SNATCHED FROM A FROZEN DEATH
"Father! Father! What do you think?" cried Eric, bursting into the
sitting room at breakfast one morning, a couple of weeks after his
encounter with his young mining friend, "I'm going into the Life-Saving
work right away!"
"What's the excitement?" his father asked, speaking for the rest of the
family. "Cool down a bit, my boy, and tell us all about it."
"I've--I've just got a letter from the Captain Commandant," replied
Eric, fairly stuttering in his haste to tell the good news, "and he says
I can enlist in one of the lake stations until the close of navigation.
I'll get some real practical training that way, he says, and then I can
take up prep. work for the Academy all winter."
In view of the fact that there had been considerable correspondence
between the ruling head of the Coast Guard and Mr. Swift, the old
inspector was less surprised than the boy expected. Not for the world
would the lad's father have let him think that there had been any
consultation about this plan. He wanted the boy to have the sense of
being "on his own"!
"I remember now," he said, "you said something about writing along that
line a couple of weeks ago."
"I did write, Father, I did want so awfully to get a chance. But I
hardly believed that they'd actually let me do it."
"I don't see why they wouldn't. After all you told me about your
swimming, they ought to have made a special bid for you," he added
smiling.
"You don't mind my going, do you?"
"I'm perfectly willing, my boy," his father said. "I'm sufficiently on
to your curves, Eric, to know that it isn't much use trying to pin you
down to books while there are a few weeks of summer left. You'll be out
of mischief at a Coast Guard station, that's one sure thing. I think
I'll take you out to meet old Icchia, the veteran of the Lakes. He holds
the record for one of the most sensational rescues in the history of the
service. I've often heard your Uncle Jim tell the story, but I won't
spoil the yarn for you by telling it myself, I'll let Icchia do that."
"When can we go to see him, Father?"
The old inspector smiled at his son's enthusiasm.
"It happens that I've got to start off on an inspection trip to-morrow,
which will take me away for a week or so," he answered, "so, if you have
no other plans, we might go to-day."
"I'll get ready now!" cried Eric, jumping up from the table.
"You'll do nothing of the kind," his father said rebukingly, while his
mother smiled at the boy's impetuosity, "we won't go until after lunch,
that is--if you can wait so long!"
"All right, but isn't it bully!" and, unable to contain himself, Eric
launched into a panegyric of the Life-Saving Service, most of the
history of which he knew by heart.
The lad's excitement increased tenfold when, that afternoon, they
approached the little cottage of the old keeper. It was right on the
seashore in an outlying suburb looking out over the peaceful stretch of
Lake St. Clair.
"Mr. Icchia," said the old inspector, after greetings had been
exchanged, "my boy here is going to join one of the lake stations and,
to give him an idea of what the service can do, I want you to tell him
the story of that night off Chocolay Island."
"It's a deal like beatin' a big drum," began the old keeper in a
quavering voice, "to bid an ol' fellow like me tell of his own doin's!"
"But you're not doing it to show off," Mr. Swift said, "I wouldn't ask
you to do that. It's because I know you think a good deal of the Service
that I wanted my boy to meet you, and to hear a real story of
life-saving told by one of the men who was in it."
"It wasn't so much at that--" the old man began. But the lighthouse
inspector interrupted.
"Spin the yarn, Icchia," he said, "it's a poor trick to make a lot of
excuses! Besides, it spoils the story."
Now the old keeper had a firm belief in his own value as a story-teller
and it piqued his pride to have it thought that he was spoiling a good
yarn, so without further preamble he began.
"I don' know what the world is comin' to," he said, after he had filled
his pipe and lit it, "but there's no sech winters to-day as there was in
my young days. I kin remember, when I wasn't no older'n that bub there,
there was more snow in one winter 'n we have in five, now; an' Lake
Huron was always friz up. Life-savin' was a lot harder in them days,
ye'd better believe me, an' not only in the winter but all year round."
"Why?" asked the boy.
"There wasn't no sech lights then as there is now, for one thing, an' a
skipper had to keep his eyes peeled an' his lead goin'. An', for 'nother
thing, in the days I'm talkin' of, they was mostly all sailin' craft.
Now I'm not sayin' nothin' in favor of steamers--I was raised on an
ol'-time clipper. I will say that when a gale ain't too bad, a steamer
kin handle herself more easy-like 'n a sailin' craft, when there ain't
but a little seaway. But when she's blowin' good an' strong, an' the
gale's got more heft 'n a steamer's screws, what use is her machines to
her?"
