“We had a good trip until we almost got there, and then a big storm come up, and blew our ship about like it was a peanut shell, tossing it up and down on the mighty waves, and round and back; and the third day we bumped on a rock, and the ship began to sink. In the hurry I was left behind when the crew and passengers went off in the boats. Think of it, ladies and gents, not even a life preserver to save me, and the ship sinking a foot a minute.”
“Goodness me!” said Mrs. Weaver, “you wasn't drowned, was you?”
“No,” said Eliph' Hewlitt, “or I wouldn't be here to tell it. I rushed to the captain's cabin. I thought maybe I would find a life preserver there. Alas, no! But there, ladies and gents, I found something better. When I didn't find a life preserver I was stunned—yes, clean knocked out. I dropped into a chair and laid my head on the captain's table. I sat there several minutes, the ship sinking one foot per minute, and when I come to my senses, and raised my head, my hand was lying on this.”
Reverently he raised the volume from his knees and unwrapped it, and the Ladies' Foreign Mission Society leaned forward with one accord to catch a glimpse of the title. Eliph' Hewlitt opened the book and flipped over the pages rapidly with the moistened tip of his third finger.
“It was this book, ladies and gents, and it was open here, page 742. Without thinking, I read the first thing that hit my eye. 'How to Make a Life Preserver,' it said. 'Take the corks from a hundred champagne bottles; tie them tightly in a common shirt; then fasten the arms of the shirt about the body, with the corks resting on the chest. With this easily improvised life preserver drowning is impossible.' I done it. The captain of that ship was a high liver, and his room was chuck full of champagne bottles. I put in two extry corks for good measure, and when the ship went down, I floated off on the top of the ocean as easy as a duck takes to a pond.”
“My sakes!” exclaimed Mrs. Weaver, “that captain must have been an awful hard drinker!”
“He was,” said Eliph' Hewlitt—“fearful. I was really shocked. But, there I was in the water, and not much better off for it, neither, for I couldn't swim a stroke, and as soon as I got through bobbing up and down like your cork when you've got a sunfish on your line, I stayed right still, just as if I'd been some bait-can a boy had thrown into an eddy, and I figgered like as not I'd stay there forever. Then I noticed I had this book in my hand, and I thought, 'While I'm staying here forever, I'll just take another peek at this book,' and I opened her. Page 781,” said Eliph', turning quickly to that page, “was where she opened. 'Swimming; How to Float, Swim, Dive, and Tread Water—Plain and Fancy Swimming, Shadow Swimming, High Diving,' et cetery. There she was, all as plain as pie, and when I read it I could swim as easy as an old hand. The direction all through this book is plain, practical, and easily followed.
“I at once swum off to the south, for there was no telling how long I'd have to swim, and as the water was sort of cool, I thought best to go south, because the further south you go the warmer the water gets. When I swum two days, and was plumb tuckered out, I come to an island. The waves was dashing on it fearful, and I knew if I tried to land I'd be dashed to flinders. It knocked all the hope out of me, and I made up my mind to take off my life preserver and dive to the bottom of the sea to knock my brains out on the rocks. But, ladies and gents, before I dived I had another look at my book, hoping to find something to comfort a dying man. I turned to page 201.”
Eliph' Hewlitt found the page, and pointed to the heading with his finger.
“'Five Hundred Ennobling Thoughts from the World's Greatest Authors, including the Prose and Poetical Gems of All ages,'” he read. “There they were-sixty-two solid pages of them, with vingetty portraits of the authors. I read No. 285: