He had been kept six weeks on the oyster boat, had been forced to bunk with negroes and common roustabouts. After he became sober, I fancy the owners of the boat saw that they had captured the wrong man, and would gladly have gotten rid of him. They did not dare approach land lest their entire crew escape; at last he was put aboard a passing boat and sent to Washington. He was over six feet high, of fine physique, about thirty-two years of age. We did not find it easy to get clothing suitable for such a person. The day came when he was able to attend the services at the Mission. He kneeled at the altar, and we hoped he was converted. We greatly wanted him to bring suit against the oyster men, but that would have made his case public, and he did not desire that. He readily secured a place on one of our city papers as the purveyor of automobile news, but when pay day came he got drunk and fell down the stairs and broke his arm. His system was in bad condition and he was obliged to go to the free ward of Providence Hospital. We now wrote to his family, and his mother came for him in a big touring car from Philadelphia and took him home, but the exposure and dissipation had done their perfect work, and he only lived a few months. He seemed, from all accounts, a truly penitent man, but only at the judgment day shall we know whether he entered into the rest prepared for the children of God only.
Another experience in the winter of 1911 gave us a still lower opinion of the oyster men of the lower Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Hall telephoned me, one cold slippery day, “Do come down at once, the oyster men are in. Mr. Kline is away, and the men are in bad condition.” I went at once. The halls were full of them; many had only overalls, shirt and shoes without stockings; they looked frozen. I ordered coffee and rolls at my expense till I could call help. I feared if I opened the clothing room they would raid it, so great were their needs.
It was too slippery for women to venture out, so I began phoning to members of the Lutheran Church whom I believed would come. One man in a bank said, “I am not a clerk. I can't go out this kind of weather for that class of men.” I replied, “I saw you at communion last Sunday, and I venture you promised your God to serve wherever you were needed; here is your first call.” “I shall come at once and bring three other members of the church with me.”