The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; the Boy and the Book; and Crystal Palace by Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
page 30 of 168 (17%)
page 30 of 168 (17%)
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For some time Tom dared not raise his head; he felt too bewildered, too
terrified by the danger he had escaped, to comprehend perfectly his present situation. At length he sat up, and endeavored to collect his thoughts, and determine what next he should do. The river-bank rose almost perpendicularly full twenty feet; no straggling vine, by whose help he might have clambered up, fell from it, and the foaming torrent rushing between it and him, rendered any attempt to scale it, without some aid from above, utterly impossible. He must, then, call for help; but who was there to hear him in this wild place--.and how could he make himself heard above the din of the raging waters which surrounded him? He was nigh despairing again, when he remembered the whistle with which he used to call the pigs, and which he always carried about him; he took it from his pocket, and blew a long, shrill cry--it rose high above all the roar and tumult of the cataract, and his failing hope and courage revived. "Dick," said Jem Watson to his elder brother, as they were shooting squirrels that afternoon in the woods, about three miles from home, "did you hear that whistle just now?" "A whistle! No; whereabouts?" "It seemed to come from the Fall; but who should be there! father's at home, isn't he?" "Yes, father's at home. But, hark! I hear it now! Who can it be?--let's go see!" The young man ran off, followed by Jem, and they were soon on the cliff above poor Tom, who sat wearily looking upwards. "Tom Lee!" they both |
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