Summer Days

“And were you drowned?” asked Dolly very much interested.

“Hardly,” laughed Andrew; “or I should not have been here.”

“Of course not,” said Dolly. “How stupid I was! you must have got safely ashore; tell us how you did it.”

“Well,” said Andrew, “I was swept off with the others, and at first I thought it was all up with me, and that I should never breathe again, for I was buried deep by the furious waves; but at last I came to the top; and there close by me was a spar, dashing about. I seized and clung to it, and the wind drove us slowly shore-ward.

“There were a crowd of men on the beach and they soon spied me. The surf was very heavy, so that no boat could be launched, but two or three men stood ready with ropes tied around them, asnd when I came near they dashed in and seized me, and we were dragged out by the rope.”

“Dear me!” said Hal; “that sounds pretty dreadful, I don’t much think I will be a sailor after all.”

Andrew smiled. “It is not a pleasant life at all; at least I never found it so.”

By and by the days began to grow shorter, and papa and mamma began to throw out hints about school. Hal and Dolly tried very hard not to hear them. It was so pleasant those bright September days that they wished they would never come to an end. All the summer visitors had gone and it seemed to the children as if the beach belonged to them.

But the end came at last. Again the trunks were piled into the Speedwell and the bay was crossed. Again the night was spent in the old inn, and when the morning came the train whirled them away once more, and their pleasant summer was at an end.