AT THE BLACK ROCKS.

by Edward A. Rand.

I.

WAS HE WORTH SAVING?

"I might try," squeaked a diminutive boy, whose dark eyes had an unfortunate twist.

"Ye-s-s, Bartie," said his grandmother doubtfully, looking out of the window upon the water wrinkled by the rising wind.

"Wouldn't be much wuss," observed Bartholomew's grandfather, leaning forward in his old red arm-chair and steadily eying a failing fire as if arguing this matter with the embers. Then he added, "You could take the small boat."

"Yes," said Bart eagerly. "I could scull, you know; and if the doctor wasn't there when I got there, I could tell 'em you didn't feel well, and he might come when he could."

"That will do, if he don't put it off too long," observed the old man, shaking his head at the fire as if the two had now settled the matter between them. "Yes, you might try."

Bartie now went out to try. Very soon he wished he had not made the trial. Granny Trafton saw him step into the small boat moored by the sh.o.r.e, and then his wiry little arms began to work an oar in the stern of the boat. "Gran'sir Trafton," as he was called, came also to the window, and looked out upon the diminutive figure wriggling in the little boat.

"He will get back in an hour," observed Gran'sir Trafton.

"Ought to be," said Granny Trafton.

It is a wonder that Bartie ever came back at all. He was the very boy to meet with some kind of an accident. Somehow mishaps came to him readily. If any boy had a tumble, it was likely to be Bartie Trafton.

If measles slyly stole into town to be caught by somebody, Bartie Trafton was sure to be one catcher. In a home that was cramped by poverty--his father at sea the greater fraction of the time, and the other fraction at home drunk--this under-sized, timid, shrinking boy seemed as continually destined for trouble as the Hudson for the sea.

"I don't amount to much," was an idea that burdened his small brain, and the community agreed with him. If the public had seen him sculling Gran'sir Trafton's small boat that day, it would have prophesied ill before very long. The public just then and there upon the river was very limited in quant.i.ty. It consisted of two fishermen wearily pulling against tide a boat-load of dried cod-fish, a boy fishing from a rock that projected boldly and heavily into the water, and several boys playing on the deck of an old schooner which was anch.o.r.ed off the sh.o.r.e, and had been reached by means of a raft.

The fishermen pulled wearily on. The boys on the schooner deck ran and shouted at their play. The young fisherman's line dangled down from the crown of the big sh.o.r.e-rock. The small sculler out in Gran'sir Trafton's small boat busily worked his oar. Bart did not see a black spar-buoy thrusting its big arm out of the water, held up as a kind of menace, in the very course Bart was taking. How could Bart see it? His face was turned up river, and the buoy was in the very opposite quarter, not more than twenty feet from the bow of the boat Bart was working forward with all his small amount of muscle. A person is not likely to see through the back of his head. Closer came the boat to the buoy.

Did not its ugly black arm, amid the green, swirling water, tremble as if making an angry, violent threat? Who was this small boy invading the neighbourhood where the buoy reigned as if an outstretched sceptre? On sculled innocent Bartholomew, the threatening arm shaking violently in his very pathway, and suddenly--whack-k! The boat struck, threatened to upset, and did upset--Bart! He could swim. After all the unlucky falls he had had into the water, it would have been strange if he had not learned something about this element; but he had reached a place in the river where the out-going current ran with strength, and took one not landward but seaward. How long could he keep above water--that timid, shrinking face appealing for pity to every spectator? The boys on the deck of the old schooner soon saw the empty dory floating past, and they now caught also the cry for help from the pitiful face of the panting swimmer--a cry that amid their loud play they had not heard before.

"O d.i.c.k," said one of the younger boys, "there's a fellow overboard, and there's his boat! Quick!"

At this sharp warning every one looked up. Then they rushed to the schooner's rail and looked over. Yes: there was the white face in the water; there was the drifting boat.

The boy addressed as d.i.c.k was the leader of the party. His black, staring eyes, and his profusion of black, curly hair, would have attracted attention anywhere. His eyes now sparkled anew, and he tossed back his bushy curls, exclaiming,--

"Boys, to the rescue! Attention! Man the _Great Emperor_."

"Throw this rope," was a suggestion made by another boy, seizing a rope lying on the deck. A rope did not move d.i.c.k's imagination so powerfully as the _Great Emperor_. The rope was not nearly so daring as the raft, though it would have given speedy and sufficient help.

"To the rescue!" rang out d.i.c.k's voice. "Not in a rush! Ho, there!

Orderly, men!"

