Chapter FIVE: A New Friend

In the morning, there was no time to make further plans, as the two friends had promised each other before they finally dropped off to sleep. They were awakened by the sound of Cookie’s voice as the little man leaned in the door of their cabin and cried, “Up and at ’em, boys, up and at ’em! It’s five o’clock, and that’s the time to rise and shine!”

Still sleepy-eyed, Sandy and Jerry tumbled out of their bunks and stood looking at Cookie with blank expressions on their faces. Cookie returned their stare with a toothless grin.

“Don’t rightly know where you are, hey, boys? Well, you’re aboard the _James Kennedy_ and right now we’re out in the middle of Lake Superior.” He cocked a twinkling eye at them and flashed another one of his smiles, and the youths were heartened to find someone, at least, who seemed to want to be friendly with them.

“Go ahead and wash up,” Cookie said. “Be in the galley in fifteen minutes and I’ll have your breakfasts ready. In fact, you might just have the time to go topside and see the sun come up.”

Then he was gone.

Sandy and Jerry obediently headed for the washroom. There, they sloshed cold water on their faces and brushed their teeth. That made them feel better. By the time they had grasped the handrail of the ladder leading abovedeck, they had recovered their normal high spirits.

“Shucks,” Jerry said. “I don’t see what we got so riled up about last night. We’ll be in Buffalo in plenty of time to warn Mr. Kennedy.”

“You’re right, Jerry,” Sandy said. “That’s what I was thinking, too. Funny how you forget that a boat can make good time because it’s moving in a straight line. Driving in an automobile, Mr. Kennedy will have to go through six or seven states.”

“Sure. And don’t forget that a boat keeps moving all the time, like a railroad train. In a car, you have to stop to get some sleep or eat.”

It was still dark as they came out on deck. Far out in front of them, they could see the bulk of the forward superstructure—the navigation bridge and the deck gang’s quarters—rearing out of the black. Beneath their feet they felt the steady throbbing of the _James Kennedy_’s engines. All around them, for miles and miles, stretched the flat, black surface of Lake Superior. Ahead of them, for they were sailing due east, there was a light rosy glow that heralded the rising of the sun. Even then, as they looked, a line of horizon was beginning to take shape.

“Isn’t it something?” Sandy whispered. “Here we are, thousands of miles inland. Yet, it’s just like sailing on an ocean.” Sandy Steele stretched his neck and stood on his tiptoes and turned slowly around. “You can’t see anything but water,” he said.

“Boy, what a country!” Jerry James breathed.

The two youths fell silent. Carefully, they looked away from each other, for neither one wished to betray the strong emotions that held him at that moment. Their feelings were a mixture of pride and love of country and a certain awe in the presence of its beauty and grandeur.

“Hey,” Jerry said, suddenly breaking the spell. “What’s that light out there?”

He pointed and Sandy Steele’s eyes followed his finger.

“I’ll bet it’s another lake boat,” Sandy said. “Sure! That’s what it is. And there’s another one. There must be a half dozen of them, Jerry.”

Jerry James chuckled. “Say,” he said, “this lake’s a regular freeway, isn’t it?”

Sandy nodded. “I think I hear Cookie calling us, Jerry,” he said. “Let’s go below.”

On their way down, Sandy went on, “We’d better keep what we know about Captain West a secret. We’ll wait until we get to Buffalo to telephone Mr. Kennedy. Of course, if we’re delayed or a storm comes up, we’ll have to think of something else. Who knows? Maybe we’ll stop in Detroit or some other Great Lakes port, and we can call him from there.”

“Right,” Jerry said, and then, “Hey, do you smell what I smell?”

Sandy did, indeed, and the eyes of both of them went wide with wonder at the sight of the breakfast Cookie had set up for them on a tiny table at the end of his gleaming, spotless, aluminum galley.

“Eat hearty, boys,” Cookie said, bobbing his bald head in the direction of the ham and eggs and stacks of toast and jars of jelly. “Plenty more where that came from.”

“Boy,” Jerry said, “do you always eat like this?”

“On the Kennedy boats, you do,” Cookie said. “Of course, almost all of the lake boats feed good. But there ain’t any to compare with the old white K Line.” Cookie’s face darkened. “Now, if you was aboard a Chadwicker, I don’t think you’d be chowing down so good.”

“How’s that, Cookie?” Jerry said, squaring himself away to attack his fourth egg.

“Humph!” Cookie grunted, as he started to sharpen a long thin knife. After a series of expert, clashing strokes against the sharpening steel he held in his hand, he bent over a haunch of bacon on his board and began to slice it down. “Chadwick’s the cheapest line on the lakes, that’s why,” he went on. “And I ought to know. Sailed on the Chadwickers for five years, I did. And not a night went by that I didn’t have to count the eggs and hand the keys to the icebox over to the skipper.”

