Part 27 (1/2)

The final phrase had a reminiscent ring as if it harked back to a time when three ample meals were a mirage of the imagination.

”Well, I am glad to hear you have done justice to them and encouraged the cook,” was Mr. Tolman's jocular reply. ”Now while you stay here you must cheer on our cook in the same fas.h.i.+on. If you don't we shall think you like New Haven better.”

”I guess there is no danger of that,” put in Mr. Ackerman. ”d.i.c.k seems hollow down to his ankles. There is no filling him up; is there, boy?”

”I couldn't eat that third ice-cream you offered me yesterday,” was the humorous retort.

”I hope you've saved some room for to-morrow's dinner,” Mrs. Tolman interrupted, ”for there will be mince pie and plum pudding and I don't know what not. And then there is the turkey--we ordered an extra large one on purpose.”

d.i.c.k and Steve exchanged a sheepish grin.

”Well, it is jolly to see you good people,” Mr. Tolman declared, as he ushered the visitors into the living room, where a bright fire burned on the hearth. ”Our boys have done well, haven't they, Ackerman? I don't know which is to win the scholars.h.i.+p race--the steamboats or the railroads.”

”We could compare marks,” Stephen suggested.

”That would hardly be fair,” Mr. Ackerman objected quickly, ”for the steamboats did not start even with the railroads in this contest. d.i.c.k has had to put in a lot of hours with a tutor to make up for the work he missed at the beginning of the year. He has been compelled to bone down like a beaver to go ahead with his cla.s.s; but he has succeeded, haven't you, sonny?”

”I hope I have,” was the modest retort.

”Furthermore,” went on Mr. Ackerman, ”there are other things beside scholars.h.i.+p to be considered in this bargain. We want fine, manly boys as well as wise ones. Conduct counts for a great deal, you know.”

Stephen felt himself coloring.

”There have been no black marks on d.i.c.k's record thus far. How about yours, Steve?” asked the New York man.

”I--er--no. I haven't had any black marks, either,” responded Stephen, with a gulp of shame.

”That is splendid, isn't it!” commented Mr. Ackerman. ”I wasn't looking for them. You have too fine a father to be anything but a square boy.”

Once more Stephen knew himself to be blus.h.i.+ng. If they would only talk about something else!

”Are you going to finish your steamboat story for us while you are here?” inquired he with sudden inspiration.

”Why, I had not thought of doing any steamboating down here,” laughed the capitalist. ”Rather I came to help the Pilgrims celebrate their first harvest.”

”But even they had to come to America by boat,” suggested Doris mischievously.

”I admit that,” owned the New Yorker. ”And what is more, they probably would have come in a steamboat if one had been running at the time.”

”What was the first American steams.h.i.+p to cross the Atlantic, Ackerman?”

questioned Mr. Tolman when they were all seated before the library fire.

”I suppose the _Savannah_ had that distinction,” was the reply. ”She was built in New York in 1818 to be used as a sailing packet; but she had side wheels and an auxiliary engine, and although she did not make the entire trans-Atlantic distance by steam she did cover a part of it under steam power. Her paddle wheels, it is interesting to note, were so constructed that they could be uns.h.i.+pped and taken aboard when they were not in use, or when the weather was rough. I believe it took her twenty-seven days to make the trip from Savannah to Liverpool and eighty hours of that time she was using her engine. Although she made several trips in safety it was quite a while before the American public was sufficiently convinced of the value of steam to build other steams.h.i.+ps.

A few small ones appeared in our harbors, it is true, but they came from Norway or England; they made much better records, too, than anything previously known, the _Sirius_ crossing in 1838 in nineteen days, and the _Great Western_ in fifteen. In the meantime s.h.i.+pbuilders on both sides of the Atlantic were studying the steamboat problem and busy brains in Nova Scotia and on the Clyde were working out an answer to the puzzle. One of the most alert of these brains belonged to Samuel Cunard, the founder of the steams.h.i.+p line that has since become world famous. In May, 1840, through his instrumentality, the _Unicorn_ set out from England for Boston arriving in the harbor June third after a voyage of sixteen days. When we reflect that she was a wooden side-wheeler, not much larger than one of our tugboats, we marvel that she ever put in her appearance. Tidings of her proposed trip had already preceded her, and when after much anxious watching she was sighted there was the greatest enthusiasm along the water front, the over-zealous populace who wished to give her a royal welcome setting off a six-pounder in her honor that shattered to atoms most of her stained gla.s.s as she tied up at the dock.”

His audience laughed.

”You see,” continued the capitalist, ”the s.h.i.+p came in answer to a circular sent out by our government to various s.h.i.+pbuilders asking bids from swift and reliable boats to carry our mails to England. Cunard immediately saw the commercial advantages of such an opportunity, and not having money enough to back the venture himself the Halifax man went to Scotland where he met Robert Napier, a person who like himself had had wide experience in s.h.i.+pping affairs. Both men were enthusiastic over the project; before long the money necessary for the undertaking was raised, and the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, with a line of four s.h.i.+ps, was awarded the United States Government contract. These s.h.i.+ps were very significantly named: the _Britannia_ in honor of England, the _Arcadia_ as a compliment to Mr.

Cunard's Nova Scotia home, the _Caledonia_ in memory of Napier's Scotch ancestry, and the _Columbia_ out of regard to America. And in pa.s.sing it is rather interesting to recall that in homage to these pioneer s.h.i.+ps it has become a tradition of the Cunard Line to use names that terminate in the letter _a_ for all the s.h.i.+ps that have followed them. For, you must remember, it was this modest group of steam packets that were the ancestors of such magnificent boats as the _Mauretania_ and _Lusitania_.”

”There was some difference!” interrupted Stephen.