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Once, when he was on his way to Sunday-school, he saw some bad boys
starting off pleasuring in a sailboat. He was filled with consternation,
because he knew from his reading that boys who went sailing on Sunday
invariably got drowned. So he ran out on a raft to warn them, but a log
turned with him and slid him into the river. A man got him out pretty
soon, and the doctor pumped the water out of him, and gave him a fresh
start with his bellows, but he caught cold and lay sick abed nine weeks.
But the most unaccountable thing about it was that the bad boys in the
boat had a good time all day, and then reached home alive and well in the
most surprising manner. Jacob Blivens said there was nothing like these
things in the books. He was perfectly dumfounded.
When he got well he was a little discouraged, but he resolved to keep on
trying anyhow. He knew that so far his experiences wouldn't do to go in
a book, but he hadn't yet reached the allotted term of life for good
little boys, and he hoped to be able to make a record yet if he could
hold on till his time was fully up. If everything else failed he had his
dying speech to fall back on.
He examined his authorities, and found that it was now time for him to go
to sea as a cabin-boy. He called on a ship-captain and made his
application, and when the captain asked for his recommendations he
proudly drew out a tract and pointed to the word, "To Jacob Blivens, from
his affectionate teacher." But the captain was a coarse, vulgar man, and
he said, "Oh, that be blowed! that wasn't any proof that he knew how to
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