Five Minutes' Stories Part 6

Her wing never got quite well, though it left off hurting her. But she never could stretch it out quite evenly with the other. And about a year ago, after two years of peaceful life with Fritz, she died quite suddenly. She was perfectly well the evening before, and early the next morning she was lying in a little rumpled-up heap in a corner, dead!

Poor Coo-coo--they thought she died of old age. I can't help wondering where birds go to when they die--they are so innocent!

Still they are very heartless. That very morning beside his poor little dead wife, Fritz was pecking away at his seeds and singing as if nothing were the matter. So we have not troubled to get a new companion for him, and when he dies I don't much think I shall care to keep any more pet birds. He is very alive at present however. He really sings so very loudly sometimes that we are obliged to cover him up with a dark cloth to pretend it is night.

I hear him carrolling away now as brilliantly as possible!

HARRY'S REWARD

[Ill.u.s.tration: HARRY'S REWARD.

By Mrs. Molesworth.]

"I hate the sea, I hate bathing, and I don't want to learn to swim.

What's the use of learning to swim? I'm not going to be a sailor. I don't like ships, and I don't want ever to go in one, and I just wish, oh, I do wish papa hadn't come here!"

"Harry! how can you?" said his sister Dora. "Papa who is so kind, and when we have all been looking forward so to his coming."

"I know--that's the worst of it," said Harry. "I've been looking forward as much as any one, and now it's all spoilt by his saying I must learn to swim."

"I only wish _I_ could learn!" sighed Dora. She was two years older than Harry, but she had lately had a bad fever. The family had come to the seaside to give her change of air, but not for some weeks yet, if at all this summer, was poor Dora to be allowed to bathe. And she loved the sea, and bathing, and boating, and everything to do with the sea. She was like her father, who, though not a sailor, had travelled much and far, both by land and water; whereas Harry "took after," as the country people say, his mother, who had lived in her youth in a warm climate, and shivered at every breath of cold or even fresh air. It did not matter so much for a delicate lady to be afraid of the wind and the sea, but it was a great pity for a healthy boy to be fanciful or timid; and Harry's mother herself was very anxious that he should become more manly. She was very disappointed that she could not get him to bathe when they came to the seaside, but it was no use, and she and nurse and Dora all agreed that the only thing to do was to "wait till Papa came."

Papa had come now, and Harry had had his first "dip." It wasn't so _very_ bad after all, but just when he was getting up his spirits again, and thinking ten minutes or so every morning were quickly over, all his fears and dislike grew worse than ever when his father told him that in a day or two he should begin to teach him to swim.

"Everybody, especially every English man and boy, should know how to swim," Papa had said. "There is never any knowing the use it may be of, both for one's self and others."

"Isn't it very hard to learn?" Harry asked, not venturing to say more.

"It takes some patience," his father said. "But by the time I have to go--in three weeks or so--you should be able to swim fairly well, if you have a lesson every day."

And Harry came home to tell Dora his troubles, which he worked himself up to think were very great ones indeed.

There was no shirking it however. Papa, though very kind, was very firm, and once he said a thing, it had to be done. So with a rather white face, and looking very solemn, poor Harry set off every day for his swimming lesson.

He was a quick and clever boy, and a strong boy, and this his father knew. He would not have forced Harry to do anything for which he was unfit, or that could have done him any harm. And after the first shivers of fear and tremulous clinging to his father's hand were got over, it went on better and faster than could have been expected. Harry didn't mind its being difficult once he had left off being afraid, and a day or two before his father had to leave them, Harry had the pleasure of hearing him say to his mother, "He swims already very nearly as well as I do myself."

Now I shall tell you why I have called this little story "Harry's Reward."

Seacliff, the place at which these children were spending the summer, was not a fashionable watering-place, with terraces and donkey-carriages and bathing-machines, but a little village, where one or two cottages were to be had for the season. There were also a few gentlemen's houses in the neighbourhood, so that in fine weather merry groups met at the little sheltered bay among the rocks, where the bathing was pleasantest.

One day, not very long before they were to leave Seacliff, Harry, having finished his own morning swim, set off to walk home at his ease, whistling as he went. He had chosen what was called the high path, a footpath up above the lane, which was the regular road from the village to the beach, but from which the lane could be seen all the way.

It was a lovely morning--bright and peaceful--and Harry, as he went, wished that poor Dora had got leave to bathe.

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"Next year," he thought, "I hope we shall come again, and then what fun we shall have. Dolly will learn to swim in no time."

Suddenly a sound disturbed his pleasant thoughts. A horse and cart or carriage of some kind was rushing wildly along, coming nearer and nearer. Surely the horse, or pony, as Harry now saw it to be, was running away. The boy who had never been a coward except about "sea things," tumbled down the steep gra.s.sy slope in no time, and stood in the middle of the road eager to see what he could do. The flying vehicle was near enough now for him to see that it was the pony-carriage of two girls, a little older than Dora, whose home was one of the pretty houses a little way from Seacliff. He had often seen them drive down in it to the sh.o.r.e to bathe.

