Suddenly, we’re at sea! The great ice-filled schooner Tuscany noses through the waves. The Tuscany arrives in Savannah, and Tom goes to work at once. He sets up a little stage right on the dock, gathers a crowd, and pulls aside a curtain to reveal Wyeth, stripped to the waist, his cheeks puffed out as if he were straining under a great weight, carrying a huge Chinese lacquer chest. He sets the chest down, unlocks it, opens it, and reveals a gemlike piece of ice inside. The crowd is delighted. Ice! Here in Savannah! They clamor to buy. “Boss, the ice it’s a go like hotcakes,” Tom reports to Tudor.
On the sea again, the Tuscany is now bound for Cuba. During a storm, Tom Piper entertains the crew with some snappy tunes on the ship’s piano, and Wyeth, alone in his cabin, falls into a contemplative mood and plucks a harp he has brought along. At last, they arrive in Havana, and Tom goes to work again, but just as Tom and Tudor are about to conclude a deal with the Spanish governor, the captain of the Tuscany rushes in, upset, flustered, worried. Glancing anxiously at the governor’s guards, he blurts out, “The arrangements must be canceled! The ice has melted!” Wyeth tries to muffle him with a scarf.
Calmly, taking his cigar from his mouth, Tudor says to the governor, “This must be your lucky day! Now we can give you a better price.”
At sea again, the three pace the deck at night, in step, Tudor in the lead. “We’ve got to find a way to keep ice from melting!” he cries. “I won’t be defeated! I will find a way!” All three pound their fists into their open hands.
Back in Boston, Tudor begins the experiments in preserving ice that will occupy him for months. In a quick sequence of scenes, we see that things are going badly.
Tudor flings open the doors of an icehouse and water rushes out. “Blankets won’t work,” he says in disgust.
He flings open another icehouse. Water rushes out. Wyeth staggers out with wet feathers stuck all over him. “Feathers won’t work, either,” Tudor says.
Katherine is seen in her office, trying to keep creditors at bay. Wyeth is seen trying to sell his shares in the company to passersby. Tom Piper is seen trying to raise more money and being turned down.
Katherine tries to persuade Tudor to abandon the project. They are walking along the line of icehouses set up for testing. Water is running from each one they pass. “Perhaps you’re right,” admits Tudor.
Suddenly, Wyeth rushes up, whistling like mad, carrying a huge saw. He begins sawing at one of the icehouses, still whistling like crazy, smiling and bobbing his head up and down.
“Perhaps you’re right,” says Tudor, misinterpreting Wyeth’s message. “I’ll put all this behind me and become a lumberjack.”
Wyeth grabs Tudor by the coat and drags him to an icehouse from which no water runs. Tudor’s eyes light up. He flings the door open. “Sawdust!” he cries.
At sea again, the Tuscany, with a load of ice packed in sawdust, is bound for Bombay.
In Topical Guide 258, Mark Dorset considers Useful Things: Sawdust from this episode.
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🎧 258: Suddenly, we’re at sea!