The Young Marooners on the Florida Coast Part 4

On his going out, the children crowded to the door, to see, if possible, the damage that was done; but he waved them all back, with the information that during a thunder storm an open door or window is one of the most dangerous places about a house. They quickly retired; Mary and Frank going to the bed, Robert taking a chair to the middle of the room, and drawing up his feet from the floor. Harold's remark was characteristic. "I wish uncle would let me help with the horses. I am sure that that is the safest place in this neighbourhood; for I never saw lightning strike twice on the same spot."

One of the horses was speedily revived by the falling rain. He staggered to his feet, then moved painfully away, smelling at his hoofs, to ascertain what ailed them. The other continued for an hour or more, to all appearance, dead. The servants dipped buckets and pails full of water from pools made by the rain, and poured them upon the lifeless body, until it was perfectly drenched. They had given up all hope of a restoration. William's eyes looked watery (for he was the coachman) and he heaved a sorrowful sigh over his brute companion. "Poor Tom!" he said, "what will Jerry do now for a mate?" Another half hour pa.s.sed without any sign of returning life; and even William would have ceased his efforts, had it not been for his master's decided "Pour on water!

Keep pouring!"

At last there appeared a slight twitching in one of the legs. Poor Tom was not dead after all. William gave a "Hurra boys! he's coming to," in which the others joined with unfeigned delight. "Now, William," said his master, "do you and Sam take the strips of blanket that you rub with, and see if you cannot start his blood to flowing more rapidly.

Tom will soon open his eyes."

Two of the servants continued to pour on water, the others to rub violently the head, neck, legs and body. The reviving brute moved first one foreleg, then the other, while the hinder legs were yet paralysed.

Then he opened his eyes, raised his head, and made an effort to turn himself. As soon as he was able to swallow, Dr. Gordon ordered a drench of camphorated spirit, and left him with directions to the servants.

"Listen all of you. I have shown you how to treat a horse struck down by lightning. Do you treat a person in the same way. Pour on water by the bucket full, until he gives some signs of life; then rub him hard, and give him some heating drink. _Don't give up trying for half a day_."

The storm pa.s.sed over. Tom and Jerry were once more united under the skilful management of William, who frequently boasted that "they were the toughest creatures in creation, even lightning could not kill them."

CHAPTER VI

THE ONLY WAY TO STUDY--TAKING COLD--RILEY'S FAMILY--THE HARE LIP---FISHING FOR SHEEPHEAD---FRANK CHOKED WITH A FISH BONE--HIS RELIEF--HIS STORY OF THE SHEEP'S HEAD AND DUMPLINGS--"TILL THE WARFARE IS OVER"

Dr. Gordon began to feel dissatisfied that his children were losing so much valuable time from study; for the house was yet loaded with baggage which could be put nowhere else, and their time was broken up by unavoidable interruptions. Until a more favourable opportunity, therefore, he required only that they should devote one hour every day to faithful study, and that they should spend the rest of their time as usefully as possible.

His theory of education embraced two very simple, but very efficacious principles. First, to _excite in his children the desire of acquiring knowledge_; and, secondly, to train them to _give their undivided attention to the subject in hand_. This last, he said, was the only way to study; and he told them, in ill.u.s.tration, the story of Sir Isaac Newton, who, on being asked by a friend, in view of his prodigious achievements, what was the difference, so far as he was conscious, between his mind and those of ordinary people, answered simply in the power of concentration.

Harold had been greatly discouraged at finding himself so far behind his cousins in the art of study, but by following the advice of his uncle, he soon experienced a great and an encouraging change. At first, it is true, he could scarcely give his whole mind to any study more than five minutes at a time, without a sense of weariness; but he persevered, and day by day his powers increased so manifestly that he used frequently to say to himself, "_concentration is everything--everything in study_."

But Dr. Gordon's instructions were by no means confined to books and the school-room; he used every favourable opportunity to give information on points that promised to be useful.

"Mary," said he one day, to his daughter, who was sitting absorbed in study, beside a window through which the sea breeze was pouring freshly upon her head and shoulders, and who had, in consequence, began to exhibit symptoms of a cold, "Mary, my daughter, remove your seat. Do you not know that to allow a current of air like that to blow upon a part of your person, is almost sure to produce sickness?"

"I know it, father," she replied, "and I intended some time since to change my seat, but the sum is so hard that I forgot all about the wind."

"I am glad to see you capable of such fixedness of mind," said he, "but I will take this opportunity to say to you, and to the rest, that there are two seasons, especially, when you should be on your guard against these dangerous currents of air,--one is when you are asleep, and the other is when your mind is absorbed in thought. At these times the pores of the skin are more than usually open, as may be seen by the flow of perspiration; and a current of cool air, at such a time, especially if partial, is almost certain to give cold."

"But how can we be on our guard, father," asked Mary with a smile, "when we are too far gone in sleep or in thought, to know what we are about!"

"We must take the precaution beforehand," he replied. "Make it a rule never to sleep nor to study in a partial current of air; and also remember that _the first moment_ you perceive the tingling sensation of an incipient cold, you must obey the warning which kind nature gives you or else must bear the consequences."

Mary's cold was pretty severe. For days she suffered from cough and pain. But that day's lecture on currents of air, followed by so impressive an ill.u.s.tration, was probably more useful than her lesson in arithmetic; certainly it was longer remembered and more frequently acted upon.

