Frank Armstrong, Drop Kicker

by Matthew M. Colton

All of a sudden, when rounding the point off High Island, there came a violent blast of wind which plucked the hat from the head of a little girl who had sat all the while very quietly with her maid on the leeward side of the sloop. She jumped to her feet, made a desperate grab for the flying head-covering, lost her balance, and pitched head first into the water. She was lost to sight in an instant, a big wave breaking over her head as she went down.

At the scream of the maid, Frank, who had been standing on the little deck forward with one arm around the mast, turned just in time to see a flash of white disappearing beneath the surface.

"She is drowned! She is drowned!" screamed the maid, jumping to her feet and wringing her hands wildly. "Oh, she's drowned!" The other women in the boat began to scream and point to the place where the little girl had gone down.

With Frank, to think was to act. Without waiting to throw off any clothes, he made a flying leap for the spot where he had last seen the white dress; but so great had been the momentum of the boat, that when he struck the water he was some yards away from the spot. Hampered as he was with his clothes and hindered by the breaking waves, he swam desperately, using his most powerful strokes. Before he could cover the distance he saw a white sleeve and the top of a head appear above the surface for an instant and disappear immediately. Half a dozen strokes carried him to the place, but the drowning girl had gone down for the second time.

For a few moments only, Frank paddled around waiting for the child to come to the surface. He had heard that a drowning person comes to the surface three times. "I won't risk it," he said to himself. "She may never come up again, and the water must be deep here." He stopped swimming, turned his back to the waves, took a deep breath, and dived straight for the bottom.

How cold and strange it felt, and how quiet after the tumult he had left above him! The impulse of his dive soon ended, and yet there was no bottom, so he began to swim straight downward. His eyes were open and he could see quite plainly within a radius of ten feet. Straining his eyes, he looked into the gloomy depths as he swam. What was that gleam of white far below him? It must be the girl's dress. How his head cracked with the pressure of the water, but on he went downward, ever downward. He was below the clear light, but the thought that he was nearing the drowning child gave him the power of a grown man. He swam on almost blindly, and with the strength of despair, because he knew it was the only chance to save a life. In the blackness of the depths he lost the gleam of white, then recovered it, lost it again, and after two or three strokes touched something which felt like seaweed. His hand closed instinctively, although he could see nothing now, and he realized with a great feeling of joy that it was the child's hair which had floated upward. He wound his hand securely in it, and struck madly for the surface with splitting head and bursting lungs.

It could only have been a few seconds, but to Frank it seemed an eternity before his head bobbed into the clear sunlight and he was able to take a great gulping breath. He felt as weak as a baby, but he had strength enough to pull his burden to the surface and turn on his back.

"Good boy," said a voice behind him. "Let me take her. Look out for yourself." Frank turned his head and saw Jimmy at his elbow. He resigned the little girl, who showed no signs of life, to his friend, and lay panting on the surface, the water breaking over him every now and then. He had barely strength left to work his hands fin-like to keep afloat, while Captain Silas maneuvered the sloop back to the spot where the two boys were struggling in the water. Soon life buoys were thrown out to them, and a minute later the sloop, with her head to the wind and her mainsail snapping and cracking, lay close alongside.

In a jiffy the unconscious girl, Frank, and Jimmy were pulled aboard the boat, where Frank lay gasping like a fish out of water. Well acquainted with and skilled in the methods of resuscitation, the old captain worked over the little girl, who lay as limp as a rag on the deck while the maid wept hysterically and several of the other women cried in sympathy.