SULKY ARCHIE.
BY C. MANNERS SMITH.
“It must be nice to be a sailor, and I wish I was one. Every thing goes wrong and mother is always scolding me, and father is never done growling; I am getting tired of it.”
The speaker was a little, round-cheeked lad, of about nine years of age. He was standing, with a tall, fair-haired girl, evidently his sister, on the edge of the river Wyncombe. He was not a lively boy. He was one of those thoughtful, gloomy little boys who are always dreaming; always thinking and imagining some fancied injury from either father or mother.
“NOBODY CARES.”
Archie Phillips was the little boy’s name, and he and his sister had got a holiday and were watching a party of older children from the Wynne High School, who had come down to the river to spend the afternoon. There was Algernon Wright with a large model yacht, and Willie Schofield, the Mayor’s son, with a new silver-mounted fishing rod. They were all as happy and full of frolic as all boys in the spring-time of life ought to be. Little Archie was, however, of a morose temperament, and did not share in any of the amusements.
The village of Wynne is a fishing village, and is approached from the sea by a beautiful cove on the Cornish coast. The town is built on the slopes of the hills reaching down to the water’s edge, and the river Wynne empties itself into the sea near by.