Down the River; Or, Buck Bradford and His Tyrants by Oliver Optic (children's ebooks free online txt) 📖

I could scream.[218]

My voice had some effect upon her, for she grasped the stick to which she was clinging.

"O, Buckland!" cried Flora, wringing her hands and sobbing hysterically. "Can't you do something?"

"I can, and will!" I replied, with some of the earnestness that thrilled my soul; and I felt that I ought to die myself rather than permit the poor sufferer to perish before my eyes.

"Do!" gasped my poor sister; and I knew she would have sacrificed her precious life to save that of the stranger.

"Come here, Sim!" I called.

My blundering deck hand came promptly at my call, and I gave him the steering oar, bidding him keep the raft steady before the current. I took the long lines, which I used as mooring ropes, and tied them together, making a cord at least a hundred feet in length. I took off all my clothes but my pants and shirt, and secured the cord around my body, making fast the other end to the raft.

"Sim!" said I, startling him with the sharpness of my tones.[219]

"Yes; I'm here, Buck! Hookie!" stammered he.

"Mind what you're about!"

"O, yes! I will!"

"When I tell you, let go the oar, and pull in on this rope."

"I'll help him," said Flora.

"Don't you touch the rope, Flora. You may get dragged overboard."

"What shall I do?"

"You may make a fire in the stove, if you can," I answered, wishing to get her out of the reach of danger if I could.

"I will, Buckland;" and she went into the house.

I was a powerful swimmer, and nerved by the peril of the stranger in the water, I felt able to do anything. I let myself down into the river, and struck out with all my strength towards the sufferer. The current of the Mississippi is swift and treacherous. It was the hardest swimming I had ever known; and, dragging the rope after me, I had a fierce struggle to make any progress. In going those fifty feet, it seemed to me that I worked hard enough to accomplish a mile.[220]

I reached the sufferer, and grasped the stick to which she clung. I was nearly exhausted myself by the violence of my efforts. I waited a moment to regain my breath, before I attempted to deal with the difficulties of the situation. I glanced at the person for whom I was to struggle. She was not a woman, but a girl of fourteen. She was in a sinking condition, apparently more from the effects of fear than actual suffering, for the stick to which she clung afforded her ample support.

Afraid that the act of hauling us in would detach her from the stick, I grasped it firmly with one hand, and clasped her around the waist with the other. Her frame quivered with the cold and the terror of her situation. As all persons in peril of drowning are apt to do, she was disposed to cling to me.

"Don't be afraid," said I to her. "You are safe now."

"Save me!" gasped she, hardly loud enough to be heard.

"Haul in!" I shouted to Sim.

I felt the rope cutting my waist as Sim jerked [221]and tugged at it with all his strength. There was no lack of zeal on his part, but if anything had depended upon coolness and skill, we might both have been drowned. I kept a firm hold upon my helpless charge, and managed to keep her head above the water, though my own was dragged under several times by the clumsiness of my willing friend.

Sim pulled and hauled with energy, if not with skill. When he abandoned the steering oar, the raft began to whirl, and thus to complicate his labor. I caught a glance of the simple-minded fellow, as the craft turned, and I heard him yell, "Hookie!" He was nonplussed by the change of the raft; but he did not know enough to follow it round upon the outside. I am not sure this freak of the current did not save us from a calamity, for as it revolved, and the rope became tangled in the platform, we were thrown against the raft, thus saving my helpmate half his toil. Fortunately the end of the stick on which I floated struck the logs first, and broke the force of what might otherwise have been a stunning blow.[222]

"Tie the rope, Sim!" I called to my assistant, who was now on the other side of the raft.

"O, Buckland!" cried Flora, as she came out of the house and gazed at me with an expression of intense pain.

"Hookie!" ejaculated Sim, rushing to the point where I had seized hold of the raft.

AFTER THE EXPLOSION.—Page 221.

He stood there, jumping up and down on both feet, bewildered and helpless.

CHAPTER XX.[223] EMILY GOODRIDGE.

In the water, struggling for his own or another's life, a man's stock in trade consists mainly of breath. Without that he can't do much, and generally he fails for the want of it; not when life deserts him, but when he might, by an economical use of it, have been able to save himself. I had been in the water enough to learn this lesson, and to be competent to advise all my young friends, in the moment of peril, to refrain from useless and unreasonable struggling, for that wastes the breath, and fritters away the strength.

I held on at the raft till I had recovered my breath, and felt strong enough to make another effort; for I found that my own life and that of my charge were to depend principally on my own exertions. Sim was willing, but he was stupid; and[224] I was afraid that some blunder of his would yet lose me the battle.

I brought the helpless girl on my arm so that she could take hold of the raft, but she seemed not to have the power to do so.

"Sim, mind what you are about now!" I called to my help.

"I will, Buck! What shall I do?" stuttered he.

"Lie down on the platform so that you can reach the girl."

