Continuation of The Little Hero of Haarlem

Lets recall
With the instant perception which every child in Holland would have, the boy saw that the water must soon enlarge the hole through which it was now only dropping, and that utter and general ruin would be the consequence of the inundation of the country that must follow. To see, to throw away the flowers, to climb from stone to stone till he reached the hole, and to put his finger into it, was the work of a moment; and, to his delight, he finds that he has succeeded in stopping the flow of the water.

Now the Finish

This was all very well for a little while, and the child thought only of the success of his device. But the night was closing in, and with the night came the cold. The little boy looked around in vain. No one came. He shouted—he called loudly—no one answered. He resolved to stay there all night; but, alas! the cold was becoming every moment more biting, and the poor finger fixed in the hole began to feel benumbed, and the numbness soon extended to the hand, and thence throughout the whole arm. The pain became still greater, still harder to bear; but still the boy moved not. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he thought of his father, of his mother, of his little bed, where he might now be sleeping so soundly; but still the little fellow stirred not, for he knew that did he remove the small slender finger which he had opposed to the escape of the water, not only would he himself be drowned, but his father, his brothers, his neighbors—nay, the whole village.

We know not what faltering of purpose, what momentary failures of courage, there might have been during that long and terrible night; but certain it is, that, at day-break, he was found in the same painful position by a clergyman returning from attendance on a death-bed, who, as he advanced, thought he heard groans, and, bending over the dyke, discovered a child seated on a stone, writhing from pain, and with pale face and tearful eyes.

"Boy," he exclaimed, "what are you doing there?"

"I am hindering the water from running out," was the answer, in perfect simplicity, of the child, who, during the whole night, had been evincing such heroic fortitude and undaunted courage.



Somewhere during our life we might just happen to stumble upon  a  "sluice" discover a hole in the wood through which the water was flowing.And Yes we might just have to stick our finger in to keep the water from coming out.  And you know what we will be able to stick it out, because we each have an amazing power within.


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