第80章 Pebbly Beach(6)

"I wonder if Gerty and Mamie will be sorry if I'm drowned,"thought Jill,remembering the poor girl who had been lost in the Chasm not long ago.Her lively fancy pictured the grief of her friends at her loss;but that did not help or comfort her now,and as her anxious gaze wandered along the shore,she said aloud,in a pensive tone,"Perhaps I shall be wrecked on Norman's Woe,and somebody will make poetry about me.It would be pretty to read,but I don't want to die that way.Oh,why did I come!Why didn't I stay safe and comfortable in my own boat?"At the thought a sob rose,and poor Jill laid her head down on her lap to cry with all her heart,feeling very helpless,small,and forsaken alone there on the great sea.In the midst of her tears came the thought,"When people are in danger,they ask God to save them";and,slipping down upon her knees,she said her prayer as she had never said it before,for when human help seems gone we turn to Him as naturally as lost children cry to their father,and feel sure that he will hear and answer them.

After that she felt better,and wiped away the drops that blinded her,to look out again like a shipwrecked mariner watching for a sail.And there it was!Close by,coming swiftly on with a man behind it,a sturdy brown fisher,busy with his lobster-pots,and quite unconscious how like an angel he looked to the helpless little girl in the rudderless boat.

"Hi!hi!Oh,please do stop and get me!I'm lost,no oars,nobody to fix the sail!Oh,oh!please come!"screamed Jill,waving her hat frantically as the other boat skimmed by and the man stared at her as if she really was a mermaid with a fishy tail.

"Keep still!I'll come about and fetch you!"he called out;and Jill obeyed,sitting like a little image of faith,till with a good deal of shifting and flapping of the sail,the other boat came alongside and took her in tow,A few words told the story,and in five minutes she was sitting snugly tucked up watching art unpleasant mass of lobsters flap about dangerously near her toes,while the boat bounded over the waves with a delightful motion,and every instant brought her nearer borne.She did not say much,but felt a good deal;and when they met two boats coming to meet her,manned by very anxious crews of men and boys,she was so pale and quiet that Jack was quite bowed down with remorse,and Frank nearly pitched the bicycle boy overboard because he gayly asked Jill how she left her friends in England.There was great rejoicing over her,for the people on the rocks had heard of her loss,and ran about like ants when their hill is disturbed.Of course half a dozen amiable souls posted off to the Willows to tell the family that the little girl was drowned,so that when the rescuers appeared quite a crowd was assembled on the beach to welcome her.But Jill felt so used up with her own share of the excitement that she was glad to be carried to the house by Frank and Jack,and laid upon her bed,where Mrs.Hammond soon restored her with sugar-coated pills,and words even sweeter and more soothing.

Other people,busied with their own pleasures,forgot all about it by the next day;but Jill remembered that hour long afterward,both awake and asleep,for her dreams were troubled,and she often started up imploring someone to save her.Then she would recall the moment when,feeling most helpless,she had asked for help,and it had come as quickly as if that tearful little cry had been heard and answered,though her voice had been drowned by the dash of the waves that seemed ready to devour her.This made a deep impression on her,and a sense of childlike faith in the Father of all began to grow up within her;for in that lonely voyage,short as it was,she had found a very precious treasure to keep for ever,to lean on,and to love during the longer voyage which all must take before we reach our home.