Various

“ Emily was riding at a rapid pace through an open, dry swamp, at noonday, when one of three Tory scouts, who were on the watch, seized her bridle and bade her halt. With perfect composure and firm voice she demanded by what authority she was arrested. The young man was confounded by the appearance and manner of his prisoner. They had observed a woman riding in apparent haste from the direction of Greene's army toward the camp of Sumter, and suspected her errand. She proved to be a young maiden as fair as a lily, with mild blue eyes, and a profusion of brown hair. ”

“ You know that cough of mine? Well, it's whooping-cough!"
Joe darted back. "Gracious!" he said; "I wouldn't have it for anything. I couldn't go to school. I'd lose all chance of promotion."
"That's my case exactly," said Tom, bitterly.
"It's too bad, Tom," called Joe, keeping well out of breathing distance. "But I say, old fellow, you can study all the same, you know. You're a sturdy chap; it won't hinder you. It would knock me higher than a kite. I can't afford to lose any flesh and blood. ”

“ I know we must live; but, oh dear! life is so empty!"
"My patience, madam! do you find it so? I always thought it overcrowded," was on the tip of the Doctor's tongue; but he stopped himself, and said, instead, quite gently, "Life's pretty much what we make it ourselves, I fancy."
"And how is the hospital? how is the cot?" asked Mrs. Braithwaite, willing to change the subject.
"Oh, going on all right. By-the-way, I'd like you to see the last young one in it. A small monkey that's won all our hearts somehow. ”

“ Jones, "Joe will be all right yet. With your permission we'll get him out in the country on Tom's grandfather's farm. What he wants is country air and rest, and to give up this wicked struggle for supremacy. There's a better victory, my boys, than that with a mathematical problem—to do the best you can, and bid godspeed to the one that can honestly do better. There are some things far better than a class promotion, and you'll find them out there on the farm: health, contentment—"
"And the jolliest colt you ever saw, Joe," broke in Tom, "and no end to dogs and pigeons." ”

“ Why shouldn't we drift down to the beach after the wreck?"
"Because the seas would fill us full of water long before we could get there. I'm not sure, though, but what we can sail there."
"I'd like to know how we can set a sail without a mast?" said Harry.
"Suppose you and Tom take hold of the ends of a rubber blanket, and stand one on each side of the deck, so as [Pg 534] to spread the blanket out as wide as possible. Joe could stand between you, and let the blanket blow right against him. If you fellows could hold it, I believe we could run down to the beach in a very little while." ”

“ The crew obeyed orders perfectly, and in a very few minutes the Ghost was running under a heavy press of India rubber blanket for the distant beach. She had fully two miles to go, but as she was sailing fast enough to keep out of the way of the sea, there was no doubt that she would cross the bay safely. It took all the strength which Harry and Tom possessed to hold the blanket, while poor Joe, with his back braced against it, had the satisfaction of knowing that if it blew out of the boys' hands, it would carry him overboard. ”

“ Joe Brown ain't going to get ahead of me," said Tom, whose father knew he never "played hookey."
"But, my son, you don't want to give away the whooping-cough? It's something nice to keep; you mustn't be too generous with it."
"There's nothing stingy about me," said Tom, who, in truth, was a whole-souled little fellow, always sharing what he had with his playmates. "If it's a good time to have it, why can't I go and give it to the whole class?"
"There's a prejudice against people being too generous," said Mr. Jones; and patting Tom's head, he went off to business. ”

“ The boys worked hard, but the weight of the mainsail, soaked as it was with water, made their efforts unsuccessful. While they were still working, the sea suddenly swept the wreck away from them, and to their dismay they found that the one rope which had attached it to the boat had parted, and that the mast and mainsail had started on an independent cruise. Harry would have jumped overboard in chase of it, but Charley forbade him, and assured his comrades that the wreck would drift quietly across to the beach, where they could find it after the wind went down. ”

“ The wind steadily increased, and before long Charley saw the necessity of reefing. So he brought the boat with her head to the wind, let go the anchor, and lowered the sails.
"Do you mean to say that we've got to anchor every time we reef?" asked Harry, as he was knotting the reef-points of the mainsail.
"It isn't necessary to anchor. We could put in a reef if we had no anchor with us; but with as much wind as we have now, it makes the work of reefing a good deal easier if we are lying at anchor."
"Why couldn't we reef while the boat is running under her jib?" inquired Tom. ”

“ He was too late, for the spars drifted against the cable, and their weight, added to that of the boat, was more than the anchor could hold. The Ghost began to drift slowly toward the shore. Nothing could be done, and the boys could only wait for the inevitable moment when the boat would strike.
"I told you I was bound to get wet some time to-day," said Joe. "You see I was right."
"Let's be glad that we've nothing worse than a wetting to dread," said Charley. "The water can't be more than three or four feet deep here, and we couldn't drown ourselves if we were to try. ”

