I Married Adventure

by Osa Johnson

  “Your father is a fine man, and my sympathy goes out to him for having an idle, mischievous wastrel for a son. How you will end up, only the good Lord Himself knows. There is nothing more to be said, sir. Good-bye.”

  Trudging homeward with his books, Martin couldn’t have said just what his feelings were; they were too mixed. To quit school was one thing, to be expelled was another, and there was a sick feeling someplace deep inside that was part defiance, part shame. Then, with a fresh surge of indignation, he asked himself how those composite snapshots of his were any worse than the comic valentines the kids bought at the five- and-ten and sent to teachers every year. He was also indifferent and yet plagued by a sense of failure: How was he going to make his father and mother see that he meant no harm? Lately they had been so confident of him, so proud.

  Arriving home, he heard his mother busy about the kitchen. Slipping in the front door, he went upstairs to his little darkroom and there carefully destroyed the few remaining prints and all the negatives of his too-successful attempt at composite photography. This done, he sat down and tried to think things out. He was through at school—no doubt of that! And then another thought struck him that left him cold: This whole thing might reflect not only on him but probably on his father too. The best thing would be to go away. Yes, there was nothing else left to do.

  That same afternoon saw him at the railway station, where he asked information about schedules and fares—one way—to New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago—any distant locale, as distant as his funds would permit. He found that his savings would take him to Chicago with a dollar and two cents left over.

  This time it was a little more difficult for John Johnson to convince his wife that it was all right for Martin to leave home. Mrs. Johnson felt that she should have questioned him on the night before. Perhaps she could have saved him all this. But John Johnson, out of a wisdom that had something to do with his own boyhood, said that saving a boy was not the way to let him grow strong. He had to follow his own bent and suffer his own consequences. And then he assured her that since Martin didn’t have much money, he’d soon be glad to come home again, that he probably wouldn’t be gone more than a few months.

  And so, the following morning, with his father and mother giving what passed for a cheerful consent, and with the only outward tears those shed by his young sister, Martin said good-bye to Independence.

  Chapter 3

  Martin’s last glimpse of the town in which so much of his boyhood had been spent was of the high school, and he made a vow that they’d be sorry some day for the way they had treated him. He’d show them that he wasn’t worthless and an idler and a wastrel or whatever it was the principal had called him. He might even make a name for himself somehow, and maybe a fortune besides. He’d show his father and mother, too. A lump rose in his throat as he thought of them. They had never asked to be shown.

  Huddling down in the dusty, red-plush seat of the day coach, he looked out at the bleak, wintry Kansas landscape and made himself think about Chicago. He tried to visualize the Loop, the elevated, the tall buildings. The lake, too, a hundred miles or so wide. He guessed it would be cold in Chicago in the dead of winter, and he wondered where he’d sleep, how he’d live. He fingered the dollar and two cents in his pocket—he had refused his father’s offer of help—and felt a little relieved. With that and the big box of lunch his mother had packed for him, he’d get along fine for a day or two.

  A couple of traveling salesmen occupied the seat just in front, and he heard them say something about the Chicago LaSalle Hotel. That might be a good place to get a job, he thought—for the winter, anyhow. He recalled the few times he had been to the Booth Hotel in Independence. Salesmen taking his father there for lunch had included him every now and then, and he had liked to sit in the lobby and watch strangers arriving with baggage, others leaving. It always gave him the feeling that he was part of their larger world. He grinned then as he thought of the big and realistic painting of an African lion that hung in the lobby. Someone had had the idea of putting vertical wooden bars in the heavy frame, and the effect was of a very fierce lion hanging in a cage on the wall. Foolish as the whole idea always seemed to Martin, nevertheless the picture had seemed a sort of symbol of adventure.

  Chicago was fully as cold as Martin had expected it to be. He went straight from the train to the LaSalle Hotel and applied for a job. Next he found himself in pillbox hat and brass buttons—a bell-hop. He liked the smart, often foreign-labeled luggage it was his job to carry in the wake of beautifully dressed men and women; he liked the quiet air of sophistication, the ease with which these people lived a large and full life. What he didn’t like was the unreasonable demands his job imposed upon him. Knowing hotel boys’ problems and sympathizing with them, he always, in later years, tipped far more than the customary amount, and sometimes more than he could afford.

  He wrote home with some attempt at regularity. His father always answered promptly and encouragingly, and one of these letters contained the mild suggestion that perhaps some whole-sale jewelry concern would give him a job, and might even give him an opportunity to learn engraving. As an apparent afterthought, John Johnson included at the bottom of his letter the name and address of a fine Chicago firm.

  Following his father’s advice, Martin applied for a job and was engaged on the spot at a surprisingly good wage. It wasn’t until many years later that he discovered the reason for this. His father, it seemed, had bought from the company something over a thousand souvenir spoons as an inducement to give his son a job.

