The storm subsided toward daybreak,and I dozed gradually to sleep with a sense of obligation to Lem Hackett for going to eternal suffering in that abrupt way,and thus preventing a far more dreadful disaster--my own loss.
But when I rose refreshed,by and by,and found that those other boys were still alive,I had a dim sense that perhaps the whole thing was a false alarm;that the entire turmoil had been on Lem's account and nobody's else.The world looked so bright and safe that there did not seem to be any real occasion to turn over a new leaf.
I was a little subdued,during that day,and perhaps the next;after that,my purpose of reforming slowly dropped out of my mind,and I had a peaceful,comfortable time again,until the next storm.
That storm came about three weeks later;and it was the most unaccountable one,to me,that I had ever experienced;for on the afternoon of that day,'Dutchy'was drowned.
Dutchy belonged to our Sunday-school.He was a German lad who did not know enough to come in out of the rain;but he was exasperatingly good,and had a prodigious memory.
One Sunday he made himself the envy of all the youth and the talk of all the admiring village,by reciting three thousand verses of Scripture without missing a word;then he went off the very next day and got drowned.
Circumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressiveness.
We were all bathing in a muddy creek which had a deep hole in it,and in this hole the coopers had sunk a pile of green hickory hoop poles to soak,some twelve feet under water.
We were diving and 'seeing who could stay under longest.'
We managed to remain down by holding on to the hoop poles.
Dutchy made such a poor success of it that he was hailed with laughter and derision every time his head appeared above water.
At last he seemed hurt with the taunts,and begged us to stand still on the bank and be fair with him and give him an honest count--'be friendly and kind just this once,and not miscount for the sake of having the fun of laughing at him.'
Treacherous winks were exchanged,and all said 'All right,Dutchy--go ahead,we'll play fair.'
Dutchy plunged in,but the boys,instead of beginning to count,followed the lead of one of their number and scampered to a range of blackberry bushes close by and hid behind it.
They imagined Dutchy's humiliation,when he should rise after a superhuman effort and find the place silent and vacant,nobody there to applaud.They were 'so full of laugh'with the idea,that they were continually exploding into muffled cackles.
Time swept on,and presently one who was peeping through the briers,said,with surprise--'Why,he hasn't come up,yet!'
The laughing stopped.
'Boys,it 's a splendid dive,'said one.
'Never mind that,'said another,'the joke on him is all the better for it.'
There was a remark or two more,and then a pause.
Talking ceased,and all began to peer through the vines.
Before long,the boys'faces began to look uneasy,then anxious,then terrified.Still there was no movement of the placid water.
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.
