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Page 2
Almost sunset. I pulled my boat's head round, and made for home.
I had been floating with the tide, drifting athwart the long shadows
under the western bank, shooting across the whirls and eddies of the
rapid strait, grappling to one and another of the good-natured sloops
and schooners that swept along the highway to the great city, near at
hand.
For an hour I had sailed over the fleet, smooth glimmering water, free
and careless as a sea-gull. Now I must 'bout ship and tussle with the
whole force of the tide at the jaws of Hellgate. I did not know that
not for that day only, but for life, my floating gayly with the stream
was done.
I pulled in under the eastern shore, and began to give way with all my
boyish force.
I was a little fellow, only ten years old, but my pretty white skiff
was little, in proportion, and so were my sculls, and we were all used
to work together.
As I faced about, a carriage came driving furiously along the turn of
the shore. The road followed the water's edge. I was pulling close to
the rocks to profit by every eddy. The carriage whirled by so near me
that I could recognize one of the two persons within. No mistaking that
pale, keen face. He evidently saw and recognized me also. He looked out
at the window and signaled the coachman to stop. But before the horses
could be pulled into a trot he gave a sign to go on again. The carriage
disappeared at a turn of the shore.
This encounter strangely dispirited me. My joy in battling with the
tide, in winning upward, foot by foot, boat's length after boat's
length, gave place to a forlorn doubt whether I could hold my
own--whether I should not presently be swept away.
The tide seemed to run more sternly than I had ever known it. It made a
plaything of my little vessel, slapping it about most uncivilly. The
black rocks, covered with clammy, unwholesome-looking sea-weed, seemed
like the mile-stones of a nightmare, steadily to move with me. The
water, bronzed by the low sun, poured mightily along, and there hung my
boat, glued to its white reflection.
As I struggled there, the great sloops and schooners rustling by with
the ebb, and eclipsing an instant the June sunset, gave me a miserable
impression of careless unfriendliness. I had made friends with them all
my life, and this evening, while I was drifting down-stream, they had
been willing enough to give me a tow, and to send bluff, good-humored
replies to my boyish hails. Now they rushed on, each chasing the golden
wake of its forerunner, and took no thought of me, straining at my oar,
apart. I grew dispirited, quite to the point of a childish despair.
Of course it was easy enough to land, leave my boat, and trudge home,
but that was a confession of defeat not to be thought of. Two things
only my father required of me--manliness and truth. My pretty little
skiff--the "Aladdin," I called it--he had given to me as a test of my
manhood. I should be ashamed of myself to go home and tell him that I
had abdicated my royal prerogative of taking care of myself, and
pulling where I would in a boat with a keel. I must take the "Aladdin"
home, or be degraded to my old punt, and confined to still water.
The alternative brought back strength to my arms. I threw off the
ominous influence. I leaned to my sculls. The clammy black rocks began
deliberately to march by me down-stream. I was making headway, and the
more way I made, the more my courage grew.
Presently, as I battled round a point, I heard a rustle and a rush of
something coming, and the bowsprit of a large sloop glided into view
close by me. She was painted in stripes of all colors above her green
bottom. The shimmer of the water shook the reflection of her hull, and
made the edges of the stripes blend together. It was as if a rainbow
had suddenly flung itself down for me to sail over.
I looked up and read the name on her headboards, "James Silt."
At the same moment a child's voice over my head cried, "Oh, brother
Charles! what a little boy! what a pretty boat!"
The gliding sloop brought the speaker into view. She was a girl both
little and pretty. A rosy, blue-eyed, golden-haired sprite, hanging
over the gunwale, and smiling pleasantly at me.
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