Bruno

There was once a boy named Antonio Van Tromp. They commonly called him Antony. Sometimes they called him Van Tromp. He lived in a certain sea-port town, where his father used to come in with a ship from sea. His father was captain of the ship. Antonio used to be very fond of going down to the pier while his father’s ship was unloading. One day he persuaded his cousin, who was several years younger than himself, to go down with him.

Antonio and his cousin amuse themselves on the pier.

The boys played about upon the pier for an hour very happily. The seamen and laborers were unloading the ship, and there were a great many boxes, and bales, and hogsheads, and other packages of merchandise lying upon the pier. There were porters at work carrying the goods away, and sailors rolling hogsheads and barrels to and fro. There was an anchor on the pier, and weights, and chains, and trucks, and other similar objects lying around. The boys amused themselves for some time in jumping about upon these things. At length, on looking down over the edge of the pier, they saw that there was a boat there. It was fastened by means of a rope to one of the links of an enormous chain, which was lying over the edge of the pier. On seeing this boat, they conceived the idea of getting into it, and rowing about a little in the neighborhood of the pier.

The boat.

There were no oars in the boat, and so Van Tromp asked a sailor, whom he saw at work near, to go and get them for him on board the ship.

Conversation with the sailor.

“Not I,” said the sailor.

“Why not?” asked Van Tromp.

“It is ebb tide,” said the sailor, “and if you two boys cast off from the pier in that boat, you will get carried out to sea.”

“Why, I can scull,” said Van Tromp.

“Oh no,” said the sailor.

“At least I can pull,” said Van Tromp.

“Oh no,” said the sailor.

The boys stood perplexed, not knowing what to do.

All along the shores of the sea the tide rises for six hours, and while it is thus rising, the water, of course, wherever there are harbors, creeks, and bays, flows in. Afterward the tide falls for six hours, and while it is falling, the water of the harbors, creeks, and bays flows out. When the water is going out, they call it ebb tide. That is what the sailor meant by saying it was ebb tide.

Sculling and pulling.

Sculling is a mode of propelling a boat by one oar. The oar in this case is put out behind the boat, that is, at the stern, and is moved to and fro in a peculiar manner, somewhat resembling the motion of the tail of a fish when he is swimming through the water. It is difficult to learn how to scull. Antony could scull pretty well in smooth water, but he could not have worked his way in this manner against an ebb tide.

Pulling, as Antony called it, is another name for rowing. In rowing, it is necessary to have two oars. To row a boat requires more strength, though less skill, than to scull it.

The boys, after hesitating for some time, finally concluded at least to get into the boat. They had unfastened the painter, that is, the rope by which the boat was tied, while they had been talking with the sailor, in order to be all ready to cast off. When they found that the sailor would not bring them any oars, they fastened the painter again, so that the boat should not get away, and then climbed down the side of the pier, and got into the boat.

The boat adrift.

Unfortunately, when, after untying the painter, they attempted to make it fast again into the link of the chain, they did not do it securely; and as they moved to and fro about the boat, pushing it one way and another, the rope finally got loose, and the boat floated slowly away from the pier. The boys were engaged very intently at the time in watching some sun-fish which they saw in the water. They were leaning over the side of the boat to look at them, so that they did not see the pier when it began to recede, and thus the tide carried them to a considerable distance from it before they observed that they were adrift.

At length Larry – for that was the name of Antony’s cousin – looking up accidentally, observed that the boat was moving away.

“Antony! Antony!” exclaimed, he, “we’re adrift.”

As he said this, Larry looked very much terrified.

Antony rose from his reclining position, and stood upright in the bottom of the boat. He looked back toward the pier, which he observed was rapidly receding.

Adrift.

“Yes,” said he, “we’re adrift; but who cares?”

When a boy gets into difficulty or danger by doing something wrong, he is generally very much frightened. When, however, he knows that he has not been doing any thing wrong, but has got into difficulty purely by accident, he is much less likely to be afraid.