He obeyed, and held out his great paws towards my helpless burden. I raised her up a little, and he grasped her under the arms. He was as strong as an ox; and raising her a little way, he turned over, and then lifted her clear from the water, but dragging her up as roughly as though she had been a log of wood. I needed no help myself, and was on the raft almost as soon as the girl. She was utterly exhausted, and unable to hold up her head. Sim and I carried her into the house. We laid her in Sim's bunk, and Flora was as tender with her as though she had been a baby.

"Hookie!" exclaimed Sim, staring at the sufferer, [225]with his mouth open wide enough to take in a canal boat. "Is she dead?"

"No—not dead!" replied Flora, as she lifted the wet locks from her face, and gently rubbed her temples. "What shall we do for her, Buckland?"

"She is chilled with the cold, and worn out with fear and exertion."

"I shall be better soon," said the girl, faintly. "I feel better now. Let me rest a moment."

"Give her some hot tea," suggested Flora.

The tea-pot was on the stove, and I prepared a cup of tea for her. She drank it, and the effect was good.

"I feel better; but I am so cold!" said she.

Flora and I consulted what it was best to do, and we finally decided that her wet clothing must be removed. I carried her into my sister's room, and laid her on a blanket. I then closed up the shutters of the outer room, replenished the fire, and left Flora to do the rest. The stove would heat the house as hot as an oven when the windows and doors were closed.

Sim was now at the steering oar, where I joined [226]him. Except the fragments of the wreck which floated on the river, there was no vestige of the terrible calamity in sight.

"Do you think she will die?" asked Sim, looking as anxious as though the girl had been one of our own party.

"No; she is better now. She will be all right in a day or two."

"Who is she?" asked he, opening his mouth and his eyes to express his wonder.

"I don't know—how should I?"

"Didn't she tell you?"

"No—she isn't able to talk much yet. She hasn't said ten words."

"Didn't she tell you who she was?"

Sim asked silly questions, and I had not always the patience to answer him, especially when he had asked the same ones half a dozen times. I had as much curiosity as he had to know who and what the young lady was, and I was impatient to hear from Flora. As she did not call me, I was satisfied her patient was doing well. It was quite dark now, and I was walking rapidly up and down the raft, to [227]keep myself warm, for I had had no opportunity to change my wet clothes for dry ones.

"Buckland!" called the soft voice of Flora, "You may come in now."

"How is the girl?" I asked.

"She is nicely now. I have rubbed her, put dry clothes upon her, and covered her up with blankets in my bed. She wants to see you."

I followed Flora into her room. The stranger, with the exception of her head, was buried in the blankets, and by the dim light of the lantern I saw as pretty a face as it ever had been my good fortune to behold before. I had hardly seen her until now; certainly my first impressions of her features and expression were derived from this observation, rather than from any former one. She had a very mild, soft blue eye; but she looked quite sad and troubled.

"I wish to tell you how grateful I am to you for saving my life," said she. "I shall never forget your kindness, and I hope I may be able to do something more for you."

"O, never mind that," I replied. "That's all right. I'm glad I had a chance to do as I did."[228]

"You are a brave and noble young man, and you saved my life. It may do for you to forget it, but it will not do for me to do so."

"I won't complain if you do;" and as all heroes say under similar circumstances, I told her I had only done my duty.

"Yet I almost wish you had not saved me," she added, with a shudder, as her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"Why so?" I asked, though I had not much difficulty in reading the cause of her sadness.

"My mother! O, my mother!" cried she, in agony.

Poor girl! I wanted to cry with her. Flora threw her arms around her neck, and wept with her.

"Your mother was in the steamer—was she?" I added.

"She was—and lost."

"Perhaps not," I suggested.

"O, I know she was."

"Probably some were saved."

"I dare not hope so," sobbed she, uncovering her [229]eyes, and glancing at me. "I was sitting clear back, as far as I could get, looking into the water, when this terrible thing happened. I was thrown into the river by the shock, or I jumped in—I don't know which. I caught hold of that stick, but I did not know what I was doing."

"But where was your mother?" I asked. "She may have been equally fortunate."

"The boat was racing with another, and Mr. Spear asked my mother to go forward, and see the furnaces under the boilers, which, he said, were red hot. I was reading a book, and did not want to go. In two or three minutes after they went, the boiler burst. My mother must have been very near the furnaces when the explosion took place."

"Who was Mr. Spear?"

"He was the gentleman who was taking charge of us."

"But it is possible that your mother was saved."

"I wish I knew!" she exclaimed, with tremulous emotion. "Can't you ascertain? I shall be so grateful to you!"

"I will try," I replied. "We are not more than [230]ten miles from the place where the accident happened, and I can return."

"O, I wish you would!"

"Do you wish to return?" I asked.

"She cannot go to-night," interposed Flora. "She is all worn out."

"I do not feel able to go," added the poor girl; "and I do not wish to go unless my mother is saved."

"What is your