Aladdin OBrien | Page 3

land; come with me, and bring the boat and the young lady." And
Aladdin at once went with the current.
"Margaret," he said, "I done my best." He crossed his heart.
"I know you done your best, 'Laddin." Margaret's cheeks were on the
brink of tears. "I know you done it."
They were dancing sportively farther and farther from the shore. The
water broke, now and again, and slapped the boat playfully.
"We 've come 'most three miles," said Aladdin.
"I daren't go back if I could now," said Margaret.
Meanwhile Aladdin scanned the horizon far and wide to see if he could
see anything of Antheus, tossed by the winds, or the Phrygian triremes,
or Capys, or the ships having upon their lofty poops the arms of Caicus.
There was no help in sight. Far and wide was the bubbling ruffled river,
behind the mainland, and ahead the leafy island.
"What'll your father do, 'Laddin?"

Aladdin merely grinned, less by way of explaining what his father
would do than of expressing to Margaret this: "Have courage; I am still
with you."
"'Laddin, we're not going so fast."
They had run into nominally still water, and the skiff was losing
momentum.
"Maybe we'd better land on the island," said Aladdin, "if we can, and
wait till the tide turns; won't be long now."
Again he plied the oars, and this time with success. For after a little
they came into the shadow of the island, the keel grunted upon sand,
and they got out. There was a little crescent of white beach, with an
occasional exclamatory green reed sticking from it, and above was a
fine arch of birch and pine. They hauled up the boat as far as they could,
and sat down to wait for the tide to turn. Firm earth, in spite of her
awful spiritual forebodings, put Margaret in a more cheerful mood.
Furthermore, the woods and the general mystery of islands were as
inviting as Punch.
"It's not much fun watching the tide come in," she said after a time.
Aladdin got up.
"Let's go away," he said, "and come back. It never comes in if you
watch for it to."
Margaret arose, and they went into the woods.
A devil's darning-needle came and buzzed for an instant on the bow of
the skiff. A belated sandpiper flew into the cove, peeped, and flew out.
The tide rose a little and said:
"What is this heavy thing upon my back?"
Then it rose a little more.

"Why, it's poor little sister boat stuck in the mud," said the tide.
From far off came joyful crackling of twigs and the sounds of children
at play.
The tide rose a little more and freed an end of the boat.
"That's better," said the boat, "ever so much better. I can almost float."
Again the tide raised its broad shoulders a hair's-breadth.
"Great!" said the boat. "Once more, Old Party!"
When the children came back, they found that poor little sister boat was
gone, and in her stead all of their forgotten troubles had returned and
were waiting for them, and looking them in the face.

II
It is absurdly difficult to get help in this world. If a lady puts her head
out of a window and yells "Police," she is considered funny, or if a man
from the very bottom of his soul calls for help, he is commonly
supposed to be drunk. Thus if, cast away upon an island, you should
wave your handkerchief to people passing in a boat, they would
imagine that you wanted to be friendly, and wave back; or, if they were
New York aldermen out for a day's fishing in the Sound, call you
names. And so it was with Margaret and Aladdin. With shrill piping
voices they called tearfully to a party sailing up the river from church,
waved and waved, were answered in kind, and tasted the bitterest cup
possible to the Crusoed.
Then after much wandering in search of the boat it got to be
hunger-time, and two small stomachs calling lustily for food did not
add to the felicity of the situation.
With hunger-time came dusk, and afterward darkness, blacker than the
tall hat of Margaret's father. For at the last moment nature had thought

better of the fine weather which man had been enjoying for the past
month, and drawn a vast curtain of inkiness over the luminaries from
one horizon even unto the other, and sent a great puff of wet fog up the
valley of the river from the ocean, so that teeth chattered and the ends
of fingers became shriveled and bloodless. And had not vanity gone out
with the entrance of sin, Margaret would have noticed that her tight
little curls were looser