"Not much," said the boy.
"Ye're sayin' it," the old keeper continued. "An' in the ol' days, when
steamers first run on the Lakes, they weren't no such boats as ye see
now. Our worst wrecks in them days were the steamers. This one, that
your pappy wants me to tell ye 'bout, was a steamer an' a three-masted
fore-an'-after she had in tow.
"This yarn I'm a spinnin' reely begins down at Marquette Breakwater. It
was on the seventeenth day of November, an', let me see, it must have
been in 'eighty-six, the same year my youngest was born. The winter had
broke in early that year, not with any reel stormy weather, but jest a
bunch o' pesky squalls. An' cold! We was in the boat mighty near every
day, an' I used ter forget what bein' warm felt like. There was allers
somethin' hittin' a shoal or tryin' to make a hole in the beach. It was
squally an' shiftin', ye see. An' the mush-ice set in early."
[Illustration: WRECKS! AND THE ICE BETWEEN!
Steamer ashore near St. Joseph, Mich., under conditions all but
impossible for life-saving, yet not a soul was lost.
Courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses.]
"What's mush-ice?" interrupted Eric.
"Mush-ice," said the old keeper, "is a mixture of frozen spray, an' ice,
an' bits o' drift, an' everythin' that kin freeze or be friz over,
pilin' up on the beach. It's floatin', ye understan', an', as a rule,
'bout two or three foot thick. Owin' to the movin' o' the water, it
don't never freeze right solid, but the surf on the beach breaks it into
bits anywheres from the size of 'n apple to a keg. An' it joggles up 'n'
down, 'n' the pieces grin' agin each other. It's jest a seesawin' edge
o' misery on a frozen beach."
"That's as bad as Alaska!" exclaimed the boy.
"It's a plumb sight worse," the other answered. "I ain't never been no
further north 'n Thunder Cape, jest by Nipigon. An' what's more, I ain't
goin'! But even up there, the ice freezes solid 'n' you kin do somethin'
with it. Mush-ice never gits solid, but like some sort o' savage critter
born o' the winter, champs its jaws of ice, waitin' for its prey."
"How do you like that, Eric?" asked his father. "That's some of the
'fun' you're always talking about."
"Can't scare me, Dad," replied Eric with a laugh. "I'm game."
"Ye'll need all yer gameness," put in the old life-saver. "Wait till ye
hear the end o' the yarn! As I was sayin', it was in November. The fust
big storm o' the winter broke sudden. I never see nothin' come on so
quick. It bust right out of a snow-squall, 'n' the glass hadn' given no
warnin'. We wa'n't expectin' trouble an' it was all we c'd do to save
the boats. Ye couldn't stand up agin it, an' what wasn't snow an' sleet,
was spray.
"All mornin' the gale blew, an' in the middle o' the afternoon the
breakwater went to bits. The keepers o' the light at the end o' the
breakwater lighted the lantern, 'n' you take my word for it, they were
takin' their lives in their hands in doin' it. Jest half 'n hour later,
the whole shebang, light, lighthouse, 'n' the end o' the breakwater,
went flyin' down to leeward in a heap o' metal 'n splinters.
"Jest about that time, some folks down Chocolay way, lookin' out to
sea, took a notion they saw what looked like white ghosts o' ships 'way
out on the bar. She was jest blowin' tiger cats with the claws out!
'Twa'n't a day for no Atlantic greyhound to be out, much less a small
boat. But I tell ye, boy, when there's lives to be saved, there's allers
some Americans 'round that's goin' to have a try at it. Over the ice 'n'
through the gale, eight men helpin', the fishermen o' Chocolay carried a
yawl an' life-lines to the point o' the beach nearest the wreck. Four
men clumb into her."
"Without cork-jackets or anything?" asked Eric.
"Without nothin' but a Michigan man's spunk. Well, siree, those four men
clumb into that yawl, an' a bunch of others jumped into the mush-ice an'
toted her 'way out to clear water. With a yell, the fisherman put her
nose inter the gale an' pulled. But it wa'n't no use. No yawl what was
ever made could have faced that sea. The spray friz in the air as it
come, an' the men were pelted with pieces of jagged ice, mighty near as
big 's a bob-cherry. Afore they was ten feet away from the mush, a sea
come over 'n' half filled the boat. It wa'n't no use much ter bail, for
it friz as soon's it struck. They hadn't shipped more'n four seas when
the weight of ice on the boat begun to sink her."
