Hearts began to beat fast, and faces to turn pale.
We all glided out, silently, and stood on the bank, our horrified
eyes wandering back and forth from each other’s countenances
to the water.
‘Somebody must go down and see!’
Yes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly task.
‘Draw straws!’
So we did–with hands which shook so, that we hardly knew
what we were about. The lot fell to me, and I went down.
The water was so muddy I could not see anything, but I felt around
among the hoop poles, and presently grasped a limp wrist which
gave me no response–and if it had I should not have known it,
I let it go with such a frightened suddenness.
The boy had been caught among the hoop poles and entangled
there, helplessly. I fled to the surface and told the awful news.
Some of us knew that if the boy were dragged out at once he might
possibly be resuscitated, but we never thought of that. We did not
think of anything; we did not know what to do, so we did nothing–
except that the smaller lads cried, piteously, and we all struggled
frantically into our clothes, putting on anybody’s that came handy,
and getting them wrong-side-out and upside-down, as a rule.
Then we scurried away and gave the alarm, but none of us went back to see
the end of the tragedy. We had a more important thing to attend to:
we all flew home, and lost not a moment in getting ready to lead
a better life.
The night presently closed down. Then came on that tremendous
and utterly unaccountable storm. I was perfectly dazed; I could
not understand it. It seemed to me that there must be some mistake.
The elements were turned loose, and they rattled and banged and blazed
away in the most blind and frantic manner. All heart and hope went
out of me, and the dismal thought kept floating through my brain,
‘If a boy who knows three thousand verses by heart is not satisfactory,
what chance is there for anybody else?’
Of course I never questioned for a moment that the storm was
on Dutchy’s account, or that he or any other inconsequential
animal was worthy of such a majestic demonstration from on high;
the lesson of it was the only thing that troubled me;
for it convinced me that if Dutchy, with all his perfections,
was not a delight, it would be vain for me to turn over a new leaf,
for I must infallibly fall hopelessly short of that boy,
no matter how hard I might try. Nevertheless I did turn it over–
a highly educated fear compelled me to do that–but succeeding
days of cheerfulness and sunshine came bothering around,
and within a month I had so drifted backward that again I
was as lost and comfortable as ever.
Breakfast time approached while I mused these musings and called
these ancient happenings back to mind; so I got me back into
the present and went down the hill.
On my way through town to the hotel, I saw the house which was
my home when I was a boy. At present rates, the people who now
occupy it are of no more value than I am; but in my time they
would have been worth not less than five hundred dollars apiece.
They are colored folk.
After breakfast, I went out alone again, intending to hunt up some
of the Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils might
compare with their progenitors who had sat with me in those places
and had probably taken me as a model–though I do not remember
as to that now. By the public square there had been in my day
a shabby little brick church called the ‘Old Ship of Zion,’
which I had attended as a Sunday-school scholar; and I found
the locality easily enough, but not the old church; it was gone,
and a trig and rather hilarious new edifice was in its place.
The pupils were better dressed and better looking than were those
of my time; consequently they did not resemble their ancestors;
and consequently there was nothing familiar to me in their faces.