American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Sunday schools -- United States -- Periodicals
I don't know how they did it. At this time of which I write, they had
no regular lifeboat such as is now in use; they were not regularly
manned for work in any way. Never mind, they did it. One, two, three,
four, five, six, seven. Oh, I do not know how many people rode, some
way, over the stormy water, on a rope, and reached the shore. Drenched,
powerless, almost breathless, yet alive! Who do you think was one of
the first to arrive that night? Why, a little baby less than three
months old! What! _She_ did not cling to ropes! Oh, no. All she did
was to lie in utmost quiet in the hands of a great strong man; he was
lashed to the rope in such a way that the men on shore could pull him
in, but the baby he held in his two strong hands, as high above the
fury of the waves as the hands would reach. What if he had dropped her?
Then the sea would have swallowed her in an instant? An awful journey,
but the baby did not know it. She must have gasped a little for breath,
and she may have cried, but no one heard her; the roaring ocean took
care of that.
You don't see how she lived through it? They did not think she could;
not even the mother, when she took a second to kiss her, before she
gave her into the strong arms, thought that she should ever see her
darling again. But it was the only possible way of escape; they could
but try. So the baby rode into shore, and I think as many as a hundred
mothers stood waiting to receive her, with hot blankets enough to
smother her, and warm milk enough to drown her in; for it had gotten
abroad in some way that a baby was on board the sinking ship. If you
could have heard the shout that went up when the baby was landed in the
arms of one mother, who said, after a second of solemn hush: "Yes, she
is living!" you would have felt as though you almost knew what a life
was worth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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