  Martin’s talent for freehand drawing made engraving easy, and in a comparatively short time he had mastered its technique. And, as was the way with him—once a thing was mastered and its challenge gone—his interest was also gone. At lunch with some of his fellow employees one day, he talked idly of the foreign lands he would like to visit, and a discussion was started as to how far a person could travel and on how much. Martin searched his pockets and took out a total of $4.25.

  “If I wanted to,” he said thoughtfully, “I bet I could go to London and back on that.”

  There were hoots of derision from his coworkers, the bet was taken on, and in another week Martin was in New York on the first leg of his journey across the Atlantic.

  His family received a letter from him a few days later, written grandly from the Waldorf-Astoria. He had availed himself of a desk in a corner of the lobby and some embossed writing paper, and the impression the letter gave at first glance was that he was stopping at New York’s most fashionable hostelry, and that in the same magnificent style he would soon be on the high seas bound for England. A P.S. on the reverse side of the letter, however, added that he was to take twenty-eight horses, worth $250 each, to Liverpool.

  Martin landed in Liverpool barefooted and wearing a hastily contrived suit of gunny sacking. The sturdy shoes and good wool suit in which he had expected to step ashore were stolen from him the night before the boat docked. There had been four bloody fights with as many sailors in his efforts to recover these habiliments of respectibility and comfort, and just as he had his hands on them, a fifth sailor entered the salty bit of hazing and heaved shoes and suit overboard. Martin spent the night under the bridge.

  Liverpool, London, Brussels, washing dishes, loading cargo, mopping floors, he found that often he had to fight for his jobs and then fight to keep his money after he had earned it. Stowing away on a cattle boat, he returned to New York City.

  * * *

  —

  Once more Martin came home. He had sent no word, and as the train pulled into the station at Independence and he swung himself down the steps of the day coach, there was no one on the platform to meet him. This was the way he had wanted it. A cluster of people waiting in the shade for the northbound train glanced at him but without recognition. Harry St. John, one of the boys with whom he had gone to school, was among them, as was Charlie Kerr, t
he plump, jolly druggist, mopping his face as usual with a big white handkerchief.

  Cutting across lots, Martin became aware of the almost forgotten Kansas heat. His hands were moist and grimy, and on second thought he guessed his face was grimy, too. And then, of course, there was that day’s stubble of beard. No wonder the people hadn’t recognized him. A sharp pebble found the hole in the bottom of his shoe, and he let go with a bit of profanity that belonged more on the docks of Liverpool than in Independence.

  Over the tops of the dusty trees he saw the bell tower of the high school and remembered his vow not to return to Independence until he had made a name for himself, and a fortune. Anyhow, a small fortune.

  He glanced down at his battered canvas suitcase; the frayed cuffs of his trousers also caught his eye. No, he reflected wryly, he didn’t exactly have the look of a conquering hero, but he was heartened by the knowledge that his family would be glad to have him home anyway.

  He saw the familiar white house through the trees and quickened his stride. It was just dinner time, the midday meal in Kansas. His father would be home, Freda too, and the two would be sitting at the kitchen table and his mother putting good food in front of them.

  Circling the house, he went through the dusty alley and in the back gate, past the old barn and along the brick walk, then very quietly up the steps of the neat back porch. Here he knocked on the screen door, and then stood back a little.

  “Sorry to bother you, lady,” he said as his mother appeared at the door, “but could you give a poor bum a cup of coffee?”

  His mother sat down and cried, his father declared a holiday for himself, and Freda, now twelve and in the eighth grade, did the same.

  They watched him in silent awe as he bent to wash his hands at the sink, then crossed to the table, towering high above them. It just wasn’t possible that he could have grown so much, they said. Martin, with his knees once more under the kitchen table and a big dish of stew before him, said he thought they were all wrong about that. They had just forgotten how he looked before he went away. In his familiar bedroom, later, where everything was just as he had left it, he thought he would get out of his travel-worn suit and into some of his old clothes, only to find that he must have gained nearly four inches in height and nearly as much in width.

  John Johnson had a call from the store telling him that one of his best customers had sent a phonograph to be fixed; something was wrong with the spring, and he wanted it right away. Mr. Johnson was as close to profanity as it was possible for him to be. Today of all days. Why, the only thing you could do when one of those big springs got out of order was to send the machine back to the factory.

  Martin said maybe he could fix it. His father shook his head. There wasn’t a man born with enough strength in his hands to fix one of those springs. Martin said he’d still like to try it. A few minutes later he was striding into the jewelry store with his father. Quickly shaking hands with Dr. Brann and Opal Conrad, and brushing aside their exclamations of surprise at his unexpected return, he went to the familiar back room where the phonograph stood. Carefully, he studied the problem to find the best method of putting back into place the powerful coiled band of steel.

  Dr. Brann brought various tools that he thought might help. But Martin shook his head, and taking the coil in his hands, he first tested its resistance, then began winding it firmly and smoothly into place. Twice the lawless coil sprang alive from his hands, whipping and cutting its way free.

  Grimly eyeing the mass of tangled steel on the floor, Martin picked up a rag, wiped the sweat and blood from his palms, and began again.