"Fresh water, of course," said Eric. "It would freeze quickly. I hadn't
thought of that."
"In spite o' the ice," continued the veteran of seventy Lake winters,
"two o' the men were for goin' on, but the oldest man o' the crowd made
'em turn back. He was only jest in time, for as the yawl got back to the
edge o' the mush she went down."
"Sank?"
"Jest like as if she was made o' lead."
"And the men?" asked the boy eagerly.
"They was all right. I told you it was nigh the beach. The crowd got to
the yawl 'n' pulled her up on shore. They burned a flare to let 'em know
aboard the wrecks that they was bein' helped an' to hold out a hope o'
rescue, but there wasn't no answer. Only once in a great while could any
one on shore see those ghosts o' ships 'way out on the bar. An' every
time the snow settled down, it was guessin' if they'd be there next time
it cleared away, or not.
"Seein' that there was nothin' doin' with the yawl, the crowd reckoned
on callin' us in to the deal. We was the nearest life-savin' station to
Chocolay bar, an' we was over a hundred miles away."
"A hundred miles!"
"All o' that an' more. We was on Ship Island, six miles from Houghton.
As I was sayin', seein' that nothin' could be done from their end, Cap'n
John Frink, master of a tug, hiked off to the telegraph office at
Marquette, 'n' called up Houghton. That's a hundred 'n' ten miles off,
by rail. He told 'em o' the wrecks 'n' said he thought as we could get
'em off if we could come right down. The wires were down between
Houghton 'n' Ship Islan' and there wa'n't no way o' lettin' us know. The
operators sent word all over, to try an' get a message to us, an' mighty
soon nigh everybody on the peninsula knowed that we'd been sent for.
"The skipper of a big tug in Houghton heard about it, jest as he was
goin' to bed. He come racin' down to the wharf an' rousted out the crew.
His engineer was still on board an' they got steam up like winkin'. The
gale was blowin' even worse up our way, but the old tug snorted into it
jest the same. Out into the dark an' the snow an' the storm she snubbed
along, tootin' her whistle like as if it were the Day of Jedgment. An'
if it had been," continued the old man in parenthesis, "no one would've
known it in that storm!"
"When did you see the tug?" queried the boy.
"Couldn't see nothin'," was the answer, "we jest heard that ol' whistle
toot. One o' the men guessed it was the big tug all right an' wondered
if she was ashore somewheres with a tow. But, fust thing we know, she
come up out o' the muck o' snow an' sleet an' the ol' skipper bellered
to us through a speakin'-trumpet that he was come to take us to a wreck.
We snaked the gear on to that tug in about half no time, takin' the big
surf-boat an' all the apparatus. The tug was a blowin' off steam, like
as if she was connected to a volcaner. I tell you there must have been
some fire under them boilers. An' when we started--I'm an old hand, boy,
but I'm tellin' ye that I never thought to see Houghton. The ol' skipper
sent that tug through at racin' speed like as if it was a moonlight
summer night an' he had all the sea-room in a couple of oceans.
"'Air ye goin' to stop at Houghton?' I asks him, sort o' sarcastic, 'or
are ye gittin' up speed enough to run on a mile or two after ye hit the
shore?'
"'Don't ye worry,' he said, with a short laugh, 'ye c'n tie my ears an'
eyes up doorin' a hurricane, 'n' I can smell my way to port!'
"An' I'm tellin' ye he did. Without nary a light nor nothin' to guide
him--for the snow was worse 'n any fog--he went full speed ahead. An'
when he tinkled that little telegraph bell to the engine room, I was
wonderin' if he was within ten miles o' the place. But as that craft
slowed down, ye can b'lieve me or not 's you like, she glided up to her
own pier like as if it was a ferry-boat in a dead calm.
"'I've got to hand it to you, Cap'n,' I says to him, 'I wouldn't ha'
believed it unless I seen it.'
"'That's my end,' say the cap'n, 'I know my work, same's you know yours.
I'm bettin' my pile on you fellers makin' good 'most any ol' time.' Made
me feel good, all right."
"It sure does make a difference," put in Eric, "when you know that
people have confidence in you."