“ He had spoiled the canoe at one bite, and then he dashed fiercely around in all directions, looking for the men. They swam well, but he'd have caught some of them if it hadn't been that the harpoon in him belonged to the other canoe, and the crew of that were hauling on it with all their might. The upset men scrambled into my boat, and Lloyd and I got some shots at the hippopotamus that weakened him. It was well we did, for they pulled too hard on the harpoon rope, and got too near, and in a moment more they too were in the river, and their canoe was being bitten to splinters. ”

“ This work finished, dinner was made ready, and the boys began to think that riding out a gale at anchor was not half so tiresome as they had supposed it would be.
"There are our spars at last," exclaimed Joe. "I had made up my mind that they had missed the way, and had given up looking for us."
"There they are, sure enough," said Charley, "and a great deal too near us. First thing we know they will drift right down on us." So saying, he sprang forward and seized the cable, with the hope of giving the boat a sheer that would keep her out of the way of the wreck. ”

“ Before the afternoon was over it had done so, and as a result, the sea ceased to break on the shore where the Ghost was lying, and she was finally got afloat, and bailed out.
"We're going to have rain before dark," said Charley. "I can feel it in the air. We'd better rig up our cabin, and get the things on board again, before the rain catches us. If we don't take care, Joe will get wet again."
"No, he won't," replied Joe. "He can't get any wetter than he is. Do you know, boys, I believe I'm getting to be like a sponge. ”

“ Tom Jones began to wheeze and sneeze last spring, and pretty soon a cough set in that alarmed his mamma, and she was just making up her mind to send for the family physician, when Tom was seized one morning with a fit of coughing which ended in a prolonged, unmistakable whoop. No Indian on the war-path ever seemed better satisfied with a whoop than Mrs. Jones did with this one of Tom's.
"Why, Tommy's got the whooping-cough!" she exclaimed, joyfully, to her husband. ”

“ The black men go for them in boats, with harpoons that they make themselves. They take a stout pole, of a hard, heavy wood that grows there, and cut it to about ten or twelve feet long and three or four inches thick. That's the shaft of the harpoon. The head is made of a tough piece of iron, thicker than my finger, and about a foot long. It has a barbed spear-head at the end, and when those barbs get under the tough hide of a hippopotamus, all the plunging and struggling he can do won't make them pull out. ”

“ I believe, though, that my black servant would have stripped off his clothes if he hadn't been so proud of them. Suddenly one of the black hunters in my boat put his hand on my arm, and pointed at something a little ahead of the canoe on the left.
"It was something big and black coming slowly up through the water. A little pair of ears very wide apart; then the great eyes that seemed to stick right out; then the nose—there was no use in asking whose head that was. Just enough of his body followed above the surface to give the black hunter in the prow of that canoe a fair mark for his harpoon. ”

“ Weeks and months went by, and each week found Mercy better and brighter and stronger, until her tongue used to go like a mill clapper, and a continual stream of chatter overflowed from the Daisy Cot.
One bright day Sister Theresa and the Doctor were in close consultation as they walked from the boys' ward to the girls'.
"You see," the Sister was saying, "little Mercy is nearly well now; indeed, she ought to go into the country for change of air, and we really ought not to keep the cot from some other patient who may need to come in." ”

“ She rolled less, and steered more easily. The boys were delighted with the way in which she raced over the water, but occasionally, when they looked at the curling seas which followed her, and seemed to just miss breaking over her stern, they were a little uneasy.
"There is no danger from those seas as long as we can carry all this sail," remarked Charley. "The boat is moving faster than they are, and they can't overtake her."
But it was soon evident that sail would have to be shortened again. The wind was now blowing a gale, and not a sail was visible on the bay. ”

“ One in particular so stirred my young blood that I actually resolved to put on brother Ben's clothes, take our old fowling-piece, join the Swamp Fox, as the British called Marion, and fight for freedom to call my soul my own."
"What was the event?" I asked.
"You have read, maybe," said Mrs. Buxton, "how Lord Rawdon, after chasing General Greene far toward the Saluda, suddenly turned back, abandoned Fort Ninety-Six, and retreated toward Charleston. Well, Greene sent Harry Lee, with his light-horse, to get in front of Rawdon before he should reach the ferry on the Congaree at Granby. ”

“ Charley did not care to come to an anchor, for he had noticed a point of land about a mile ahead, and intended to run under the lee of it, and put in a second reef. So he was about to order Joe to slack the peak halyards, when, without the slightest warning, the Ghost's mast went over the side with a tremendous crash, tearing up part of the deck, and very nearly dragging Joe overboard with the halyards, which caught him around the neck.
"Keep cool, boys," cried Charley. "Let go the anchor, and then get hold of the jib, and try to drag it in clear of the wreck." ”

“ Just as soon as a hippopotamus is wounded, he turns to bite at the thing that hurt him, and if his great jaws and sharp teeth shut down on a piece of wood, they'd grind it to splinters, no matter how hard and strong it might be. ”