a new leaf instantly; I also resolved to connect myself
with the church the next day, if I survived to see its
sun appear. I resolved to cease from sin in all its forms,
and to lead a high and blameless life for ever after.
I would be punctual at church and Sunday-school; visit the sick;
carry baskets of victuals to the poor (simply to fulfil
the regulation conditions, although I knew we had none among us
so poor but they would smash the basket over my head for my pains);
I would instruct other boys in right ways, and take the resulting
trouncings meekly; I would subsist entirely on tracts;
I would invade the rum shop and warn the drunkard–and finally,
if I escaped the fate of those who early become too good to live,
I would go for a missionary.
The storm subsided toward daybreak, and I dozed gradually to sleep
with a sense of obligation to Lem Hackett for going to eternal suffering
in that abrupt way, and thus preventing a far more dreadful disaster–
my own loss.
But when I rose refreshed, by and by, and found that those other boys
were still alive, I had a dim sense that perhaps the whole thing
was a false alarm; that the entire turmoil had been on Lem’s account
and nobody’s else. The world looked so bright and safe that there
did not seem to be any real occasion to turn over a new leaf.
I was a little subdued, during that day, and perhaps the next;
after that, my purpose of reforming slowly dropped out of my mind,
and I had a peaceful, comfortable time again, until the next storm.
That storm came about three weeks later; and it was the most
unaccountable one, to me, that I had ever experienced;
for on the afternoon of that day, ‘Dutchy’ was drowned.
Dutchy belonged to our Sunday-school. He was a German
lad who did not know enough to come in out of the rain;
but he was exasperatingly good, and had a prodigious memory.
One Sunday he made himself the envy of all the youth and the talk
of all the admiring village, by reciting three thousand verses of
Scripture without missing a word; then he went off the very next day
and got drowned.
Circumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressiveness.
We were all bathing in a muddy creek which had a deep hole
in it, and in this hole the coopers had sunk a pile of green
hickory hoop poles to soak, some twelve feet under water.
We were diving and ‘seeing who could stay under longest.’
We managed to remain down by holding on to the hoop poles.
Dutchy made such a poor success of it that he was hailed with
laughter and derision every time his head appeared above water.
At last he seemed hurt with the taunts, and begged us
to stand still on the bank and be fair with him and give him
an honest count–‘be friendly and kind just this once, and not
miscount for the sake of having the fun of laughing at him.’
Treacherous winks were exchanged, and all said ‘All right, Dutchy–
go ahead, we’ll play fair.’
Dutchy plunged in, but the boys, instead of beginning to count,
followed the lead of one of their number and scampered
to a range of blackberry bushes close by and hid behind it.
They imagined Dutchy’s humiliation, when he should rise after
a superhuman effort and find the place silent and vacant,
nobody there to applaud. They were ‘so full of laugh’ with the idea,
that they were continually exploding into muffled cackles.
Time swept on, and presently one who was peeping through the briers,
said, with surprise–
‘Why, he hasn’t come up, yet!’
The laughing stopped.
‘Boys, it ‘s a splendid dive,’ said one.
‘Never mind that,’ said another, ‘the joke on him is all the better for it.’
There was a remark or two more, and then a pause.
Talking ceased, and all began to peer through the vines.
Before long, the boys’ faces began to look uneasy, then anxious,
then terrified. Still there was no movement of the placid water.