A Boy of the Dominion Part 3

"Pardon," he asked, b.u.mping the man as he sat down.

"Eh?"

"I apologized for knocking your arm," said Joe, flushing at the bluntness of this individual.

"Ah, me lad, thank ye," came the hearty answer. "Only it sort of took me by surprise. I ain't used to overmuch politeness; we don't seem to get much time where I come from. Been out before?"

Joe shook his head, and asked for the plate of meat and bread and b.u.t.ter.

"Then you're green?"

Joe smiled. "As gra.s.s," he said briskly.

"Going to work or to play?" asked this stranger, as he stuffed a huge piece of cake into his mouth.

"Work--got to; I'd rather, any day."

"Farming?"

"That's my intention," declared Joe, helping himself liberally.

"Then you'll like it. I'll be able to put you up to the ropes. You're going out just at the right time, too, for it'll be fine weather. Tea, me lad?"

Joe accepted with pleasure, and began to look about him. People were beginning to swarm down into this species of dining-hall, and they presented all sorts and descriptions. There was a party of men shepherded by an official of the Salvation Army, a dozen or more young married couples, and as many women going out to join their husbands. A small regiment of Scandinavians pa.s.sed by, and were followed by a crew of Russians.

"Don't look as if they'd had so much as a bath between 'em, do they?"

grinned his neighbour. "But they've been travelling these many days, and most like have crossed over from the continent during the night.

They're the boys fer work. Give me a Russian or a Scandinavian on the farm. They earn their dollars and don't grumble. Now, lad, if you've not been aboard one of these ships afore, you'd do well to settle your bunk and take possession of it. There's a couple of likely youngsters along here that we know of. They've come from our part of the world in England, and they're decent fellows. Maybe you could pitch upon a cabin fer three. If not, you'll have to sleep in the bunks out in the open. Jim and Claude," he called, "here's a mate fer ye; get right along and fix your bunks."

Joe liked the look of the two young fellows instantly. They were about his own age, and better dressed than many. He exchanged a smile with them, then, having finished a meal which was excellent, to say the least of it, and undoubtedly plentiful, he accompanied his two new friends to the sleeping deck. Here were rows of canvas bunks suspended on steel uprights and cross pieces, the whole looking clean and compact and comfortable. At the vessel's sides were cabins of considerable size, and, since they were amongst the first on the scene, they had no difficulty in securing one to accommodate the three.

"We'll be fine and comfortable in there," said one of the young fellows named Claude. "We'll bring our things along just to prove possession.

Shouldn't leave anything about if I were you; for there might be a thief aboard."

Joe took the warning to heart, and so that there could be no danger of a robbery where he was concerned, went to the purser promptly and there deposited his banker's draft, his father's precious letter, and the majority of the loose cash he possessed.

"Now let's have a look round, and see if we can do anything to help,"

said Jim, leading the way to the upper deck. Here they found a seething crowd, for the ship was packed with emigrants, to say nothing of her complement of first- and second-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers. She presented, in fact, a good-sized township, with facilities for dealing with every cla.s.s of business, of which catering was not the least important. In the centre of the crowds of emigrants our hero was soon attracted to a railed-in s.p.a.ce wherein was a ma.s.s of sand, and in this a number of children were digging. Elsewhere men lounged and smoked, while women sat on their worldly possessions, many of them looking forlorn and lost.

"Give them two days to settle down, and all will be happy and contented," said one of the stewards who happened to be pa.s.sing.

"We're going to have a smooth crossing, so that will help."

He pushed his way through the throng and dived down below. A stewardess followed him, and others came bustling after her. Officials now were engaged in inspecting the tickets of the pa.s.sengers, while a summons brought the emigrants in a long waiting queue to a table set in the dining-hall, where one of the doctors with an a.s.sistant took careful stock of them, particularly to observe whether or no each person had been recently vaccinated.

Joe was glad to creep into his comfortable bunk that night, as it had been a day of movement; but a good sleep did wonders for him, and when he rose on the following morning he was as fresh as paint.

"How do yer like it?" asked the pleasant fellow, close to whom he had sat on the previous day when he descended for a meal; for, following a habit on emigrant steamers, he took the same place at table.

"There's something interesting all the time," said Joe. "This sea air gives one an appet.i.te."

