CHAPTER II
My First Job as an Operator
JUST before the Christmas holidays my father, who was the New York manager of the Singer Crude Oil Engine Company, told mother and me that he had to make a business trip to Nicaragua.
There was nothing exciting in this announcement for dad went off on business trips quite often, but when he said that he would take us with him and we’d go by steamer I immediately sat up and took notice, for I had wanted to make a sea voyage ever since I could remember.
It may seem a little queer but although I lived almost within sight of the old Atlantic and picked up messages right along from coast liners, the only trip I had ever made was on a little steam launch that takes unwary pleasure victims from Asbury Park outbound toward Europe for about ten miles, or until every one’s18
