[The following hitherto-unprinted fragment by Theodore Winthrop, author of "John Brent," "The Canoe and the Saddle," "Life in the Open Air," and other works, was intended by him for the first chapter of a story called "Steers Flotsam," but it has an interest of its own, and is a complete narrative in itself.
Perhaps there are many of our young readers who do not know the history of that brave young officer who, one of the very first to fall in the late war, was killed at Great Bethel, Virginia, June 10, 1861. He was born at New Haven, Connecticut, in September, 1828. He was a studious and quiet boy, and not very robust. From early youth he had determined to become an author worthy of fame, but he tore himself away from his beloved work at the call of his country just as he was about to win that fame, leaving behind him a number of finished and unfinished writings, most of which were afterward published.
He could handle oars as well as write of them, could skate like his hero in "Love and Skates," and was good at all manly sports. He traveled much, visited Europe twice, lived two years at the Isthmus of Panama, and returning from there across the plains (an adventurous trip at that time), learned in those far western wilds to manage and understand the half-tamed horses and untamed savages about whom he writes so well. This varied experience gave a freedom and power to his pen that the readers of the ST. NICHOLAS are not too young to perceive and appreciate.]
Almost sunset. I pulled my boat's head round, and made for home.
I had been floating with the tide, drifting athwart the long shadows under the western bank, shooting across the whirls and eddies of the rapid strait, grappling to one and another of the good-natured sloops and schooners that swept along the highway to the great city, near at hand.
For an hour I had sailed over the fleet, smooth glimmering water, free and careless as a sea-gull. Now I must 'bout ship and tussle with the whole force of the tide at the jaws of Hellgate. I did not know that not for that day only, but for life, my floating gayly with the stream was done.
I pulled in under the eastern shore, and began to give way with all my boyish force.
I was a little fellow, only ten years old, but my pretty white skiff was little, in proportion, and so were my sculls, and we were all used to work together.
As I faced about, a carriage came driving furiously along the turn of the shore. The road followed the water's edge. I was pulling close to the rocks to profit by every eddy. The carriage whirled by so near me that I could recognize one of the two persons within. No mistaking that pale, keen face. He evidently saw and recognized me also. He looked out at the window and signaled the coachman to stop. But before the horses could be pulled into a trot he gave a sign to go on again. The carriage disappeared at a turn of the shore.