Antony knew that he had done nothing wrong in getting into the boat. His father was a sea-captain, and he was allowed to get into boats whenever he chose to do so. He was accustomed, too, to be in boats on the water, and now, if he had only had an oar or a paddle, he would not have felt any concern whatever. As it was, he felt very little concern.

His first thought was to call out to the sailor whom they had left on the pier. The boys both called to him long and loud, but he was so busy turning over boxes, and bales, and rolling hogsheads about, that he did not hear.

“What shall we do?” asked Larry, with a very anxious look.

The sail-boat.

“Oh, we shall get ashore again easily enough,” replied Antony. “Here is a large sail-boat coming up. We will hail them, and they will take us aboard.”

“Do you think they will take us on board?” asked Larry.

“Yes, I am sure they will,” said Antony.

Just then the boat which the boys were drifting in came along opposite to a large sail-boat. This boat was sloop-rigged; that is, it had one mast and a fore-and-aft sail. She was standing up the harbor, and was headed toward the pier. The sail was spread, and the sail-boat was gliding along smoothly, but quite swiftly, through the water.

There were two men on board. One was at the helm, steering. The other, who had on a red flannel shirt, came to the side of the boat, and looked over toward the boys. We can just see the head of this man above the gunwale on the starboard side of the boat in the picture.

Antony calls for help. He receives none.

“Hallo! sail-boat!” said Antony.

“Hallo!” said the flannel shirt.

“Take us aboard of your boat,” said Antony; “we have got adrift, and have not got any oar.”

“We can’t take you on board,” said the man; “we have got beyond you already.”

“Throw us a rope,” said Antony.

“We have not got any rope long enough,” said the sailor.

As he said these words, the sail-boat passed entirely by.

“What shall we do?” said Larry, much alarmed.

Larry was much smaller than Antony, and much less accustomed to be in boats on the water, and he was much more easily terrified.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Antony; “we shall get brought up among some of the shipping below. There are plenty of vessels coming up the harbor.”

The boys float down the channel.

So they went on – slowly, but very steadily – wherever they were borne by the course of the ebbing tide. Instead of being brought up, however, as Antony had predicted, by some of the ships, they were kept by the tide in the middle of the channel, while the ships were all, as it happened, on one side or the other, and they did not go within calling distance of any one of them. At last even Antony began to think that they were certainly about to be carried out to sea.

“If the water was not so deep, we could anchor,” said Antony.

“We have not got any anchor,” said Larry.

The grapnel.

“Yes,” replied Antony, “there is a grapnel in the bow of the boat.”

Larry looked in a small cuddy under the bow of the boat, and found there a sort of grapnel that was intended to be used as an anchor.

“Let us heave it over,” said Larry, “and then the boat will stop.”

“No,” replied Antony, “the rope is not long enough to reach the bottom; the water is too deep here. We are in the middle of the channel; but perhaps, by-and-by, the tide will carry us over upon the flats, and then we can anchor.”

“How shall we know when we get to the flats?” asked Larry.

“We can see the bottom then,” said Antony, “by looking over the side of the boat.”

“I mean to watch,” said Larry; and he began forthwith to look over the side of the boat.

They see the bottom.

It was not long before Antony’s expectations were fulfilled. The tide carried the boat over a place where the water was shallow, the bottom being formed there of broad and level tracts of sand and mud, called flats.

“I see the bottom,” said Larry, joyfully.

Antony looked over the side of the boat, and there, down several feet beneath the surface of the water, he could clearly distinguish the bottom. It was a smooth expanse of mud and water, and it seemed to be slowly gliding away from beneath them. The real motion was in the boat, but this motion was imperceptible to the boys, except by the apparent motion of the bottom, which was produced by it. Such a deceiving of the sight as this is commonly called an optical illusion.

“Yes,” said Antony, “that’s the bottom; now we will anchor.”

Anchoring.

So the two boys went forward, and, after taking care to see that the inner end of the grapnel rope was made fast properly to the bow of the boat, they lifted the heavy iron over the side of the boat, and let it plunge into the water. It sank to the bottom in a moment, drawing out the rope after it. It immediately fastened itself by its prongs in the mud, and when the rope was all out, the bow of the boat was “brought up” by it – that is, was stopped at once. The stern of the boat was swung round by the force of the tide, which still continued to act upon it, and then the boat came to its rest, with the head pointing up the harbor.

