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by Unknown

WILLIAM TAYLOR ADAMS.

THE WELL-BELOVED WRITER FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.

ROBABLY no literary man in America has ministered to the pleasure of a greater number of our young people than William Taylor Adams, who is a native of Massachusetts and was born in Medway in 1822. He has devoted his life to young people; for more than twenty years as a teacher in the public schools of Boston, for many years a member of the school board of Dorchester, and since 1850 as a writer of stories. In his earlier life, he was the editor of a periodical known as “The Student and Schoolmate.” In 1881 he began the publication of “Our Little Ones,” and later “Oliver Optic’s Magazine for Boys and Girls.” His first book was published in 1853; it was entitled “Hatchie, the Guardian Slave,” and had a large sale. It was followed by a collection of stories called “In Doors and Out,” and in 1862 was completed “The Riverdale Series” of six volumes of stories for boys. Some of his other books are “The Boat Club;” “Woodville;” “Young America Abroad;” “Starry Flag;” “Onward and Upward;” “Yacht Club;” and “Great Western.” In all he has written at least a thousand stories for newspapers, and published about a hundred volumes. Among these are two novels for older readers: “The Way of the World” and “Living Too Fast.”

Mr. Adams’ style is both pleasing and simple. His stories are frequently based upon scenes of history and their influence is always for good.

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THE SLOOP THAT WENT TO THE BOTTOM.[¹]

(FROM “SNUG HARBOR,” 1883.)

[¹] Copyright, Lee & Shepard.

TARBOARD your helm! hard a-starboard!” shouted Dory Dornwood, as he put the helm of the “Goldwing” to port in order to avoid a collision with a steam launch which lay dead ahead of the schooner.

“Keep off! you will sink me!” cried a young man in a sloop-boat, which lay exactly in the course of the steam launch. “That’s just what I mean to do, if you don’t come about,” yelled a man at the wheel of the steamer. “Why didn’t you stop when I called to you?”

“Keep off, or you will be into me!” screamed the skipper of the sloop, whose tones and manner indicated that he was very much terrified at the situation.

And he had reason enough to be alarmed. It was plain, from his management of his boat, that he was but an indifferent boatman; and probably he did not know what to do in the emergency. Dory had noticed the sloop coming up the lake with the steam launch astern of her. The latter had run ahead of the sloop, and had come about, it now appeared, for the purpose of intercepting her.

When the skipper of the sloop realized the intention of the helmsman of the steamer, he put his helm to port; but he was too late. The sharp bow of the launch struck the frail craft amidships, and cut through her as though she had been made of cardboard.

The sloop filled instantly, and, a moment later, the young man in her was struggling on the surface of the water. The boat was heavily ballasted, and she went down like a lump of lead. It was soon clear to Dory that the skipper could not swim, for he screamed as though the end of all things had come.

Very likely it would have been the end of all things to him, if Dory had not come about with the “Goldwing,” and stood over the place where the young man was vainly beating the water with his feet and hands. With no great difficulty the skipper of the “Goldwing,” who was an aquatic bird of the first water, pulled in the victim of the catastrophe, in spite of the apparent efforts of the sufferer to prevent him from doing so.

“You had a narrow squeak that time,” said Dory Dornwood, as soon as he thought the victim of the disaster was in condition to do a little talking. “It is lucky you didn’t get tangled up in the rigging of your boat. She went to the bottom like a pound of carpet-tacks; and she would have carried you down in a hurry if you hadn’t let go in short metre.”

“I think I am remarkably fortunate in being among the living at this moment,” replied the stranger, looking out over the stern of the “Goldwing.” “That was the most atrocious thing a fellow ever did.”

“What was?” inquired Dory, who was not quite sure what the victim meant by the remark, or whether he alluded to him or to the man in the steam launch.

“Why, running into me like that,” protested the passenger, with no little indignation in his tones.

“I suppose you came up from Burlington?” said Dory, suggestively, as though he considered an explanation on the part of the stranger to be in order at the present time.

“I have just come from Burlington,” answered the victim, who appeared to be disposed to say nothing more. “Do you suppose I can get that boat again?”

“I should say that the chance of getting her again was not first-rate. She went down where the water is about two hundred and fifty feet deep; and it won’t be an easy thing to get hold of her,” replied Dory. “If you had let him run into you between Diamond Island and Porter’s Bay, where the water is not more than fifty or sixty feet deep, you could have raised her without much difficulty. I don’t believe you will ever see her again.”

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