And in the cabin on her other side we caught a
glimpse of two jovial men playing cards in gay pajamas with a bottle of
Scotch between them.
"Next." And as we went on down the row he gave me the names of an
English earl, a Jewish clothing merchant, a Minnesota ranchman, a
banker's widow from Boston, a Tammany politician, a Catholic bishop from
Baltimore, a millionaire cheese maker from Troy and a mining king from
Montana.
"How about that," he asked at the end, "for an American row de luxe?"
"My God, it's great," I whispered.
"There's only one big question here," he added. "Your long respectable
pedigrees and your nice little Puritanical codes can all go to
blazes--this big boat will throw 'em all overboard for you--if you can
answer, 'I've got the price.'"