Stories for Boys

by Richard Harding Davis

Young Tommy from his post half-way up the ladder, saw that before the boat could reach his rival, or the boys could get around the piles to him, he would be drowned, and so he ran up the rest of the ladder, poised for just a second, and then took the second and last jump that was ever taken from Corey’s slip. He cleared the posts by an inch or two, turned in the water before he had gone half-way into it, and dived to where he saw the white body settling towards the bottom.

The sailors in the rowboat reached him in time to pull him out and carry him to the yacht with the bruised and unconscious body of his rival in his arms. Then the gentlemen sent Mooney over to the hospital, and wanted to make up a purse for Tommy, but he said it was “all right” and “hadn’t done nothin’ anyhow.” It took several weeks for Mooney’s leg and arm to knit, and he limped for months afterward.

The gentlemen on the yacht wanted to compromise by giving Tommy a medal, but he said he’d had enough trouble over the last medal, and asked why they did not give it to Mooney, for he had taken the jump in cold blood; “an’ I,” said Tommy, “just did it because I was in a hurry to get down.”

So Van Bibber and the other yachtsmen gave Mooney a very fine medal, which told that he was the “Champion Diver of the East River.” And now there are two leaders to the gang, though each protests that the other is the only one.

THE VAN BIBBER BASEBALL CLUB.

Young Van Bibber decided that he ought to take some people to the circus. He had long outgrown the age when the circus only pleased, but some of the men had said it was the thing to do just as it was the thing to go incognito to see Carmencita dance; and so he purchased a big box in the very centre of the lowest tier and wrote to Mrs. Dick Wassails that it was at her service and that she could fill it with whom she pleased. He added that he would expect them to take supper with him later.

He owed Mrs. Dick, as everybody called her, a great deal for many social favors, and he thought to make things even in this way; but Mrs. Dick was engaged for that evening, and said she was so sorry and begged to be excused. So young Van Bibber sent off a note to the Gramercys, with whom he wished to become more intimate, and whom he wished to put under an obligation. But they were just going abroad and were in the midst of preparations and they also begged to be excused.

It was getting very near the night now, and Van Bibber ran over in his mind the names of all of those people to whom he owed something or who might some day do something for him. He tried the Van Warps, because they owned a yacht, but they were going to a wedding; and he tried the Van Blunts, on account of their house at Lenox, and found that their great uncle had just died and that they were going to the funeral. Then he asked the men in the club, but the one who gave such good dinners thought it would be too much of a bore; and another, whose sister Van Bibber wanted to know better, said he was afraid he would catch cold, and others, all of whom had been civil to him in one way or another, began to make excuses. So young Van Bibber stood on the steps of the club and kicked viciously at the mat. He decided that his friends were a very poor lot. “One would think I was trying to borrow money from them,” soliloquized Van Bibber.

“Where to?” asked the driver of the hansom.

“To the circus,” said Van Bibber. It was a long ride, and he had time to make up his mind that he had been foolish in starting out; but as he was already more than half-way there he kept on. He had determined to see that circus himself in solitary state from that box, notwithstanding his irresponsive friends.