Mamie's Watchword

by Joanna H. Mathews

Poor child! she did not know whether to look upon these rough creatures as friends or foes.

Several times they threw the rope, but each time it fell with a dull splash into the water; and at last a boat-hook was thrown out, and grappled her own boat. All the while, she heard the man and boy talking eagerly together in their own uncouth tongue, and she wondered what they were going to do with her and her little sister. All manner of wild fancies flitted through her over-excited brain, and made her poor little frame quiver at one moment with dread, at another with hope.

Who were these people, and where were they taking her? To some far-off foreign land, where every one spoke that strange, rough language, and no one would understand a word she might say when she told who she was, and begged to be taken back to her friends; or could it really be that they were taking her home? No, that could not be, for they did not know where she belonged, and she had no way of telling them, or so she believed.

They had now made her boat fast to their own, and were drawing it after them; the man was rowing, the boy steering; the light from their torch falling over both figures, and casting a red glare upon the waves around. It was a curious scene, and one so new to Mamie that she watched it with a feeling of there being something unreal about it all.

"It's 'most like a fairy tale, or a book story," she said to herself. "I wonder what they are going to do with us;" and she drew her arms close about Lulu, who still slept quietly on her breast.

She wished that the daylight would come, and show her more plainly the faces of those who now had her in their keeping; for she believed that it must be nearly morning, so long did the time seem since the light had died out of the far west; whereas it was scarcely an hour since dark, and it was still comparatively early in the evening.

Except for the measured dash of the oars, and the ripple of the waters as the two boats cut through the waves, it was almost as still now as it had been before her new companions had appeared; for man and boy had ceased talking, and rowed steadily forward without exchanging a word.

Oh, if she only could know whether these were kind and good people, who would be ready to take her home, or if they were bad and cruel, and would do something dreadful to her and Lulu! She thought of every terrible thing which she had ever heard of as happening to children, and tormented herself with imagining her little sister and herself in like situations.