Not Quite Eighteen Part 16

"Should you be proud of me if I showed presence of mind?" asked Dolly, leaning her arms on her mother's lap.

"Very proud," replied Mrs. Ware, smiling as she stroked the brown head,--"very proud, indeed."

"I mean to do it," said Dolly, in a firm tone.

There was a general laugh.

"How will you go to work?" asked Jack. "Shall I step down to Hussey's, and get a sh.e.l.l for you to practise on?"

"She'll be setting the house on fire some night, to show what she can do," added Harry, teasingly.

"I shall do no such thing," protested Dolly, indignantly. "How foolish you are! You don't understand a bit! I don't want to make things happen; but, if they do happen, I shall try to keep cool and have my wits about me, and perhaps I shall."

"It would be lovely to be brave and do heroic things," remarked Phyllis.

"You could at least be brave enough to use your common sense," said her mother. "Yours is a very good resolution, Dolly dear, and I hope you'll keep to it."

"I will," said Dolly, and marched undauntedly off to bed. Later, she found herself repeating, as if it were a lesson to be learned, "Presence of mind means keeping cool, and having your wits about you;" and she said it over and over every morning and evening after that, as she braided her hair. Phyllis overheard, and laughed at her a little; but Dolly didn't mind being laughed at, and kept on rehearsing her sentence all the same.

It is not given to all of us to test ourselves, and discover by actual experiment just how much a mental resolution has done for us. Dolly, however, was to have the chance. The bathing-beach at Nantucket is a particularly safe one, and the water through the summer months most warm and delicious. All the children who lived on the sandy bluff known as "The Cliff" were in the habit of bathing; and the daily dip taken in company was the chief event of the day, in their opinion. The little Wares all swam like ducks; and no one thought of being nervous or apprehensive if Harry struck out boldly for the jetty, or if Erma and Phyllis were seen side by side at a point far beyond the depth of either of them, or little Dolly took a "header" into deep water off an old boat.

It happened, about two months after the talk on the piazza, that Dolly was bathing with Kitty Allen, a small neighbor of her own age. Kitty had just been learning to swim, and was very proud of her new accomplishment; but she was by no means so sure of herself or so much at home in the water as Dolly, who had learned three years before, and practised continually.

The two children had swam out for quite a distance; then, as they turned to go back, Kitty suddenly realized her distance from the sh.o.r.e, and was seized with immediate and paralyzing terror.

"Oh, oh!" she gasped. "How far out we are! We shall never get back in the world! We shall be drowned! Dolly Ware, we shall certainly be drowned!"

She made a vain clutch at Dolly, and, with a wild scream, went down, and disappeared.

Dolly dived after her, only to be met by Kitty coming up to the surface again, and frantically reaching out, as drowning persons do, for something to hold by. The first thing she touched was Dolly's large pig-tail, and, grasping that tight, she sank again, dragging Dolly down with her, backward.

It was really a hazardous moment. Many a good swimmer has lost his life under similar circ.u.mstances. Nothing is more dangerous than to be caught and held by a person who cannot swim, or who is too much disabled by fear to use his powers.

And now it was that Dolly's carefully conned lesson about presence of mind came to her aid. "Keep cool; have your wits about you," rang through her ears, as, held in Kitty's desperate grasp, she was dragged down, down into the sea. A clear sense of what she ought to do flashed across her mind. She must escape from Kitty and hold her up, but not give Kitty any chance to drag her down again. As they rose, she pulled her hair away with a sudden motion, and seized Kitty by the collar of her bathing-dress, behind.

"Float, and I'll hold you up," she gasped. "If you try to catch hold of me again, I'll just swim off, and leave you, and then you _will_ be drowned, Kitty Allen."

Kitty was too far gone to make any very serious struggle. Then Dolly, striking out strongly, and pushing Kitty before her, sent one wild cry for help toward the beach.

The cry was heard. It seemed to Dolly a terribly long time before any answer came, but it was in reality less than five minutes before a boat was pushed into the water. Dolly saw it rowing toward her, and held on bravely. "Be cool; have your wits about you," she said to herself. And she kept firm grasp of her mind, and would not let the fright, of whose existence she was conscious, get possession of her.

Oh, how welcome was the dash of the oars close at hand, how gladly she relinquished Kitty to the strong arms that lifted her into the boat!

But when the men would have helped her in too, she refused.