“There,” said Antony, “now we are safe.”

“But how are we going to get back to the shore?” inquired Larry.

The boys wait for the tide.

“Why, by-and-by the tide will turn,” said Antony, “and flow in, and then we shall get up our anchor, and let it carry us home again.”

“And how long shall we have to wait?” asked Larry.

“Oh, about three or four hours,” said Antony.

“My mother will be very much frightened,” said Larry. “How sorry I am that we got into the boat!”

“So am I,” said Antony; “or, rather, I should be, if I thought it would do any good to be sorry.”

Captain Van Tromp misses them.

In the mean time, while the boys had thus been making their involuntary voyage down the harbor, Captain Van Tromp, on board his ship, had been employed very busily with his accounts in his cabin. It was now nearly noon, and he concluded, accordingly, that it was time for him to go home to dinner. So he called one of the sailors to him, and directed him to look about on the pier and try to find the boys, and tell them that he was going home to dinner.

In a few minutes the sailor came back, and told the captain that he could not find the boys; and that Jack, who was at work outside on the pier, said that they had not been seen about there for more than an hour, and that the boat was missing too; and he was afraid that they had got into it, and had gone adrift.

“Send Jack to me,” said the captain.

When Jack came into the cabin, the captain was at work, as usual, on his accounts. Jack stood by his side a moment, with his cap in his hand, waiting for the captain to be at leisure to speak to him. At length the captain looked up.

“Jack,” said he, “do you say that the boys have gone off with the boat?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Jack. “The boat is gone, and the boys are gone, but whether the boat has gone off with the boys, or the boys with the boat, I couldn’t say.”

The captain paused a moment, with a thoughtful expression upon his countenance, and then said,

“Tell Nelson to take the glass, and go aloft, and look around to see if he can see any thing of them.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” said Jack.

The captain then resumed his work as if nothing particular had happened.

Mr. Nelson discovers them by means of his spy-glass.

Nelson was the mate of the ship. The mate is the second in command under the captain.

When Nelson received the captain’s order, he took the spy-glass, and went up the shrouds to the mast-head. In about ten minutes he came down again, and gave Jack a message for the captain. Jack came down again into the cabin. He found the captain, as before, busy at his work. The captain had been exposed to too many great and terrible dangers at sea to be much alarmed at the idea of two boys being adrift, in a strong boat and in a crowded harbor.

“Mr. Nelson says, sir,” said Jack, “that he sees our boat, with two boys in it, about a mile and a half down the harbor. She is lying a little to the eastward of the red buoy.”

A buoy is a floating beam of wood, or other light substance, anchored on the point of a shoal, or over a ledge of rocks, to warn the seamen that they must not sail there. The different buoys are painted of different colors, so that they may be easily distinguished one from another.

The captain paused a moment on hearing Jack’s report, and looked undecided. In fact, his attention was so much occupied by his accounts, that only half his thoughts seemed to be given to the case of the boys. At length he asked if there was any wind.

“Not a capful,” said the sailor.

“Tell Nelson, then,” said the captain, “to send down the gig with four men, and bring the boys back.”

The gig.

The gig, as the captain called it, was a light boat belonging to the ship, being intended for rowing swiftly in smooth water.

Nelson fits out an expedition to relieve the boys.

So Nelson called out four men, and directed them to get ready with the gig. The men accordingly lowered the gig down from the side of the ship into the water, and then, with the oars in their hands, they climbed down into it. In a few minutes they were rowing swiftly down the harbor, in the direction of the red buoy, while Captain Van Tromp went home to dinner. On his way home he left word, at the house where Larry lived, that the boys had gone down the harbor, and would not be home under an hour.

The boys watch the progress of the tide.

While these occurrences had been taking place on the pier, the boys had been sitting very patiently in their boat, waiting for the tide to turn, or for some one to come to their assistance. They could see how it was with the tide by the motion of the water, as it glided past them. The current, in fact, when they first anchored, made quite a ripple at the bows of the boat. They had a fine view of the harbor, as they looked back toward the town from their boat, though the view was so distant that they could not make out which was the pier where Captain Van Tromp’s vessel was lying.