Strutting forward with a bl.u.s.tering air, d.i.c.k led his rescue-band to the _Great Emperor_, which at the impulse of every rocking little wave thumped against the schooner's hull. The band of rescuers went down upon the raft with more of a tumble than was agreeable to Captain d.i.c.k of the _Great Emperor_. d.i.c.k concluded that there was too much of a crew to dexterously manage the raft in the swift voyage that must now be made. Several would-be heroes were sent back disappointed to the schooner, and they proceeded, when too late, to cast the rope which had been ignominiously spurned. It splashed the water in vain. Bartie tried to reach it; but it was like Tantalus in the fable striving to pluck the grapes beyond his grasp.

"Cast off!" d.i.c.k was now shouting excitedly, pompously. "Pull with a will for the shipwrecked mariner!" was his second order.

This meant to use two poles in poling and paddling, as might be more advantageous.

In the meantime the boy fisherman on the rock had been operating energetically though quietly. He had seen the catastrophe, and had not ceased to watch the little fellow who was struggling with the current somewhere between the schooner and the sh.o.r.e. Bartie had aimed to reach the sh.o.r.e, and the distance was not great; but just in this place the current ran with swiftness and power, and the little fellow's strength was failing him. He had given several shrieks for help, but it seemed as if he had been doing that thing all through life; and as the world outside of gran'sir and granny had not paid much attention to his appeals, would the world do it now? Bart had almost come to the conclusion that it would be easier to sink than to struggle, when he heard a noise in the water and close at hand. Was it the _Great Emperor_? No; its deck was still the scene of an impressive demonstration of getting ready to do something. The noise heard by Bart had been made by the boy fisherman, who, stripping off his jacket, kicking off his boots, and sending his stockings after them, had thrown himself into the water, and was making energetic headway toward Bart.

It was good swimming--that of some one who had both skill and strength on his side.

"Bartie!" he shouted.

What a world of hope opened before Bartie at the sound of that voice!

"Here! here! Put your hands on my shoulders, not round my neck, you know. There! that is it. Now swim. We'll fetch her."

Fetch what? It was a pretty difficult thing to say definitely what that indefinite "her" might mean. The current was still strong. Bart's rescuer, if alone, could have gained the sh.o.r.e again; but could he bring the rescued? Bart's face, pitiful and pale, projected just above the water, and as his wet hair fell back upon his forehead his countenance looked like that of a half-drowned kitten.

A third party on the river, that of the fishermen in their cod-laden boat moving slowly up river and hugging the sh.o.r.e for the sake of help from the eddies, had now become conscious that something was going on.

"What's that a-hollerin'?" asked one of the men, Dan Eaton, reversing his head.

"Trouble enough!" exclaimed Bill Bagley, who had also taken a look ahead. "Pull, Bill!"

"Put for them two boys, Dan! one is a-helpin' t'other."

The boat began to advance as if the dead cod-fish had become live ones and were lending their strength to the oarsmen.

"Good!" thought the rescuer in the water, who saw between him and the far-off, level, misty sky-line a boat and the backs of two fishermen.

"Hold on there!" he said encouragingly to Bartie; "there's a boat coming!"

The help did not arrive any too soon. Bartie's hands were resting lightly on his rescuer's shoulders, and he was arguing if he could not throw his arms around the neck of his beloved object, whether it might not be well to relinquish his feeble, tired hold altogether, and drop back into the soft, yielding depths of the water all about him; such an easy bed to lie down in! Life had given him so many hard berths. This seemed a relief.

"Ho, there you are!" shouted Dan, as the boat came up. He seized Bartie, while Bill Bagley gripped the other boy, and both Bartie and his companion were hauled into the boat, rather roughly, and somewhat after the fashion of cod-fish, but effectually.

"Now, Dan, let us pull for that cove and land our cargo!" said Bill.

"You boys can walk home? We have got to go to the other side and take our fish to town."

"Oh yes," said the rescuer.

"I--I--can--walk!" exclaimed the shivering Bartie.

"Ah, youngster, you came pretty near not walking ag'in if it hadn't been for t'other chap."

This made Bartie feel at first very sober, and then he looked very grateful as he turned toward his rescuers and said,--

"I--thank--you all. I--I--I'll do as--much for you--some time."

"Will ye?" replied Bill Bagley with a grin. "Really, I hope we shan't be in that fix where you'll have to."

"See there!" exclaimed Dan. "There's the boat adrift!"

The Trafton boat was leisurely floating down the stream. Bart had forgotten all about this craft. A frightened look shadowed his face.