Jerry chortled at the notion of a crestfallen Cookie locking up his beloved icebox for the night. “Boy,” he said, forgetting himself, “that’s one more reason why we’ve got to stop Mr. Kennedy from selling—”

Sandy Steele’s foot moved swiftly under the table, and Jerry clutched his ankle with a surprised expression of pain on his face.

“Hey, that hurt!” he started to say, but then, remembering their secret, he flushed in embarrassment.

Cookie had whirled and was looking at them with an expression of bewilderment.

“Selling?” he repeated. “Did you say selling?”

“Oh, no,” Jerry choked, his face getting redder and redder. “I said _sailing_. You see,” he rushed on frantically, trying to think of a good story, “what I really meant was....”

Poor Jerry. He had begun to flounder, because he wasn’t used to the strain of making up a good lie on the spur of the moment. But just then one of the crewmen came to his rescue.

“Hey, Cookie,” he said irritably as he poked his head inside the galley. “When do we eat? I’ve been sitting out here for five minutes.”

To the great relief of both Jerry and Sandy, Cookie instantly forgot his question and turned to covering his grill with sizzling slices of bacon and gently popping eggs.

“All right, boys,” he said. “Turn to.”

For the next hour or so, Sandy and Jerry flew back and forth between the mess hall and the galley, bringing the breakfasts of the crewmen and clearing the dirty dishes away. Then, when breakfast was over, Cookie set them to work washing the dishes. When this was done, Cookie opened a cupboard and took out a bucket and mop together with a long-handled, T-shaped instrument that looked something like a window washer’s rubber blade.

“Know what this is, Jerry?” he said, grinning.

Jerry James shook his head.

“This here’s what they call a squeegee. And she’s going to be your sweetheart until we get to Buffalo.”

Sandy laughed at the look of displeasure on his chum’s face, as Cookie gave them a demonstration of how the squeegee is handled. First he filled the bucket with soapy water. This he sloshed over the deck in the mess hall. Then, with the motion of a man raking a lawn, he worked the squeegee across the deck. The rubbery blade made squeaking noises as it moved.

“That’s how the squeegee got its name,” Cookie said. “Hear it? Squee ... gee ... squee ... gee....” He winked at Sandy. “Now, you, Sandy, you go over the deck with this mop after Jerry’s finished. Do the same in the galley. And remember, you do this after every meal.”

“Every meal!” Jerry exclaimed.

“That’s right, boy. A ship’s galley has to be as clean as a hospital. You’ve got men living aboard ship in close quarters and you can’t take any chances with dirt and germs. Now, turn to!”

They turned to.

And by the time they had gotten the mess hall and the galley sparkling again to Cookie’s liking, it was time for lunch! They had to go through the same process again, and Jerry James moaned, “Honestly, Sandy, the water in this bucket is probably the only water we’ll see until we get to Buffalo!”

But the second time they went through their round of chores, they moved with more speed because they were more practiced. By a little after four o’clock, they had finished. Cookie ran an approving eye over their handiwork, and said, “Good job, boys. What say we go topside and have a talk while I smoke my pipe?”

They were only too glad to agree.

Up above, they noticed that Captain West was standing at the starboard rail, talking to his mate, Mr. Briggs. The skipper scowled when he saw the boys. He spoke quickly to his mate, and Mr. Briggs hurried over to them. As he came up, Sandy saw that he did not look so fierce by daylight as he had seemed at night. In fact, his chin was a trifle weak and he had the worried air of a man who suffers from indigestion.

“You,” Mr. Briggs said, aiming a dirty fingernail at Sandy. “Skipper wants you.”

Sandy nodded and followed him to Captain West.

“Ain’t I seen you and your friend somewheres before?” the captain asked.

Sandy nodded. He knew that he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help himself. He was not fond of Captain West.

The skipper’s eyes flashed and his face reddened and his hand came up involuntarily. But he held it back, and snarled, “When I ask a question, I want it answered out loud! And when you talk to me, you say ’Sir.’ Now, answer my question.”

“Yes, sir,” Sandy said evenly. “You saw us in front of my father’s testing station.”

“Your father’s testing—” Captain West began to repeat, puzzled. But then his face cleared, and he said, “So that’s it! Certainly, your name’s Steele, too.” Now, a look of cunning crept into his face. He softened his voice. “Young fellow, perhaps I was a bit hard on you last night. Step over here to the rail for a moment. I want to ask you a few questions.”

Sandy followed him.

“Well, well, well,” Captain West said, pretending to be jovial. “You certainly are a chip off the old block.”

Sandy flushed, and the skipper mistook it for a sign of pleasure. Actually, Sandy was disgusted by the man’s attempt to fool him.

“Now, my boy,” Captain West went on. “When did you see your old, ahem, see your father last?”

“Just before we came aboard,” Sandy said stiffly.

“Hmmm. Your father didn’t, ah, that is to say, did your father say anything about—”

Sandy saw his chance and interrupted swiftly. “Excuse me, sir, if you mean did he mention you, the fact is that he did.”

“Ah?”

“He said,” Sandy told Captain West in all truthfulness, “he said that you were one of the Kennedy Line’s finest skippers.”

