A Great Emergency and Other Tales | Page 2

all Friday afternoon, and worked in bed on Saturday morning to
finish your net."
"Come along," said Rupert. "You know I'm very much obliged to you
for the net; it's a splendid one."
"I'll bring a camp-stool if there's not room on the bench," said Henrietta
cheerfully.
"People never take camp-stools to lectures," said Rupert, and when we
got to the cucumber frame we found that the old plank, which he had
raised on inverted flower-pots, would have held a much larger audience
than he had invited. Opposite to it was a rhubarb-pot, with the round
top of a barrel resting on it. On this stood a glass of water. A delightful
idea thrilled through me, suggested by an imperfect remembrance of a
lecture on chemistry which I had attended.
"Will there be experiments?" I whispered.
"I think not," Henrietta replied. "There are glasses of water at the
missionary meetings, and there are no experiments."
Meanwhile Rupert had been turning over the leaves of the yellow
leather book. To say the truth, I think he was rather nervous; but if we
have a virtue among us it is that of courage; and after dropping the
book twice, and drinking all the water at a draught, he found his place,
and began.
"How to act in an emergency."
"What's an emergency?" I asked. I was very proud of being taught by
Rupert, and anxious to understand everything as we went along.

"You shouldn't interrupt," said Rupert, frowning. I am inclined now to
think that he could not answer my question off-hand; for though he
looked cross then, after referring to the book he answered me: "It's a
fire, or drowning, or an apoplectic fit, or anything of that sort." After
which explanation, he hurried on. If what he said next came out of his
own head, or whether he had learned it by heart, I never knew.
"There is no stronger sign of good-breeding than presence of mind in
an--"
"--apoplectic fit," I suggested. I was giving the keenest attention, and
Rupert had hesitated, the wind having blown over a leaf too many of
the yellow leather book.
"An emergency," he shouted, when he had found his place. "Now we'll
have one each time. The one for to-day is--How to act in a case of
drowning."
To speak the strict truth, I would rather not have thought about
drowning. I had my own private horror over a neighbouring mill-dam,
and I had once been very much frightened by a spring-tide at the sea;
but cowardice is not an indulgence for one of my race, so I screwed up
my lips and pricked my ears to learn my duty in the unpleasant
emergency of drowning.
"It doesn't mean being drowned yourself," Rupert continued, "but what
to do when another person has been drowned."
The emergency was undoubtedly easier, and I gave a cheerful attention
as Rupert began to question us.
"Supposing a man had been drowned in the canal, and was brought
ashore, and you were the only people there, what would you do with
him?"
I was completely nonplussed. "I felt quite sure I could do nothing with
him, he would be so heavy; but I felt equally certain that this was not
the answer which Rupert expected, so I left the question to Henrietta's

readier wit. She knitted her thick eyebrows for some minutes, partly
with perplexity, and partly because of the sunshine reflected from the
cucumber frame, and then said,
"We should bury him in a vault; Charlie and I _couldn't_ dig a grave
deep enough."
I admired Henrietta's foresight, but Rupert was furious.
"How silly you are!" he exclaimed, knocking over the top of the
rhubarb-pot table and the empty glass in his wrath. "Of course I don't
mean a dead man. I mean what would you do to bring a partly drowned
man to life again?"
"That wasn't what you said," cried Henrietta, tossing her head.
"I let you come to my lecture," grumbled Rupert bitterly, as he stooped
to set his table right, "and this is the way you behave!"
"I'm very sorry, Rupert dear!" said Henrietta. "Indeed, I only mean to
do my best, and I do like your lecture so very much!"
"So do I," I cried, "very, very much!" And by a simultaneous impulse
Henrietta and I both clapped our hands vehemently. This restored
Rupert's self-complacency, and he bowed and continued the lecture.
From this we learned that the drowned man should be turned over on
his face to let the canal water run out of his mouth and ears, and that his
wet clothes should be got off, and he should be made dry and warm as
quickly as possible, and placed in a comfortable position, with the head
and shoulders slightly raised. All