But what a queer figure was driving now. The pony was not running away, on the contrary, it seemed as if it could not run fast enough to please the driver; a girl with hair streaming, dressed only in a blue flannel bathing gown, streaming too, who stood upright in the carriage, lashing the poor pony as if she were mad, while from time to time she screamed, in a shrill and yet choking voice, "Help, help--for G.o.d's sake, help!"

"What is it?" screamed Harry too, as she pa.s.sed. She would not stop, but she threw back some words on the wind.

"My sister--Alice--drowning. Going to the village to fetch some one--can swim."

And then again came the terrible cry, as if she hardly knew what she was saying, "Help, help!"

"Oh," thought Harry, "if she could have stopped and taken me back, we'd have been at the sh.o.r.e in a moment. _I_ can swim. _I_ can swim."

And he could run too. It was not so very far from the bathing-place. How he got there Harry never could tell. On he rushed, tearing off his clothes as he went. Off flew hat, jacket, collar and shirt, till there was nothing but trousers and tennis-shoes to pitch away, as in his little clinging woven drawers only, brave Harry flung himself, fearless and dauntless, into the sea, and struck out for the round dark object, poor Alice's head, which it had taken but an instant to point out to him.

"I can _swim_! I can _swim_!" were the magic words with which he was able at once to push off the friendly hands that would have drawn him back, whose owners now stood watching him with flushed faces and tearful eyes, murmuring many a fervent prayer for his success, or saying aloud with clasped hands, "The brave boy, the splendid little fellow! It is her only chance!"

It _was_ her only chance. Long before poor Lilian, for all her headlong drive, was back with a sailor she had met just outside the village, Alice would have sunk to rise no more. She had been caught by the current and carried out far beyond her depth, and when Harry, panting, labouring, but swimming valiantly still, got near enough to catch the long plait of hair, and so draw her gently after him to sh.o.r.e, she had all but lost consciousness. Better so, perhaps, for had she struggled or clung to him, both would have been lost.

As it was, there were plenty of hands to carry them to land, once they were within a safe distance; but Harry was the hero, Harry, alone and unaided, had saved a human life, for of all the score or so of watchers on the beach, not one knew how to swim.

Was not this worthy to be called his "Reward?" even if the thanks of the two pretty sisters and their parents had been less fervent and heartfelt.

Harry and Dora go often to Seacliff now, even without the rest of the family; for there is a house near there where they are always most welcome visitors, and where the only fear is that if Harry were not a very sensible boy, the attentions of Alice and Lilian _might_ spoil him.

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[Ill.u.s.tration: BROTHERS AND MUSHROOMS]

Mamma was very fond of mushrooms. I don't mean to say that she was a greedy person or fond of eating, but if she _had_ a weakness, it was for mushrooms. When she was a little girl, she had lived in a country place where they grew in abundance, and she had often told the children how delightful it was to go mushroom gathering, how pretty the creamy-white heads looked, sometimes almost hidden in the gra.s.s, like eggs in a mossy nest, and what shrieks of fun and eagerness used to be heard when some specially fine one was suddenly caught sight of.

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But Mamma's _own_ children, Lancey and d.i.c.k--Mamma was not very rich in children, she had only these two little st.u.r.dy boys, Lancey was nine and d.i.c.k was seven--had never had the good fortune to live in a mushroom country. All they knew of mushrooms was when they sometimes happened to catch sight of them in the kitchen, when cook had bought a little basket of them, paying very dear for it, no doubt, because "Missis was so partial to them." And there was great rejoicing, as you can fancy, when one autumn Mamma told her little boys that they were going down into the country to spend September with an old aunt, who lived not far from where Mamma herself had lived when she "was a little girl."

"And is there those funny things--mush--mush--I forget the name--there?"

asked d.i.c.k.

"Mushrooms?" said Mamma. "Oh, yes, in September there will be plenty, no doubt," she replied.

"And your birthday's in September," said Lancey. "Oh, Mamma, oh, d.i.c.k!"

he went on, giving a great spring in his delight, "just think--we can gather mushrooms for it--nice, _wild_ mushrooms, that taste ever so much better than the ones you buy in the shops, don't they, Mamma, darling?"

"Than forced mushrooms, you mean, Lancey," she replied. "Yes, forced mushrooms, that means mushrooms grown in hot-houses, or hot-beds;" for she saw on the boys' lips the question, "what are forced mushrooms, please?" "never have the same flavour, I am sure. Besides, one hasn't the fun of hunting for them, and gathering them one's self. I am sure you will enjoy that part of it."