THE BOY IN THE MILLRACE
That summer was much like other summers in Malden. Nancy had been
graduated with some honor; but there was nobody to rejoice with her over
her success. The school had been crowded on the last day with friends
and parents of the other girls; there was not a soul who more than
perfunctorily wished Nancy Nelson "good luck."
The neighborhood of Higbee School was very quiet a week after the term
closed. The serving force was greatly reduced; most of the big house was
closed, and all the cottages. Even Miss Prentice, four days after
graduation, started for Europe with a party of teachers, and Miss Trigg
and Nancy were left practically alone.
But the orphaned girl had something this summer on which to feed her
imagination. She was going to Pinewood Hall. And Pinewood Hall was
exclusive, and on the very top wave of popularity.
It cost a lot of money to go to that school, Miss Trigg had suggested to
Miss Prentice to remind the lawyer that Nancy would need a more
elaborate outfit of gowns, and Mr. Gordon had sent the extra money for
that purpose without a word of objection.
The thought had taken root in Nancy's mind at last that she must be
somebody of importance. At least, she was an heiress. Whether she owned
a single relative, or not, she commanded money. _That_ was something.
Of course, the other girls at Higbee had always looked down upon her and
considered her "a charity scholar;" but Nancy believed that at Pinewood
Hall she could hold up her head with the best.
Nobody would know her there. She would begin a fresh page of her
history. She would make the girls love her for herself; it would not
matter there that she had no near relatives. Mr. Henry Gordon, her
guardian, must know all about her, and with regard to this gentleman the
girl had a very grave determination in her mind--a determination which
she did not confide even to Miss Trigg.
Nancy Nelson meant to see and speak with the lawyer before she went to
Pinewood Hall.
Whether he wanted to or not, Mr. Gordon must tell her something about
herself. If she had relatives living she wanted to know, at least,
_why_ they were ashamed of her. Or, if she was merely the ward of an
estate, she wanted to know what the estate was--and how big it was.
The girl had thought so much about her equivocal position that her
future troubled her. If there was just enough money to give her a
college education, she wanted to know it. If she must prepare herself
for taking some place at the end of her schooldays in the work-a-day
world, she wanted to know that, too.
These were practical thoughts for so young a girl; but Nancy Nelson
_was_ practical, despite her imagination.
She had already looked up Clintondale on the map, and upon the railroad
time-table. It was half a day's ride east of Malden, and Cincinnati was
one of the points where she changed cars.
Although she had never traveled by train herself, Nancy had heard the
other girls exchanging experiences, and she knew that she could get a
"stop-over" from the conductor of the train.
She had seen one of Mr. Gordon's letters which he had written Miss
Prentice; the principal had shown it to her.
At that time the girl had memorized the street and number printed at the
top of the lawyer's stiffly-worded communication. She would never forget
"No. 714 South Wall Street."
_That_ was the one secret Nancy Nelson kept hidden within her heart all
that long summer while she waited with Miss Trigg, the secretary and
general utility teacher, for the return of the principal of Higbee
School and the beginning of her new life.
Miss Trigg tried to be nice to her; indeed, she _was_ nice to her after
a fashion. But Miss Trigg's pleasures were between bookcovers; Nancy
Nelson was too healthy a girl not to desire something of a more exciting
nature than Roman history or higher mathematics on a long, hot summer
afternoon.
That was why she stole away from the deeply absorbed Miss Trigg on one
such occasion late in August, when they had ridden out to Granville Park
to spend an hour or two in the open.
Granville Park bordered a good-sized pond, dammed at its lower end,
where was an old mill site. An automobile road crossed the bridge that
had been built here; but the mill had not been in commission for years.
It was a quiet and picturesque spot.
Just above the millrace was a quiet pool under the bank where great,
fragrant water-lilies floated upon the surface. Those lilies always
attracted Nancy. She wished she were a boy. Boys could do so many things
forbidden to girls!
She longed to strip off her shoes and stockings and wade into the black
water to obtain some of the lilies. She had no idea that, just beyond
the little patch of marine plants, the bottom of the pond fell away
abruptly, and that a current tugged stoutly for the millrace.
On this particular day, when she had left Miss Trigg reading in her
favorite summer-house high on the rocky hill, and Nancy had tripped
lightly down to the path that skirted the pond's steep edge, there was a
boy doing just what she had so wished to do herself.