"Then peg in, lad," came the hearty advice. "Here's tea; help yerself.

Here's eggs and bacon, or will you have sausages?"

The meal was an eye opener. No doubt there were many poor fellows aboard who had not sat down to such a breakfast for many a long day, for we must recollect that emigrants are not always prosperous when they set out from the sh.o.r.es of Old England. It made Joe wonder of what size was the storeroom on this ship, and how it was that the purser or his a.s.sistants managed to gauge what would be required _en route_.

"Now you jest come along on deck with me and the missus and have a yarn while I smoke. Do yer smoke?" asked the man who had been so friendly.

"Not yet," was Joe's blushing answer.

"And a good thing too. Not that I'm against it, seeing that I smoke hard, and most of the day. What's yer name?"

"Joe Bradley."

"Mine's Sam Fennick. Sam's enough, and Joe'll do fer you. You ain't been out before, you say. Who's sent you?"

Joe was a confiding fellow, and told him his story; for Sam seemed an excellent friend and listened with interest.

"What'll you do?" he asked. "You'll land up in seven days, or perhaps eight, at Quebec. There you'll go before the emigration authorities, and will be examined again by the doctor. If all's well, you can start right off on your own, providing you've sufficient dollars in your pocket to make 'em sure you won't be a pauper. Paupers ain't what Canada wants. She wants men with a little cash, not much--just enough to keep the wolf away for a few days. But above everything, they must be workers. And the Government over there won't have slackers. She deports 'em double quick. Well, what'll you do?"

"Look out for a farm," said Joe; "but where, beats me."

"Then jest you think of New Ontario. It's the coming country. Now, see here, mate; I'll give yer a piece of advice. You get along down from Montreal. Accept a job on a farm, and stay there till the winter.

Then have a turn with the forest rangers. They don't do much in the winter, it's true; but a few are kept going. Or you might go along with a gang to a lumber camp. It'll keep you from rusting. Next spring you could work again on a farm, and come the following cold weather you ought to be able to look to yourself. We're off to seek a location in this here New Ontario."

"Then why couldn't I come with you?" asked Joe, for he liked the look of this Sam Fennick.

"And so you shall, but not at first. It'll take us best part of two months to find a likely location. Then we've to make a heap of arrangements, so I doubt our getting to at the job till late in the year. So you'd better fix elsewhere; you can come along when we're ready."

It may be imagined that Joe spent many an hour discussing matters with Sam, and soon began to long for Canada to heave in sight. However, there were many miles of sea stretching between the ship and the Gulf of St. Laurence, and they were not pa.s.sed before he was involved in another adventure.

CHAPTER III

Volunteers called for

It was rather late on the third morning of the voyage when Joe had his attention attracted to one particular portion of the huge ship in which he had taken pa.s.sage to Canada. Not that this one particular portion had escaped his notice; for, like the majority of young fellows nowadays, our hero was certainly quick at observation.

"Them things hum and squeak and flicker most of the day," said Sam Fennick, withdrawing a somewhat dilapidated brier pipe from his mouth and pointing the bowl at a deck house situated on the upper deck.

"What's it all about, youngster?"

"Marconigrams coming and going," answered Joe; for the little house alluded to was given up to that recent wonderful invention which allows of messages being sent across s.p.a.ce, without the aid and intervention of the customary wires. "The young officer there used to live in our neighbourhood. I once thought of becoming an operator myself, and, in fact, had many lessons from him."

"You had?" asked Sam, staring at Joe; for every hour that the two conversed revealed to Sam that Joe was a little better than the ordinary. Indeed, it is only reasonable that we should be fair, and admit that in coming to such a conclusion Sam was strictly right.

After all, emigrants are not made up of the most intelligent or of the highest educated of our population. Too often they are men and women seeking a new life because of the failure of that which they had previously followed; or they are young people with a fair education, and with little else. In Joe's case, thanks to his own restless ambition, and to the fact that his father had devoted many an hour to him, the lad was acquainted with much unknown to the average emigrant.

And here was something. To Sam a marconigram was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl; he didn't precisely know what it was, whether it had actual shape, nor what was its colour.

"Eh?" he asked. "You know the chap as works up there? And you've had lessons? What's a marconigram, anyhow?"