"Right you are, boy," said the old keeper, and continued his story.
"That pier was jest a mass o' folks, thick as they c'd stand. An' when
they saw the tug with us on board, they cheered, 'n' cheered, 'n'
cheered. There was a dozen to grab the lines 'n' make 'em fast, 'n'
before she was even tied up, a mob grabbed our boat an' apparatus an'
rushed it to the railroad.
"While we was a-comin' over the strait, the superintendent o' the
railroad division was got up, 'n' told all about the wreck. He was a
spry man, too, 'n' by the time the tug was in, he had orders out to
clear the track 'n' a special train was waitin' in the station. She was
ready fitted up with a couple of open cars for the boat an' apparatus,
an' one coach for us.
"They didn't let us touch nothin'.
"'Keep your strength, men,' the superintendent said to the crew, 'my
boys will put your stuff aboard.'
"They did. That boat an' the apparatus an' everything else was aboard
that special, jest about as quick as we could climb into the cars. We
had a special train all right! She jest whizzed along that track, not
worryin' about nothin'. Signals didn't matter, for the track had been
cleared in advance. The superintendent had come on the train with us.
He'd wired ahead to Marquette, an' when we slowed up there was another
bunch in the station to welcome us. The train was covered in ice an'
snow, an' the front of the locomotive looked like a dummy engine made
out o' plaster o' Paris.
"The station was alive with men, all just on edge with waitin'. They had
sleighs but no horses, the footin' was too bad. An' so the boat an' the
apparatus-car was put on the sleighs, an' the men dragged it along
themselves at a whole of a clip! They wouldn't even let us walk, but
toted us along in a sleigh, too."
"Why?" asked Eric.
"To keep us from bein' tired. We needed all the strength we had. An' we
made good time, I'm tellin' ye. They carried out the boat an' the cart
to the beach an' then their end of it was done. It was up to us, now.
An' I tell ye, I was anxious. There was somethin' mighty thrillin' in
that wild train ride through the night. I've often run big chances in a
boat, but this was different-like. Usooally no one knows what we're
doin', but this time, the news was bein' flashed all over the country.
"When we actooally got on the beach it didn't look so bad. The boats
were lyin' right on the bar 'bout two hundred 'n' fifty foot, off shore.
We rigged the gun, loaded her, 'n' fired. I dropped a line jest abaft
the pilot-house, where we figured the men must be waitin'. It was a good
shot an' I reckoned that there wa'n't goin' to be no trouble at all. It
heartened me right up. We'd got there in time, an' first crack out o'
the box, there was a line, right across the steamer. The path o' rescue
had been made!
"But there was one thing I hadn't figured on."
"What was that?" queried Eric excitedly.
"The weather 'n' the cold. The seas had come up, over 'n' over that
steamer, ontil the decks were one straight glare of ice. There wa'n't
nothin' a man could get hold of. If a sailor stepped out on that ice, he
couldn't stand, for she was heelin' over to port like the side of a
hill. An' the lee bulwark was torn away. Worst of all, the waves kep' a
dashin' over 'n' over without stoppin'. Our line wa'n't more'n fifteen
feet from the pilot-house, but no one couldn' get to that line without
bein' washed off.
"In a way, we'd done all that was necessary. We'd dropped a line where
they'd ought to be able to get it. We couldn't know there wa'n't no way
for 'em to do it. But when the minutes went by 'n' there was no sign
from the steamer, it begun to look bad. If it hadn't been for the ice on
the decks they was as good as rescued, but with the way it was, they
wa'n't no better off, even with rescue fifteen feet away, than when our
crew was a hundred miles off in Ship Island. There wa'n't nothin' for
us to do but tackle the job ourselves.
[Illustration: LAYING THE LYLE GUN.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]
[Illustration: FIRING THE SHOT AND LINE.
Note line being paid out from the faking-box. This shot carried a sixth
of a mile.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]
"The fishermen, the ones that had been out in the yawl, came aroun' an'
said it couldn't be done. My coxswain agreed it couldn't be done, but
we'd do it just the same."
"And you?" asked the boy.
"I jest started gettin' the boat ready," the old keeper said, simply.
"It was 'way after midnight, reckon it was nearly one o'clock, an', if
anything, the sea was wilder. An' I felt nothin' so cold afore in all my
life. The women o' Chocolay, they was out that night, bringin' steamin
mugs o' coffee. There's a deal o' credit comin' to them, too, the way I
look at it."