Of course, as the tide went out more and more, the surface of the water was continually falling, and the depth growing less and less all the time. The boys could easily perceive the increasing shallowness of the water, as they looked over the side of the boat, and watched the appearance of the bottom.

A new danger. A discussion.

“Now here’s another trouble,” said Antony. “If we don’t look out, we shall get left aground. I’ve a great mind to pull up the anchor, and let the boat drift on a little way, till we come to deeper water.”

“Oh no,” said Larry, “don’t let us go out to sea any farther.”

“Why, if we stay here,” said Antony, “until the tide falls so as to leave us aground, we may have to stay some hours after the tide turns before we get afloat again.”

“Well,” said Larry, “no matter. Besides, if you go adrift again, the water may deepen suddenly.”

“Yes,” said Antony, “and then we should lose hold of the bottom altogether. We had better not move.”

“Unless,” added Antony, after a moment’s thought, “we can contrive to warp the boat up a little.”

Warping the boat.

So saying, Antony went forward to examine into the feasibility of this plan. He found, on looking over the bow of the boat, that the water was very shallow, and nearly still; for the tide, being nearly out, flowed now with a very gentle and almost imperceptible current. Of course, as the water was shallow, and the rope that was attached to the anchor was pretty long, the anchor itself was at a considerable distance from the boat. The boys could see the rope passing obliquely along under the water, but could not see the anchor.

Antony took hold of the rope, and began to draw it in. The effect of this operation was to draw the boat up the harbor toward the anchor. When, at length, the rope was all in, Antony pulled up the grapnel, which was small and easily raised, and then swinging it to and fro several times to give it an impetus, he threw it with all his force forward. It fell into the water nearly ten feet from where it had lain before, and there sinking immediately, it laid hold of the bottom again. Antony now, by pulling upon the rope, as he had done at first, drew the boat up to the anchor at its new holding. He repeated this operation a number of times, watching the water from time to time over the bows of the boat, to see whether it was getting deeper or not. While Antony was thus engaged, the attention of Larry was suddenly attracted to the sound of oars. He looked in the direction from which the sound proceeded, and saw, at a considerable distance, a boat coming toward them.

“Here comes the gig!”

“Here comes a boat,” said Larry.

Antony looked where Larry pointed.

“Yes,” said he, “and she is headed directly toward us.”

“So she is,” said Larry.

“I verily believe it is our gig,” said Antony.

“It is,” he added, after looking a moment longer, “and there is Jack on board of her. They are coming for us.”

In a few minutes more the gig was alongside. Two of the sailors that had come down in the gig got on board of the boys’ boat with their oars, and then both boats rowed up the harbor again, and in due time the boys reached home in safety.

Moral.

The moral of this story is, that in all cases of difficulty and danger it is best to keep quiet and composed in mind, and not to give way to excitement and terror. Being frightened never does any good, excepting when there is a chance to run away; in that case, it sometimes helps one to run a little faster. In all other cases, it is best to be cool and collected, and encounter whatever comes with calmness and equanimity.

BRUNO AND THE ROBIN

“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Hiram and Ralph. The robin.

At one time Bruno had for his master a boy named Hiram. Hiram had a friend and companion who lived in the next house to him, whose name was Ralph. This Ralph had a robin. He kept the robin in a cage.

The loft.

There was a small building near the bottom of Ralph’s father’s garden, which was used as a place of deposit for gardening implements, seeds, bundles of straw, matting for covering plants, and other similar articles employed about the garden. This building was called the “garden-house.” In the upper part of it was a loft, which Ralph had taken possession of as a storehouse for his wagons, trucks, traps, and other playthings. He used to go up to this loft by means of a number of large wooden pins, or pegs, that were driven into one of the posts of the frame of the garden-house, in a corner. Somebody once recommended to Ralph to have a staircase made to lead up to his loft, but he said he liked better to climb up by these pins than to have the best staircase that ever was made.

