Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns | Page 8

neighborhood, of course, were of draft
age; but, being longshore bred, they naturally preferred salt water
service. So they enlisted before the time came for them to answer the
call of their several draft boards.
The interest of our four friends, and of Seven Knott even, was not
entirely centered in this patriotic duty of urging others into the service.

Their release from duty might end any day. Under ordinary
circumstances the chum would have been assigned before this to some
patrol vessel, or the like, until their own ship, the Colodia, made port.
Mr. Minnette, however, was trying to place them on the Kennebunk,
the new superdreadnaught, for a short cruise. If he succeeded the
friends might be obliged to pack their kits and leave home again at
almost any hour. The Kennebunk was fitting out in a port not fifty miles
from Seacove.
Meanwhile the chums were "having the time of their young sweet
lives," Al Torrance observed more than once. The home folks had
never before considered these rather harum-scarum boys of so much
importance as now that they were in the Navy and becoming real "Old
Salts." From Doctor Morgan down to Ikey's youngest brother the
relatives and friends of the quartette treated them with much
consideration.
To tell the truth it had not been patriotism that had carried Ikey
Rosenmeyer and his friends into the Navy. At that time the United
States was not in the war, and the four friends had thought little of the
pros and cons of the world struggle.
They thought they had had enough school, and there was no steady and
congenial work for them about Seacove. Entering the Navy had been a
lark in the offing.
As soon as they had joined, they found that they had entered another
school, and one much more severe and thorough than the Seacove High
School. They were learning something pretty nearly all the time, both
in the training school and aboard the Colodia. And there was much to
learn.
However, Whistler and Al took the work more seriously than their
younger mates. They were studying gunnery, and hoped to get into the
gun crew of the Kennebunk for practice if they were fortunate enough
to cruise on that ship. Just at present Frenchy and Ikey Rosenmeyer
were more engaged in getting all the fun possible out of existence.

The thing that delighted the latter most was the way in which his father
treated him. Mr. Rosenmeyer had been a stern parent, and had opposed
Ikey's desire to enlist in the Navy. He always declared he needed the
boy to help in the store and to take out orders. Ikey had got so that he
fairly hated the store and its stock in trade. Pigs feet and sauerkraut and
dill pickles were the bane of his life.
Now that he was at home on leave, Mr. Rosenmeyer would not let Ikey
help at all in the store. If a customer came in, the fat little storekeeper
heaved himself up from his armchair and bade Ikey sit still.
"Nein! It iss not for you, Ikey. Don't bodder 'bout the store yet. We haf
changed de stock around, anyvay, undt you could not find it, p'r'aps,
vot de lady vants. Tell us again, Ikey, apout shootin' de camouflage off
de German raider-poat, de Graf von Posen. Mebby-so de lady ain't
heardt apout it yet. I didn't see it in de paper meinselluf."
So Ikey, thus urged, spun the most wonderful yarns regarding his
adventures; and he was not obliged to "draw the long bow"; for the
experiences of him and his three friends had been exciting indeed.
Mr. Rosenmeyer had become as thoroughly patriotic as he once had
been pro-German. It was a great cross to him now that he could not
learn to speak English properly. But German names he abhorred and
German signs he would no longer allow in the store. He even put a
newly-printed sign over the sauerkraut barrel which read: "Liberty
Cabbage."
Into the store on a misty morning rolled Frenchy Donahue in his most
pronounced Old Salt fashion. Frenchy had acquired such a sailorish roll
to his walk, that Al Torrance hinted more than once that the Irish lad
could not get to sleep at night now that he was ashore until his mother
went out and threw several buckets of water against his bedroom
window.
"Hey, Ikey! what you think?" called Frenchy. "Channel bass are
running. Whistler and Torry are going out in the Sue Bridger. What
d'you know about that? Bridger's let 'em have his cat for the day. Never

was known to do such a thing before," and Frenchy chuckled. "Oh, boy!
aren't we having things soft just now? Want to go fishing, Ikey?" Ikey
favored his friend with