"I don't see that they could have done much less," said Eric.
"Maybe aye, maybe no," said the veteran, "but I reckon, no matter how
little a woman does, the right kind o' man's goin' to think it's a lot.
Well, as I was sayin', I turned to the boys to launch the boat. We got
hold of her by the rails an' waded in through the mush-ice, same as the
fishermen had done. I tell you, it guv me a big sense o' pride in men
like our Michigan fishermen when I tackled what they'd tackled. They
hadn't no cork-jackets, and they wa'n't rigged up for it. Their boat
wa'n't built for no such work but they didn't stop to think o' their own
lives or their own boat. An' a fisherman's boat, like's not, is all he's
got to make a livin' with. It makes a man feel good to think there's
other men like that!
"That mush reached two hundred yards f'm land. I don't know how them
fisher chaps ever got through the ice at all. It took us nigh half 'n
hour to make the last hundred yards. When the water deepened so's we
could get into the boat, every man's clothes was drenched an' they friz
right on to him. Every time we dipped the oars in that mush they'd
stick, 'n' onless we'd pulled 'em out mighty fast they'd have friz right
there. 'Bout every ten yards we had to chop the oar-locks free of ice
an' the only part of our slickers what wa'n't friz was where the muscles
was playin'. The cox'n, he looked like one of them petrified men ye read
about.
"At last we got through the mush. All the way through it, with the load
o' floatin' ice 'n' muck, the sea wa'n't tossin' much. But jest the very
minute we got clear of it an' started out, the sea hit us fair. I was
pullin' stroke an' it didn't git me so hard, but the cox'n, who was
facin' bow, got it full. The wind was dead ahead an' the sea was
a-tumblin' in as if there wa'n't no land between us an' the North Pole.
"The blades o' the oars got covered with ice, makin' 'em round, like
poles, instead of oars, an' we couldn't get no purchase. I hit up the
stroke a bit, exhaustin' though it was, 'n' maybe we made about twenty
feet further. She was self-bailin' or we'd ha' been swamped right away.
Every sea that come aboard left a layer of ice, makin' her heavier to
handle. Then, suddenly, along comes a sea, bigger'n any before, an' it
takes that lifeboat 'n' chucks us back on the mush-ice, bang! The shock
smashes the rudder 'n' puts us out o' business. I forces the boat ashore
for repairs.
"'Too bad,' says the railroad superintendent, to me; 'for a minute,
there, I thought you were going to make it.'
"'We jest are goin' to make it,' says I, 'if we have to swim!'
"Then one o' those fisher chaps had a good idee. While we was a-fixin'
up the rudder an' gittin' ready for another trip, the rest o' the crowd
chops the ice off'n the boat, 'n' off'n the oars. Then this fisher chap
I was a tellin' about, he comes back with a can of tallow an' smears
that thick all over the boat an' the oars an' our slickers an' near
everything that he c'd find to put a bit o' tallow on."
"What was that for?" queried Eric.
"So as the water'd run off, o' course," the old man answered. "It
worked, too. In about twenty minutes we was off again, in the mush-ice,
jest as afore. We hadn't had no chance to get warm, an' our clothes was
wet an' friz. I thought sure some o' the men would be frost-bit. But I
guess we was all too tough.
"The second trip started jest the same. As soon as we got out o' the ice
a breaker come along 'n' hove that boat 'way up, 'n' then chucked it
back on the ice, smashin' the new rudder same's the old one.
"I wa'n't goin' to have no monkey-business with rudders any more, 'n' I
yelled to Brown, he was the cox'n,
"'Take 'n oar, Bill!'
"He grabs a spare oar 'n' does all he knows how to steer with that.
Again we druv our oars into it an' got out o' the ice, 'n' again it
threw us back. We did that five times 'n' then one of the fellers got
hurt, when his oar struck a chunk of ice, 'n' we went ashore again. I
reckon we'd been at it nigh four hours, then."
"I suppose you hadn't any trouble finding a volunteer?" the boy said.
"We could ha' got nigh every man on the beach. But we took one o' the
fishermen who had gone out on his own hook afore. If we was goin' to do
any savin' it was on'y fair he should have a share o' the credit. An'
then, any chap who was willin' to resk his life in a bit of a yawl in
that weather was worth puttin' in a boat.