True to his promise, Riley appeared at the appointed time with his supply of game. He said, however, that he should remain only a few days, because he had left his young wife sick. It interested Mary not a little to perceive that a savage could feel and act so much like a civilized being; and she was trying to think of something complimentary to say upon this occasion, when he threw her all aback, by adding, that this was his _youngest_ and _favourite_ wife.

"What! have you two wives?" she exclaimed in horror.

"Yes, only two, now; one dead."

Her mind was sadly changed at this evidence of heathenism; but ere the day was over she received a still more impressive proof.

Dr. Gordon perceiving that he looked sad whenever an allusion was made to his home, he asked him if his wife was seriously sick, to which he answered, No.

"When I go home, last week," said he, "my squaw had a fine boy, big and fat. My heart glad. But I look and see a big hole in his mouth, from here to here," pointing from the lip to the nose.

"That is what we call a hare lip," said Dr. Gordon, "it is not uncommon."

"I sorry very much," continued Riley. "Child too ugly."

"But it can be easily cured," observed Dr. Gordon.

Riley looked at him inquiringly, and Dr. Gordon added, "O, yes, it can be easily cured. If you will bring your child here, any time, I will stop that hole in half an hour; and there will be no sign of it left, except a little scar, like a cut."

The Indian shook his head mournfully, "Can't bring him. Too late now."

"O, the child is dead?" inquired the Doctor. "I am sorry."

"Dead now," replied Riley. "I look at him one day, two day, tree day.

Child too ugly. I throw him in the water."

"What!" exclaimed Dr. Gordon, suddenly remembering that it was the practice of the Indians to destroy all their deformed children. "You did not drown it?"

"Child ugly too much," answered Riley, with a softened tone of voice.

"Child good for nothing. I throw him in the water."

Dr. Gordon was not only shocked, as any man of feeling would have been, under the circ.u.mstances, but he felt as a Christian, whose heart moved with compa.s.sion towards his dark skinned brother. He uttered not one word of rebuke or of condemnation; his time for speaking to the purpose had not yet come; and he carefully avoided everything in word and look which should widen the s.p.a.ce which naturally exists between the white man and the Indian, the Christian and the pagan.

Poor Mary! She no sooner heard this confession, than she sidled away from her interesting savage, until wholly beyond his reach, and could scarcely look at him during his stay that week, without feelings akin to fear. An Indian, she learned, was an Indian after all.

While Riley was there the boys often borrowed his boat, and Harold tried to imitate his dexterity in the use of the paddle. They soon became great friends. On one of their excursions for fish, they went, by his direction, around a point of land where the head of a fallen live oak lay in the water, and its partially decayed limbs were encrusted with barnacles and young oysters. There they soon caught a large supply of very fine fish of various sorts, particularly of the sheephead,--a delicious fish, shaped somewhat like the perch, only stouter and rounder, beautifully marked with broad alternate bands of black and white around the body, and varying in weight from half a pound to ten or fifteen pounds.

No one was more delighted than Frank, with the result of the excursion; for he was fond, as a cat, of everything in the shape of fish. But, it is said, there is no rose without its thorn; and so he found in the present case. He was enjoying, rather voraciously, the luxury of his favourite food, when a disorderly bone lodged crossways in the narrow part of his throat, and gave him excessive pain. Frank was a polite boy. Avoiding, as far as possible, disturbing the others by his misfortune, he slipped quietly from the table, and tried every means to relieve himself. But it was not until he had applied to his father, and, under his direction, swallowed a piece of hard bread, that he was able to resume his place.[#]

[#] Unwilling to mislead any of my young readers, by describing expedients and remedies that might not serve them in case of necessity, I have submitted my ma.n.u.script to several persons for inspection, and among others to a judicious physician and surgeon. It never occurred to me that in mentioning so simple a thing as swallowing a crust for the removal of a fish-bone, I could possibly do harm. To my surprise, however, my medical friend observed, that he supposed Dr. Gordon knew that the fishbone, which Frank swallowed, was _small_ and _flexible_, or he would not have used that expedient.

"If," said he, "the substance which lodges in the throat is so stiff (a pin for instance) as not to be easily bent, the attempt to force it down by swallowing a piece of bread may be unsafe; it may lacerate the lining membrane, or, being stopped by the offending substance, it may cause the person to be worse choked than before."

"But, Doctor, what should the poor fellow do in such a case?" he was asked.

"I suspect Dr. Gordon would have used a large feather?"

"Indeed!"

"Yes, he would have rumpled its plume, so as to reverse the direction of the feathery part, and would have thrust that down the throat, below the pin or bone. On withdrawing the feather, the substance would be either found adhering to its wet sides, or raised on end, so that it could be easily swallowed."

With many thanks for this suggestion, the promise was made that the young readers of Robert and Harold should have the benefit of his advice. But I think that the best plan is to avoid the fish-bones.

Being not quite so humble as he was polite, however, he began to condemn the fish instead of himself for his accident. His father told him he had no right to say one word against the fish, which was remarkably free from bones, and was just preparing to give him a gentle lecture on gormandizing, when Frank, foreseeing what was to come, was adroit enough to seize a moment's pause in the conversation, and to divert the subject, by asking with a very droll air,