“Don’t cry, Marg’ret,” said Aladdin, with a gulp. “I’d do more’n that for you, and I can swim a little, too—b-better’n I can row.”
“Oh, ‘Laddin,” said Margaret, “it’s so cold in the water.”
“Shucks!” said Aladdin, whose teeth had been knocking all night. “She’s the stanch little craft” (he had the phrase of a book) “Good Luck. I’m the captain and you’re the builder’s daughter”—and so she was. “Chrissen ‘er, Marg’et. Kiss her on the bow an’ say she’s the Good Luck.”
Then Margaret, her hat over one ear, and the draggled ostrich feather greatly in the way, knelt, and putting her arms about the shoreward end of the log, kissed it, and said in a drawn little voice
“The Good Luck.”
“And now, Margaret,” said Aladdin, “you must stay right here’ n’ not go ‘way from the shore, so’s I can find you when I come back. But don’t just sit still all the time,—keep moving, so’s not to get any colder,—‘n I’ll come back for you sure.”
Then, because he felt his courage failing, he said, “Good-by, Marg’ret,” and turning abruptly, waded in to his ankles and bent over the log to give it that final impetus which was to set it adrift. In his heart were several things: the desire to make good, fear of the river, and, poignant and bitter, the feeling that Margaret did not understand. He was too young to believe that death might really be near him (almost reckless enough not to care if he had), but keenly aware that his undertaking was perilous enough to warrant a more adequate farewell. So he bent bitterly over the log and stiffened his back for the heave. It must be owned that Aladdin wanted more of a scene.
“‘Laddin, I forgot something. Come back.”
He came, his white lips drawn into a sort of smile. Then they kissed each other on the mouth with the loud, innocent kiss of little children, and after that Aladdin felt that the river was only a river, the cold only cold, the danger only danger and flowers—more than flowers.
He moved the log easily and waded with it into the icy waters, until his feet were dragged from the bottom, and after one awful instant of total submersion the stanch little ship Good Luck and valiant Captain Kissed-by-Margaret were embarked on the voyage perilous. His left arm over and about the log, his legs kicking lustily like the legs of a frog, his right hand paddling desperately for stability, Aladdin disappeared into the fog. After a few minutes he became so freezing cold that he would have let go and drowned gladly if it had not been for the wonderful lamp which had been lighted in his heart.