  “You just can’t give up the first time on anything,” he told his father, who looked on helplessly and voiced incoherent protests against the attempt. Dr. Brann said testily that no man ever had been able to get one of those coils in place with his bare hands, and why was he so suddenly set on doing it?

  Martin couldn’t have told why. He smiled his brief thanks to Opal for the clean cloth she brought him and again began winding the coil. Pressing, winding, pressing, winding—the coil seemed suddenly to resign itself to an acknowledged master and slipped quietly into place.

  Wiping the sweat from his forehead and hands, Martin chanced to look at his father, and what he saw in the kindly, sensitive face brought more of a catch to his throat than any he’d known in years. Someday, somehow, he swore, he’d merit that pride.

  At the tender age of one, Osa started to train animal pets.

  Osa’s mother and father, William H. and Belle Leighty.

  Birthplace of Osa Johnson. Osa is on the porch (right) with her father and mother.

  At eleven, Martin was dreaming of running away from home on his career of adventure.

  Martin at the time of launching into business as a traveling “portrait photographer.”

  Osa at eight in a party dress.

  Martin, a flop as cook but now professional as traveler, surveys Honolulu from the Snark.

  The crew of the Snark at Penduffryn. Left to right: Tehei, Wada, Charmian and Jack London, Martin, Ernest, and Henry.

  Osa dressed in Hawaiian costume, singing songs of the natives.

  One of America’s pioneer motion-picture houses, Martin’s theater at Independence.

  Mr. and Mrs. Martin Johnson after their marriage, on May 15, 1910.

  Osa and Martin as “troupers,” on a Colorado railroad platform during their first lecture tour.

  Chapter 4

  Two months passed, and Martin tried with everything that was in him to adapt himself to the confining routine of his father’s jewelry store. He sat on the high watchmaker’s bench, a glass screwed in his eye, his movements restricted to a finger or two, his vision, if not his thoughts, narrowed down to an escapement pin or the hairspring of a lady’s watch. He designed monograms and made, in the bowls of spoons, freehand engravings of the city’s most important buildings. He got the knack of handling phonograph springs, and wondered at his own and his father’s pride over the first one he had fixed. He sold engagement rings, wedding rings, and silver baby cups, and secretly and ashamedly he was miserable.

  That he was of interest to the younger set of the town for a while because of his vagabonding was of no consequence to him. He couldn’t even be persuaded to talk about those four years. His only impression was of great masses of humanity, dependent on one another, defeating one another, and of men’s struggle, often cruel, for supremacy over other men. He wouldn’t care if he never saw another big city as long as he lived.

  Several times his father had felt him out about expanding the business. He broached the subject again one chilly evening in the fall. They had locked up the store for the day and were on their way home for supper.

  “We could rent the vacant store next door and carry the finest supply of photographic stuff in the whole state.” He paused. “What do you think, Martin?”

  “Uh, yes. Sure. Sounds like a fine idea.”

  “You see, I was thinking—as long as you don’t like fiddling around with watches and things—”

  “Its just that I’m no good at it. Anybody can see that.”

  “Well, photography’s your line. I thought we could have a fine darkroom at the back, too. Do developing. You take charge of the whole thing.”

  “That sounds great.”

  “And I was thinking we could have a new sign made to go clear across both stores, and it would say Johnson and Son.”

  “Johnson and Son. That sounds good.”

  “I think so. A regular partnership, and fifty-fifty on the profits.”

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t take what I didn’t earn.”

  “You’d earn it, Martin, don’t worry. Why, people who never go near a jewelry store, except maybe at Christmas time or weddings, would be coming in from your side of the sto
re to buy souvenir spoons, baby pins, and things.”

  “Well, I guess I hadn’t thought about that part of it.”

  Mrs. Johnson was in the kitchen getting supper ready; Martin said something sure smelled good, then wandered into the living room. Freda was there, poring over the fashion section of a magazine. Tall for her age, flaxen-haired and graceful, she was beginning to have beaus, and Martin, as well as checking up on these, teased her unmercifully. Tonight, however, he paced the room.

  Johnson and Son. Johnson and Son.

  His sister giggled and asked him what he was mumbling about. He denied mumbling. Then, as she went into the kitchen to help with supper, he said it aloud.

  “Johnson and Son.”

  Idly, he leafed through the magazine Freda had left in her chair, when suddenly, with an impact that was almost physical, an article by Jack London met his eyes. It told of a proposed seven-year trip around the world in a forty-four-foot boat.

  The story told, in Jack London’s own words, of how the ship, though small, was to be the finest of its kind ever built. Only the most carefully selected woods and finest metals were going into its construction, and the most skilled of craftsmen had been employed to do this work. The article went on to say that when finished, this small but perfect ship was to carry Jack London, his wife, Charmian, and a crew of four on a trip without schedule or predetermined route to distant lands far removed from the sea-lanes of regular travel. And then Martin read with astonishment that one of the crew of four was to be someone in the United States still unknown, who had only to write a letter to Jack London sufficiently convincing to win him a place in the crew.