Free The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt Page A

would care to go. I couldn't hear everything, but a few words were undeniable. "Doddering fat—" and then a word I wasn't yet familiar with in English. "Captain Cowbrains," was the expression that followed from the mouth of one of the sailors. I moved in closer to listen.
    "I am certain we could take him. We've got a majority."
    The sailors, as luck would have it, were planning a mutiny onboard my very ship. The mechanics of such an uprising fascinated me. These sailors were gruff sorts. One short, the other tremendous and no doubt good for taking out at least six men. His arms were as thick as my thigh. The scruff of his beard seemed as though it alone could wreak plenty of damage. The men compiled evidence, a list of their crew's grievances. I listened.
    "The rats! Even if we were to get four hours off, most of us can't sleep for the rats occupying our berths."
    "Inhumane hours."
    "Like dogs."
    "Filthy berths."
    "And not enough clean water."
    "The rats."
    "That coal shoveler whose hand got pinched off between the teeth of an engine's gears, picked like a crab."
    "John Templar," the other man said. "Awful!"
    "Nathaniel Greevey!"
    "Lost overboard, and the captain refused to turn back."
    "Moldy food."
    "And nearly never enough."
    "Not by half."
    "And the worst part: our pay dips to new lows, far below the set rate, and all the while the captain chuckles. 'That's how the system works, boys!' Which system is that, I asked him. 'Capitalism! Capitalism!' he told me, laughing. 'Ever heard of it?'"
    I hadn't even reached America yet, and already I was learning much.
    The uprising was quelled by the officers onboard and the instigators were jailed until we reached New York, where, I heard, they were headed for a terrifying prison called the Tombs. The name made me fear that they'd be buried alive, interred by capitalism. It was a lesson I wouldn't forget.
    As we approached our port I was surprised to learn that Manhattan is an island. The entire contents of the ship emptied out onto the decks as we entered the harbor. Among my fellow passengers, hundreds of them, a hush descended. We held the silence while our ship approached the tip of the island. A man standing beside me began to say, "
Où est le ...
" but that was all of the question he was allowed to get out before his wife and a number of nearby passengers hissed a quick "
Silence!
" They wanted nothing to distract from the wonder of this new land.
    New York was a volcano erupting before us. With every gush of hot lava a new pier or courthouse or bridge took shape. The city cleared its lungs and a furnace let loose a great belch of black industrial smoke. The city began to scream as the rope pulley carrying a square cord of lumber to be used in dock construction gave way and fell to the cobbled street with a terrific crash. Everywhere things were changing, working, scheming, oiling, negotiating, screaming, and I felt like yelling, "All right, New York. I am here. Let us begin!" but I feared the displeasure of my fellow travelers. I disembarked at Castle Garden, sprinting down the gangway ahead of the others, and begin we did.
    Certainly there must have been at some time a young woman or man in a more dire situation than the one I then found myself in, though at that moment I could not imagine who he or she may have been.
    I had the four centimes. I had taken an orange from the ship's breakfast table and kept it tucked in my pocket, its roundness creating an awkward bulge. And though my hunger grew, I put myself on strict rations, thinking to save two-thirds of the orange for the day after and the day after that. But as I walked through the city I did pull the fruit from my coat any number of times and, raising it to my nose, I inhaled deeply as if perhaps I could derive some nutritional value from its fragrance.
    Still within view of the
Saturnia
I encountered a police officer and thought to ask him for directions to Edison's laboratory. "Pardon me, sir"—my English was, I