"No, thank you; I'll swim!" she said. It seemed nothing to get herself to sh.o.r.e, now that the responsibility of Kitty and Kitty's weight were taken from her. She swam pluckily along, the boat keeping near, lest her strength should give out, and reached the beach just as Jack, that moment aware of the situation, was dashing into the water after her. She was very pale, but declared herself not tired at all, and she dressed and marched st.u.r.dily up the cliff, refusing all a.s.sistance.

There was quite a little stir among the summer colony over the adventure, and Mrs. Ware had many compliments paid her for her child's behavior. Mr. Allen came over, and had much to say about the extraordinary presence of mind which Dolly had shown.

"It was really remarkable," he said. "If she had fought with Kitty, or if she had tried to swim ash.o.r.e and had not called for a.s.sistance, they might easily have both been drowned. It is extraordinary that a child of that age should keep her head, and show such coolness and decision."

"It wasn't remarkable at all," Dolly declared, as soon as he was gone.

"It was just because you said that on the piazza that night."

"Said what?"

"Why, Mamma, surely you haven't forgotten. It was that about presence of mind, you know. I taught it to myself, and have said it over and over ever since,--'Keep cool; have your wits about you.' I said it in the water when Kitty was pulling me under."

"Did you, really?"

"Indeed, I did. And then I seemed to know what to do."

"Well, it was a good lesson," said Mrs. Ware, with glistening eyes. "I am glad and thankful that you learned it when you did, Dolly."

"Are you proud of me?" demanded Dolly.

"Yes, I am proud of you."

This capped the climax of Dolly's contentment. Mamma was proud of her; she was quite satisfied.

A BLESSING IN DISGUISE.

It was a dark day for Patty Flint when her father, with that curt severity of manner which men are apt to a.s.sume to mask an inward awkwardness, announced to her his intention of marrying for the second time.

"Tell the others after I am gone out," he concluded.

"But, Papa, do explain a little more to me before you go," protested Patty. "Who is this Miss Maskelyne? What kind of a person is she? Must we call her mother?"

"Well--we'll leave that to be settled later on. Miss Maskelyne is a--a--well, a very nice person indeed, Patty. She'll make us all very comfortable."

"We always have been comfortable, I'm sure," said Patty, in an injured tone.

Dr. Flint instinctively cast a look around the room. It _was_ comfortable, certainly, so far as neatness and sufficient furniture and a hot fire in an air-tight stove can make a room comfortable. There was a distinct lack of anything to complain of, yet something seemed to him lacking. What was it? His thoughts involuntarily flew to a room which he had quitted only the day before, no larger, no sunnier, not so well furnished, and which yet, to his mind, seemed full of a refinement and homelikeness which he missed in his own, though, man-like, he could have in no wise explained what went to produce it.

His rather stern face relaxed with a half-smile; his eyes seemed to seek out a picture far away. But Patty was watching him,--an observant, decidedly aggrieved Patty, who had done her best for him since her mother died, and a good best too, her age considered, and who was not inexcusable in disliking to be supplanted by a stranger. Poor Patty! But even for Patty's sake it was better so, the father reflected, looking at the prim, opinionated little figure before him, and noting how all the childishness and girlishness seemed to have faded out of it during three years of responsibility. She certainly had managed wonderfully for a child of fifteen, and his voice was very kind as he said, "Yes, my dear, so we have. You've been a good girl, Patty, and done your best for us all; but you're young to have so much care, and when the new mother comes, she will relieve you of it, and leave you free to occupy and amuse yourself as other girls of your age do."

He kissed Patty as he finished speaking. Kisses were not such every-day matters in the Flint family as to be unimportant, and Patty, with all her vexation, could not but be gratified. Then he hurried away, and, after watching till his gig turned the corner, she went slowly upstairs to the room where the children were learning their Sunday-school lessons.

There were three besides herself,--Susy and Agnes, aged respectively twelve and ten; and Hal, the only boy, who was not quite seven. This hour of study in the middle of Sat.u.r.day morning was deeply resented by them all; but Patty's rules were like the laws of the Medes and Persians, which alter not, and they dared not resist. They had solaced the tedium of the occasion by a contraband game of checkers during her absence, but had pushed the board under the flounce of the sofa when they heard her steps, and flown back to their tasks. Over-discipline often leads to little shuffles and deceptions like this, and Patty, who loved authority for authority's sake, was not always wise in enforcing it.

"When you have got through with your lessons, I have something to tell you," was her beginning.

It was an indiscreet one; for of course the children at once protested that they were through! How could they be expected to interest themselves in the "whole duty of man," with a secret obviously in the air.

"Very well, then," said Patty, indulgently,--for she was dying to tell her news,--"Papa has just asked me to say to you that he is--is--going to be married to a lady in New Bedford."