ROWING AGAINST TIDE.

BY THEODORE WINTHROP.

[The following hitherto-unprinted fragment by Theodore Winthrop, author of "John Brent," "The Canoe and the Saddle," "Life in the Open Air," and other works, was intended by him for the first chapter of a story called "Steers Flotsam," but it has an interest of its own, and is a complete narrative in itself.

Perhaps there are many of our young readers who do not know the history of that brave young officer who, one of the very first to fall in the late war, was killed at Great Bethel, Virginia, June 10, 1861. He was born at New Haven, Connecticut, in September, 1828. He was a studious and quiet boy, and not very robust. From early youth he had determined to become an author worthy of fame, but he tore himself away from his beloved work at the call of his country just as he was about to win that fame, leaving behind him a number of finished and unfinished writings, most of which were afterward published.

He could handle oars as well as write of them, could skate like his hero in "Love and Skates," and was good at all manly sports. He traveled much, visited Europe twice, lived two years at the Isthmus of Panama, and returning from there across the plains (an adventurous trip at that time), learned in those far western wilds to manage and understand the half-tamed horses and untamed savages about whom he writes so well. This varied experience gave a freedom and power to his pen that the readers of the ST. NICHOLAS are not too young to perceive and appreciate.]

Almost sunset. I pulled my boat's head round, and made for home.

I had been floating with the tide, drifting athwart the long shadows under the western bank, shooting across the whirls and eddies of the rapid strait, grappling to one and another of the good-natured sloops and schooners that swept along the highway to the great city, near at hand.

For an hour I had sailed over the fleet, smooth glimmering water, free and careless as a sea-gull. Now I must 'bout ship and tussle with the whole force of the tide at the jaws of Hellgate. I did not know that not for that day only, but for life, my floating gayly with the stream was done.

I pulled in under the eastern shore, and began to give way with all my boyish force.

I was a little fellow, only ten years old, but my pretty white skiff was little, in proportion, and so were my sculls, and we were all used to work together.

As I faced about, a carriage came driving furiously along the turn of the shore. The road followed the water's edge. I was pulling close to the rocks to profit by every eddy. The carriage whirled by so near me that I could recognize one of the two persons within. No mistaking that pale, keen face. He evidently saw and recognized me also. He looked out at the window and signaled the coachman to stop. But before the horses could be pulled into a trot he gave a sign to go on again. The carriage disappeared at a turn of the shore.

This encounter strangely dispirited me. My joy in battling with the tide, in winning upward, foot by foot, boat's length after boat's length, gave place to a forlorn doubt whether I could hold my own—whether I should not presently be swept away.

The tide seemed to run more sternly than I had ever known it. It made a plaything of my little vessel, slapping it about most uncivilly. The black rocks, covered with clammy, unwholesome-looking sea-weed, seemed like the mile-stones of a nightmare, steadily to move with me. The water, bronzed by the low sun, poured mightily along, and there hung my boat, glued to its white reflection.

As I struggled there, the great sloops and schooners rustling by with the ebb, and eclipsing an instant the June sunset, gave me a miserable impression of careless unfriendliness. I had made friends with them all my life, and this evening, while I was drifting down-stream, they had been willing enough to give me a tow, and to send bluff, good-humored replies to my boyish hails. Now they rushed on, each chasing the golden wake of its forerunner, and took no thought of me, straining at my oar, apart. I grew dispirited, quite to the point of a childish despair.

Of course it was easy enough to land, leave my boat, and trudge home, but that was a confession of defeat not to be thought of. Two things only my father required of me—manliness and truth. My pretty little skiff—the "Aladdin," I called it—he had given to me as a test of my manhood. I should be ashamed of myself to go home and tell him that I had abdicated my royal prerogative of taking care of myself, and pulling where I would in a boat with a keel. I must take the "Aladdin" home, or be degraded to my old punt, and confined to still water.

The alternative brought back strength to my arms. I threw off the ominous influence. I leaned to my sculls. The clammy black rocks began deliberately to march by me down-stream. I was making headway, and the more way I made, the more my courage grew.

Presently, as I battled round a point, I heard a rustle and a rush of something coming, and the bowsprit of a large sloop glided into view close by me. She was painted in stripes of all colors above her green bottom. The shimmer of the water shook the reflection of her hull, and made the edges of the stripes blend together. It was as if a rainbow had suddenly flung itself down for me to sail over.

I looked up and read the name on her headboards, "James Silt."

At the same moment a child's voice over my head cried, "Oh, brother Charles! what a little boy! what a pretty boat!"

The gliding sloop brought the speaker into view. She was a girl both little and pretty. A rosy, blue-eyed, golden-haired sprite, hanging over the gunwale, and smiling pleasantly at me.

"Yes, Betty," the voice of a cheerful, honest-looking young fellow at the tiller—evidently brother Charles—replied. "He's a little chap, but he's got a man into him. Hurrah!"

"Give way, 'Aladdin!' Stick to it! You're sure to get there."

The sloop had slid along by me now, so that I could read her name repeated on her stern—"James Silt, New Haven."

"Good-bye, little boy!" cried my cherubic vision to me, flitting aft, and leaning over the port davit.

"Good-bye, sissy!" I returned, and raising my voice, I hailed, "Good-bye, Cap'n Silt!"

Brother Charles looked puzzled an instant. Then he gave a laugh, and shouted across the broadening interval of burnished water, "You got my name off the stern. Well, it's right, and you're a bright one. You'll make a sailor! Good luck to you!"

He waved his cap, and the strong tide swept his craft onward, dragging her rainbow image with her.

As far as I could see, the fair-haired child was leaning over the stern watching me, and brother Charles, at intervals, turned and waved his cap encouragingly.

This little incident quite made a man of me again. I forgot the hard face I had seen, and brother Charles's frank, merry face took its place, while, leaning over brother Charles's shoulder, was that angelic vision of his sister.

Under the inspiring influence of Miss Betty's smiles—a boy is never so young as not to conduct such electricity—I pulled along at double speed. I no longer measured my progress by the rocks in the mud, but by the cottages and villas on the bank. Now that I had found friends on board one of the vessels arrowing by, it seemed as if all would prove freighted with sympathizing people if they would only come near enough to hail. But I was content with the two pleasant faces stamped on my memory, and only minded my business of getting home before dark.

The setting sun drew itself a crimson path across the widening strait. The smooth water grew all deliciously rosy with twilight. The moon had just begun to put in a faint claim to be recognized as a luminary, when I pulled up to my father's private jetty.

Everything looked singularly sweet and quiet. June never, in all her dreams of perfection, could have devised a fairer evening. I was a little disappointed to miss my father from his usual station on the wharf. He loved to be there to welcome me returning from my little voyages, and to hail me gently: "Now then, Harry, a strong pull, and let me see how far you can send her! Bravo, my boy! We'll soon make a man of you. You shall not be a weakling all your life as your father has been, mind and body, for want of good strong machinery to work with."

He was absent that evening. I hurried to bestow my boat neatly in the boat-house. I locked the door, pocketed the key, and ran up the lawn, thinking how pleased my father would be to hear of my adventure with the sloop and its crew, and how he would make me sketch the sloop for him, which I could do very fairly, and how he would laugh at my vain attempts to convey to him the cheeks and the curls of Miss Betty.