Charlie to the Rescue | Page 2

against supposing that from this point our hero was engaged in rescue-work, and continued at it ever after without intermission. Like Samson, with his great strength, he exercised his powers only now and then--more than half unconscious of what was in him--and on many occasions without any definite purpose in view.
His first act of heroism was exercised, when he had reached the age of nine, in behalf of a kitten.
It was on a magnificent summer day, soon after he had been sent to the village school, that the incident occurred. Charlie was walking at the time with one of his school-fellows named Shank Leather.
Shank was a little older than himself, and a good enough fellow in his way, but much given to boasting, and possessed of very few of the fine qualities that characterised our hero. The two were out for a holiday-ramble, a long way from home, and had reached a river on the banks of which they sat down to enjoy their mid-day meal. The meal was simple, and carried in their pockets. It consisted of two inch-and-a-half-thick slices of bread, with two lumps of cheese to match.
"I wish this river was nearer home," said Shank Leather, as they sat down under a spreading oak to dine.
"Why?" asked his companion, with a felicitous brevity and straightforwardness which occasionally marked his conversation.
"Because then I would have a swim in it everyday."
"Can you swim?" asked Charlie, a slight elevation of the eyebrows indicating surprise not unmingled with admiration--for our hero was a hero-worshipper. He could not well have been a hero otherwise!
"Of course I can swim," returned Shank; "that is to say, a little; but I feel sure that I'll be a splendid swimmer some day."
His companion's look of admiration increased.
"What'll you take to drink?" asked Shank, drawing a large flask from the pocket in which he had concealed it up to that moment with the express purpose of giving his companion a pleasant surprise.
It may be well to add that the variety of dunks implied in his question was imaginary. Shank had only one flask, but in the exuberance of convivial generosity he quoted his own father--who was addicted to "the bottle."
"What is it?" asked Brooke, in curious expectancy.
"Taste and see," said his friend, uncorking the flask.
Charlie tasted, but did not "see," apparently, for he looked solemn, and tasted again.
"It's liquorice-water," said Shank, with the look of one who expects approval. "I made it myself!"
Nauseous in the extreme, it might have served the purpose of an emetic had not the digestion of the boys been ostrich-like, but, on hearing how it came into existence, Charlie put it a third time to his lips, took a good gulp, and then, nodding his head as he wiped his mouth with his cuff, declared that it was "wonderful."
"Yes, isn't it? There's not many fellows could make stuff like that."
"No, indeed," assented the other heartily, as he attacked the bread and cheese. "Does your father know you made it?"
"Oh yes, and he tasted it too--he'd taste anything in the shape of drink--but he spat it out, and then washed his mouth with brandy an' water. Mother took some too, and she said she had tasted worse drinks; and she only wished that father would take to it. That made father laugh heartily. Then I gave some to little May, and she said it was `So nice.'"
"Ay. That was like little May," remarked Charlie, with a quiet laugh; "she'd say that a mess o' tar an' shoe-blacking was nice if you made it. But I say, Shank, let's see you swim. I'd give anything if I could swim. Do, like a brick as you are. There's a fine deep hole here under the bank."
He pointed to a pool in the river where the gurgling eddies certainly indicated considerable depth of water, but his friend shook his head.
"No, Charlie," he said, "you don't understand the danger as I do. Don't you see that the water runs into the hole at such a rate that there's a tree-mendous eddy that would sweep any man off his legs--"
"But you're goin' to swim, you know," interrupted his friend, "an' have got to be off your legs anyhow!"
"That's all you know," returned the other. "If a man's swept round by an eddy, don't you know, he'll be banged against things, and then the water rushes out of the hole with such a gush, an' goes thunderin' down below, over boulders and stones, and--an'--don't you see?"
"That's true, Shank; it does look dangerous, even for a man that can swim."
He put such emphasis on the "man" that his comrade glanced sharply at him, but the genuine innocence of our hero's face was too obvious to suggest irony. He simply saw that the use of the word man pleased his friend, therefore