The Puritan Twins | Page 4

wave which washed over his bare feet, and, turning
about, was dismayed to find a sheet of blue water covering the bay and
to see Nancy standing on the topmost rock shouting "Dan! Dan!" at the
top of her lungs. For one astonished instant he looked at her, then,
throwing down his shovel, he plunged unhesitatingly into the icy bath.
And now Nancy, realizing that there was not a moment to lose if she
hoped to reach the shore in safety, let herself slowly down off the rocks,
leaving the basket behind her, and started toward her brother.
The water was already so deep in the channels that their progress
toward each other was slow, but they ploughed bravely on, feeling the
bottom carefully at each step lest they sink in some sand-pocket or
hollow washed out by the tide. Some distance away toward
Charlestown a fishing schooner rocked on the deeper water of the bay,
and a fisherman in a small boat, attracted by the shouting, looked up,
and, seeing the two struggling figures, instantly bent to his oars and
started toward them. Though he rowed rapidly, it was some minutes
before he could reach the children, who were now floundering about in
water nearly up to their necks.
[Illustration]
"Hold fast to my shoulder, Nancy," he heard Dan cry. "I can float, and I
can swim a little. Keep thy nose above water and let thy feet go where
they will." Nancy, spluttering and gurgling, was trying hard to follow
Dan's directions, when the boat shot alongside, and a cheery voice cried,
"Ahoy, there! Come aboard, you young porpoises!"

To the children it was like a voice straight from heaven. Dan
immediately helped Nancy to get into the boat, and then she balanced it
while he climbed aboard.
When they were safely bestowed among the lobster-pots with which
the boat was laden, the man leaned on his oars and eyed them critically.
"Short of sense, ain't ye?" he remarked genially. "Nigh about drownded
that time or I 'm no skipper! If ye ain't bent on destruction ye 'd better
get into dry clothes. Ye 're as wet as a mess of drownded kittens. Tell
me where you live and I 'll take you home."
He flung a tarpaulin over the shivering figures and tucked it around
them as he scolded. "'T is all my fault," sobbed poor Nancy. "Dan came
in just to get me out."
"Very commendable of him, I 'm sure," said the stranger, nodding
approvingly at Dan, "and just what he 'd ought to do, and doubtless you
're worth saving at that, though a hen-headeder young miss I never see
in all my days!"
"She went to find seaweed to bed the clams," explained Dan, coming to
his sister's defense, "and the tide caught her. Thou art kind indeed to
pick us up, sir."
"Oh," groaned remorseful Nancy, her teeth chattering, "it 's all because
I 'm such a sinner! I made a likeness of Gran'ther Wattles in the sand
and said dreadful things about the prophet Elijah, or mayhap 't was
Elisha, and Dan said a bear might come to eat me up just like the forty
and two children, and instead of a bear we both were almost swallowed
by the tide!"
"Well, now," said the stranger, comfortingly, "ye see instead of sending
bears the Lord sent me along to fish ye out, just the same as He sent the
whale to swallow Jonah when he was acting contrary! Looks like He
meant to let ye off with a scare this time. Come now, my lass, there 's
salt water enough aboard and if ye cry into the boat, ye 'll have to bail
her out. Besides," he added whimsically, looking up at the sky, "there 's
another squall coming on, and two at a time is too many for any sailor.

If I 'm to cast you up on the shore same as the whale, ye 'll have to tell
me which way to go, and who ye are."
"Our father is Josiah Pepperell," answered Dan, "and our house is
almost a mile back from shore near Cambridge."
"So you 're Josiah Pepperell's children! To be sure, to be sure! Might
have known it. Ye do favor him some," said the fisherman. "Well! well!
The ways of the Lord are surely past finding out! Why, I knew your
father way back in England. He came over here for religion and I came
for fish. Not that I ain't a God-fearing man," he added hastily, noticing
a look of horror on Nancy's face, "but I ain't so pious as some. I 'm a
seafaring man, Captain Sanders of the Lucy Ann, Marblehead. Ye can
see her riding at anchor out there in the bay.