He was a good-natured looking boy, with plump cheeks and a mass of
light, curly hair that he probably hated, but Nancy thought it made him
look "too cute for anything."
He might have been three years her senior, and was a strong,
healthy-looking youth.
Nancy stopped in the fringe of bushes and watched him. She saw him pluck
several of the long-stemmed beauties, and she wondered, if she showed
herself when he came ashore, he would offer her some.
Then she became aware of several voices in the neighborhood--girls'
voices. They seemed to be calling to the boy, for once he lifted his
shining face and shouted something.
Nancy looked keenly in the direction his eyes took. Through the trees
she saw that an automobile stood on the bridge--or right at its
beginning. The boy belonged to the automobile party. They had spied the
lilies, and he had come down to wade into the pond for them.
Of course he was getting them for the other girls--he would give none to
Nancy.
She could see the chauffeur, in his duster and goggles, standing in the
road, too. But the girls who chatted so gaily, and shouted to the boy in
the water, she could not see at all, try her best.
The lad had now a great bunch of the water-lilies; but the girls above
evidently wanted them all. They encouraged him to wade out farther;
there were some fine ones on the outer edge of the patch.
"Don't be afraid!" Nancy heard one shrill-voiced girl call. "What's the
matter, Bob? Is the water wet?"
"That's all right, Goosey!" said the boy. "But you know well enough I
can't swim. And there's a hole here----"
"Oh!"
The boy, lilies and all, suddenly went under! His half-strangled cry did
not reach the ears of those in the automobile. And it was evident that
they could not see the lily patch very well, for they were laughing and
chattering without an idea that the boy was in danger.
He came to the surface in a moment. Nancy had only sprung out upon the
open path. But it was plain he had told the exact truth when he said he
could not swim--and his mouth had been open when he went under that
first time.
The boy uttered a sobbing cry and went down again. Nancy knew that the
water must be already in his lungs. He was drowning--swiftly and
surely--while the current bore him steadily toward the millrace.
How could she help him? Nancy could swim--and swim well. Miss Prentice
did not neglect proper outdoor athletics for her girls. She engaged a
swimming instructor at one of the big public baths in Malden for two
afternoons a week all through the school year.
But the girl very well knew that she could not swim in the swift current
of the race. She could not plunge in and aid the drowning boy.
Nor was there anything that she could fling to him--anything that would
bear him up until help could come. The bank was so steep and high! For
an instant Nancy could only scream, and her sturdy voice drowned
immediately the chatter and laughter of the girls in the automobile.
She saw the chauffeur spring down the path toward the bank of the pond
and she ran to meet him. For a second time the boy's head appeared above
the surface. The hand gripping the great bunch of lilies beat the air;
but Nancy saw that his eyes were wide open and that he seemed to have
recovered his courage.
Although he could not fight the current, he was trying to get his breath
without swallowing any more water.
"The boy'll drown!" gasped the chauffeur, white-faced and helpless.
Nancy could see the side of the automobile more clearly now. Lashed to
the running-board was an extra tire, fully inflated. She seized the
shaking man by the hand.
"Get a knife! get a knife!" she commanded. "Haven't you a knife?"
"Ye-yes," he gasped, fumbling in his pocket.
"Come on!" she ordered, and ran up the path to the road where the
automobile stood.
He came, opening the knife as he ran. The girls in the car were
shrieking now. Nancy did not even look at them; it is doubtful if they
saw her. She pointed to the tire and the chauffeur understood.
He started to cut the lashings recklessly; but she stopped him with a
cry. The stout cord was what she wanted. Quickly she looped it around
the tire and he seized it and ran back to the pond's edge.
The imperiled boy was half-way through the race; the brown current
curled about him, trying to bear him down.
With a shout the chauffeur threw the tire into the water ahead of the
boy. The latter had sufficient presence of mind to seize it, and the
chauffeur dragged him toward the bank.
But it was too steep, and the boy was too much exhausted to climb out
without help.
"You'll--you'll have to help me!" gasped the boy in the water.
But the man could not both cling to the rope and lend the unfortunate
victim of the accident a hand. Nor was there a tree or bush to which he
might tie the rope.
The boy had hooked one arm over the improvised life-preserver. But his
head had sunk low on his breast. He was almost completely exhausted, and
the current, tugging at his legs, must soon sweep him from his insecure
hold.