“Well, well,” Captain West said, plainly pleased. “That was very kind of your father. Did he, ah, by the way, say anything about his work?”

“In what way, sir?” Sandy asked innocently. For a moment, Captain West hemmed and hawed, but then, probably because he was satisfied that Sandy knew nothing of the important information which he was disloyally keeping from his employer, he dropped the question. He sent Sandy back to Cookie and Jerry with the promise that if the two youths worked well enough in the galley, he would bring them topside for the return trip.

Jerry eyed Sandy questioningly upon his return, but Sandy merely shrugged and squatted alongside Cookie to listen to the old man talk.

“You see, boys,” Cookie said, waving his pipe in the air, “we’re within sight of land again. That shoreline way ahead, to either side, means that we’re getting close to the Soo.”

“The Soo?”

“Yup, the Sault Sainte Marie. They call it the Soo, though, probably because nobody but the Frenchies can pronounce it right. That’s where Lake Superior empties into Lake Huron through the St. Mary’s River. That’s where the Soo Locks are, boys. If you’re headed downlake, they float you down to a lower level. If you’re headed uplake, they raise you up.”

“Like the Panama Canal?” Sandy asked.

“Right. Now, you take us. We’re going downlake. So, once we’ve entered Lake Huron from Lake Superior, we can keep on going down Huron and through the Detroit River into Lake Erie, past Detroit and Cleveland and on to Buffalo. Or else, we can sort of double back, head west, that is, and sail through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Michigan and hit Milwaukee and Chicago.”

Both Sandy and Jerry shook their heads in wonder.

“You know, Cookie,” Sandy said, “it’s hard for us to get used to the idea of Chicago and Milwaukee and Detroit and Cleveland as port cities. We’re from the West, and when we think of a port we think of San Francisco or Los Angeles. Or, if it’s in the East, we think of Boston or New York.”

“Well, that’s only natural. You think of the ocean. But let me tell you, boys, some of these Great Lakes ports are among the biggest in the world! Ocean or no ocean.”

Cookie removed his pipe from his mouth and pointed with the stem at the boat that trailed the _James Kennedy_ about a half mile to port. It was not quite half as long as the _Kennedy_, though it seemed to be about as wide. Its decks were loaded with railroad cars.

“See that?” Cookie said. “That’s a car ferry. You won’t see ships like that hardly anywhere else in the world. It’s even a bit out of place on Lake Superior. Usually, they use ’em more on Lake Michigan to carry the new cars from the factories in Detroit. And this,” Cookie went on, pointing his pipe at the long row of hatches separating the _Kennedy_’s stern and bow superstructures, “this is something you’ll never see outside of the Lakes. Put these long boats on the ocean, boys, and those deep ocean swells would break them in two.

“But they’re just right for the Lakes. It’s what your biology teacher might call a perfect example of adaptation. Lake freighters are built for just two reasons, boys—to carry bulk cargoes like ore or coal or grain and to fit through the narrow locks at the Soo. They can build them as long as a city block, but they can’t be too wide or too deep.”

“Do they have storms on the Lakes, Cookie?” Jerry asked.

Cookie’s eyes danced merrily and he jabbed his pipe at Jerry as he said, “Storms, hey! Let me tell you, boy, there’s plenty of rough weather around the Great Lakes. Four months out of the year they’re empty, the weather’s so bad. That’s why the boats are built to load and unload so fast. Sometimes you don’t get more than seven months in a season. Rest of the time, the boats stay in port.”

Cookie puffed thoughtfully in his pipe. He glanced downward. Below them, the dark lake water flowed swiftly past the _James Kennedy_’s hull.

“When a lake boat sinks,” Cookie said somberly, “there ain’t many survivors, if any.”

“Why not, Cookie?” Sandy asked, surprised.

“That’s pretty cold water down there, that’s why. You don’t last very long in that water if it happens to be early spring or fall. I’ve seen ice floating in these waters as late as it is now.” He shivered a bit. “Cold water, boys. I remember once a feller I knew broke his leg and we didn’t have no medicines aboard to help ease the pain while we was setting it. So we just hauled up a bucket of cold Lake Superior water and stuck his leg in it a while. By gum, it got numb in no time. He didn’t feel a thing until after we’d got him all fixed up with a splint and bandages.”

Cookie got to his feet. “That’s one reason I never bothered to learn how to swim.” He looked at the sky. “Well, time to go below again. We ought to hit the Soo just before dark.”

He arose and walked over to the leeward, or starboard, side of the ship and began emptying his pipe. He leaned far over the rail to make sure that none of the still-glowing coals would land aboard ship.

As he did, a long, gathering swell from the wake of the car ferry that had overtaken and passed the _James Kennedy_ struck the ship’s port stern with savage force. The _Kennedy_ heeled slightly to starboard, and poor little Cookie, knocked off balance by the force of the blow, slithered over the rail.

With a long, wailing cry of despair, the little man plunged into the freezing-cold waters of Lake Superior.