Charley Laurel | Page 8

"God do many things we can't," said Charley. "But if I ask Him, would
He give me some to play wid?"
"No, Charley, He gives us what we want and what is good for us, but
He chooses to keep those stars where they are, for He knows that if He
sent one of them down they would only do us harm. Now, Charley,
don't be asking more questions; just lie down and go to sleep again,"
and Dick shut down the lid of the basket.
Charley's questions, however, had set his mind at work, and as he
gazed up in the sky he thought more than he had ever done before of
those wondrous lights which he had always seen there, and yet had
troubled himself so little about. And then he was led to think of the
God who made them and governs their courses, and many things he
had heard in his boyhood came back to his mind.
"Mother used to say He is a kind and loving God, and go I am sure He
will take care of this little chap, and me, too, for his sake."
Dick at length felt very sleepy. He had been afraid to shut his eyes, for
fear of the shark, but he could no longer prevent the drowsiness
creeping over him: he lashed himself therefore to the raft, to escape the
risk of falling off it, and placing his head on the basket, closed his
weary eyelids.
The bright beams of the great red sun rising above the horizon as they
fell on his eyes awoke him, and on looking round he caught sight of the
fin of the shark gliding by a few feet off. The monster's eye was turned
up towards him with a wicked leer, and he believed that in another
instant the savage creature would have made a grab at the raft. His pole
was brought into requisition, and the rapid blows he gave with it on the

water soon made the monster keep at a respectful distance. He would
not shout out, for fear of waking Charley.
The boy slept on for a couple of hours longer, and when he at length
awoke, seemed none the worse for what he had gone through. Dick had
cut up some little bits of meat and biscuit, that he might not have to
wait for breakfast after he awoke. He had on the previous day carefully
dried his clothes and bedding, and given him such food as he required--
the child, indeed, could not have had a better nurse.
Dick calculated that the store of provisions he had stowed away in the
basket and his own pockets would last a week, and he hoped before the
termination of that time to be picked up. He, in reality, in consequence
of anxiety, suffered more than the child: had he been alone, he probably
would not have felt so much.
The day passed away as before. Occasionally sea-birds flew overhead,
and huge fish were seen swimming by, or breaking the calm surface as
they poked up their noses or leaped into the air.
"Oh, Dick, Dick, what dat?" suddenly exclaimed Charley. As he spoke,
a dozen flying-fish, their wings glittering in the bright sun, leaped on to
the raft, some tumbling into the child's basket.
Dick quickly secured them, for though unwilling to feed the little boy
with raw fish, they would, he knew, afford him an ample meal or two.
Charley, however, begged to have some to play with, and was much
surprised to find their beautiful wings quickly become dry, and that in a
few seconds they were dead.
Dick enjoyed a better supper than he had had since the hurricane began,
and he always afterwards declared that those fish had kept his body and
soul, when he would otherwise have been starved--although those he
reserved for a meal on the following day required a keen appetite to
munch up.
Day after day Dick and his charge floated on the calm ocean. He was
becoming weaker than he had ever before been in his life, and yet he

would take but a few drops of water from the beaker, and would not eat
a particle of the food more than was necessary to keep the life in him,
so fearful was he of not having enough for Charley. Yet Dick had not
been distinguished among his shipmates for any especial good qualities,
except that he was looked upon as a good-natured, kind-hearted, jovial
fellow, and brave as the bravest; yet so were many of the Laurel's
gallant crew, now sleeping their last sleep beneath the ocean.
The faithful fellow now often found himself dropping off to sleep when
he wished to be awake--and afraid that on one of these occasions