"So we'd had to make three starts afore we really got away an' clear o'
the ice. I never see no such gale in all my days. It was an hour an'
more, steady pullin' with every pound o' muscle in the crew, before we
got in reach o' the tug. An' then, when we was right up on her, there
wa'n't one man aboard who come out to catch a line. We found out why,
arterwards. The gale took us by her like we was racin', 'n' the boys had
to work like Sam Patch to get back. I guess it took nigh half 'n hour to
creep up to wind'ard of her again.
"One o' my crew, a young fellow from Maine, as lively a little grig as
ever I see, volunteered to board her. We ran under her bow, an' somehow
or other he clumb up on board, I swear I don't see how he ever done it,
an' snaked a line round her funnel. I went aboard an' one other o' the
crew, a man we used to call Ginger.
"Then we found out why the men aboard the steamer hadn't come out to
pick up our line. The door o' the pilot-house was smothered in ice,
more'n an inch thick. Every window was friz in. We was sure up against
it. We couldn't stand on the glassy deck, 'n' there was no way to get
the men out. The surf-boat was a-ridin' twenty fathom behind, we'd let
her out on a long line, an' there was another cold wait while we hauled
her up an' got an ax out of her. We lashed ourselves fast or we'd ha'
gone over the side, sure.
"When Ginger, who was an old lumber-jack, gits the ax, he slides along
to the pilot-house, an' starts to chop. He'd been choppin' jest about a
minute when along comes a sea, smashes one o' the ventilators an' hurls
it along the deck. The cussed thing hits Ginger jest as he's swingin'
the ax, 'n' sweeps him overboard.
"The crew in the surf-boat see him go an' they cast off the line an'
picked him up. But, with two men shy, it was a full hour afore the boat
worked back to place to catch our line. They must ha' pulled like fiends
to git thar at all. By the time they'd made it, we'd managed to get
through that door an' the crew o' the tug was ready to be taken in the
boat. It was jest six hours from the time we landed on the beach at
Chocolay before we got the first man ashore."
"And the crew of the schooner?" queried the boy.
"We got them off without no trouble. They was sailors! We jest hove a
line aboard 'n' got 'em into the boat. They hadn't suffered much. The
schooner was higher on the shoal 'n the tug, bein' lighter, 'n' the
men'd been able to stay below. They'd kep' a couple o' lookouts on the
job, relievin' 'em every hour shipshape and Bristol fashion."
"How many men did you rescue?" the boy asked.
"Nine men from the steamer 'n' six from the schooner. It was nigh eight
in the mornin' before they was all ashore, drinkin' coffee an' gittin'
eats. The women o' the commoonity was still on the job. I'm doubtin' if
we could ha' ever made it without somethin' like that. We wa'n't any too
soon, neither."
"Why not?"
"In less 'n an hour after we got 'em ashore the tug capsized 'n' went
to pieces. The old schooner stood it out better, but she was pretty much
a wreck, too, when the weather cleared. We'd our work to do, 'n' we done
it. Jest the same, I've allers had a feelin' as if there was as much to
be said for the fishermen, 'n' the train-hands, 'n' the cap'n o' the
tug, 'n' all the rest that j'ined in.
"It's the biggest rescue on the lakes, but there's nothin' more
wonderful in it to me than the way it shows how everybody gets in 'n'
gives a hand when help is needed. Don't ye ever forget, in times o'
need, that ye've only got ter call, 'n' some one's goin' to hear. An'
ye're like enough ter need help in the life-savin' business. I ain't
saying as storms is as bad now as they was, but there's enough of 'em
still ter keep any crew right on the jump."
"I'll remember, Mr. Icchia," the boy replied, "and I'll be mighty proud
if I can ever do half as well. I'm proud enough, now, just to be given
the chance."
The old man knocked the ashes from his pipe on his horny and
weather-beaten hand and answered,
"As long as there's life-savin' to be done, there's goin' ter be
life-savers to do it. I don' hold with none o' this nonsense ye hear
sometimes about the world gittin' worse. If ever I did get that idee,
I'd only have to go 'n' look at a surf-boat, 'n' I'd know different.
It's a good world, boy, 'n' the goodness don't lay in tryin' to be a
hero, but jest in plain bein' a man."
[Illustration: GOLD LIFE-SAVING MEDAL.
Given only in recognition of heroism wherein loss of life was risked by
the rescuer.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]