Ralph used frequently to carry his robin to this garden-house when he was playing about there, and on such occasions he would sometimes hang the cage on a nail out of the window of his loft. He drove the nail himself into the edge of a sort of a shelf, which was near the window on the outside. The shelf was put there for doves to light upon, in going in and out of their house, which was made in the peak of the roof, over Ralph’s loft.

Account of Ralph’s robin.

Ralph caught his robin when he was very young. He caught him in a net. He saw the nest when the birds were first building it. About a week after the birds had finished it, he thought it was time for the eggs to be laid. So he got a ladder, which was usually kept on the back side of the tool-house, and, having planted it against a tree, he began to go up. Just then, his little brother Eddy, who was walking along one of the alleys of the garden near where the bird’s nest was, saw him.

Eddy’s advice.

“Ralph,” said Eddy, “what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get the eggs out of the nest,” said Ralph.

“No,” replied Eddy, “you must not do that.”

Ralph paid no regard to this, but went on slowly mounting the ladder. The top of the ladder, resting as it did against some of the branches of the tree, was not very steady, and so Ralph could not go up very fast. Besides, Ralph was somewhat afraid of the old birds; for they, seeing that their nest was in danger, were flying about him with very loud chirpings, being apparently in a state of great terror and distress.

“Ralph,” said Eddy, “you must not trouble those birds.”

Ralph went steadily on.

“Besides,” said Eddy, when he saw that his brother paid no heed to his remonstrances, “it would be a great deal better to wait till the eggs are hatched, and then get one of the birds.”

The plan changed.

Ralph paused when he heard this suggestion. He began to think that it might possibly be a better plan to wait, as Eddy proposed, and to get a bird instead of an egg. He paused a moment on the ladder, standing on one foot, and holding himself on by one hand.

“Would you, Eddy?” said he.

“Yes,” said Eddy, “I certainly would.”

Eddy proposed this plan, not so much from any desire he had that Ralph should get one of the birds when they were hatched, as to save the eggs from being taken away then. He had an instinctive feeling that it was wrong to take away the eggs, and he pitied the poor birds in their distress, and so he said what he thought was most likely to induce Ralph to desist from his design.

After hesitating a few minutes, Ralph said, “Well, I will.” He then came down to the ground again, and, taking up the ladder, he carried it away.

About a week after this, Ralph got the ladder one day when the birds were not there, and climbed up to the nest. He found three very pretty blue eggs in it.

The birds are hatched.

About a week after this he climbed up again, and he found that the eggs were hatched. There were three little birds there, not fledged. When they heard Ralph’s rustling of the branches over their heads, they opened their mouths very wide, expecting that the old birds had come to bring them something to eat.

About a week after this Ralph climbed up again, but, just before he reached the nest, the three birds, having now grown old enough to fly, all clambered out of the nest, and flew away in all directions.

“Here’s one!”

“Stop ’em! stop ’em! Eddy,” said Ralph, “or watch them at least, and see where they go, till I come down.”

“Here’s one,” said Eddy.

He pointed, as he said this, under some currant-bushes, near an alley where he was walking. The little bird was crouched down, and was looking about him full of wonder. In fact, he was quite astonished to find how far he had flown.

Ralph clambered down the ladder as fast as he could, and then ran off to the tool-house, saying as he ran,

“Keep him there, Eddy, till I go and get my net.”

“I can’t keep him,” said Eddy, “unless he has a mind to stay. But I will watch him.”

So Eddy stood still and watched the bird while Ralph went after his net. The bird hopped along a little way, and then stopped, and remained perfectly still until Ralph returned.

A bird pursued.

The net was a round net, the mouth of it being kept open by means of a hoop. It was fastened to the end of a long pole. Ralph crept up softly toward the place where the bird had alighted, and, when he was near enough, he extended the pole, and clapped the net down over the bird, and made it prisoner.

Caught and caged.

“I’ve caught him! I’ve caught him!” said Ralph, greatly excited. “Run, Eddy, and get the cage. Run quick. No, stop; you come here, and hold the net down, and I’ll go and get the cage myself.”