BILLIE'S BARGE BOY

Evening Star, Issue 22881, 12 February 1938, Page 8

BILLIE'S BARGE BOY

A GOOD-NIGHT TALE The garden of Billie’s house was an exciting place, for at the end of it was a canal, down which barges would glide. When they came by Billie used to go down to watch. He thought it must be grand to he one of the barge children, especially when he saw one of them riding on the big horse which pulled the barge from the towipath. One day he ran to the water’s edge wdth a hall just as a .barge came by. The ball slipped from his band and fell in the water. “Whoa!” cried the bargeman to his horse, and, taking his long pole, he pushed the ball close into the bank so that Billie could reach it. “ Oh, thank you,!” called Billie. “ Best of luck!” shouted the man, as the barge moved on., After that Billie always looked out specially for that barge, and when it came by he would wave both to the barge-man and to his little hoy, who was about his own age. As they came by every few weeks Billie and the boy became friends, though they only met for a few minutes. One windy day the barge boy tried to throw a little boat to Billie. He

leaned too far over, and in a second, he was in the water. “ Daddy! Daddy 1 Come quickly!-t called Billie. His father came running down the garden path, and soon pulled the hoy safely to the bank. The barge man had stopped the horse and pulled the barge close in to the bank. “ We’ll take him straight in,” said Billie’s father. When they were all indoors Billie’s mother soon had the boy dry and warmly tucked up in blankets. “ Don’t you think,” she said to the barge man, “ it would be a good thing to leave him here until you come by again? _ We’ll take care of him, and I know Billie would love a playmate.” Everything had happened so quickly, and the man was so glad and grateful that he was unable to thank them properly as he went away, leaving the two hoys chatting happily together. When the time came for his playmate to go away Billie was sad. The barge man looked at Billie’s father. “ I suppose,” he said, “ you wouldn’t trust me to take him on the barge for this trip? I’d take care not to give either of them a chance of falling over again.” Of course Billie’s father said Yes. Anil that was how Billie had the happiest holiday he had ever known.