f the water. Of course the other one held
up a hand to meet him, but he could not reach far enough. Then Chin-Fan
reached down, while the stranger reached up, and pretty soon Chin-Fan
lost his balance, and tumbled into the water.

Wasn't he in a dangerous place? His mother did not know what had
happened, and she kept on rowing the boat right away from where the poor
little fellow was struggling and trying to keep from being drowned. An
American baby would have screamed and sunk, but Chin-Fan was not
American, and so he did nothing of the sort. He dropped all thoughts of
the strange baby, and considered nobody but himself; he managed to get
hold of the billet of wood to which his cord was fastened, and by
holding on firmly he kept his head out of water. The current of the
river carried him along, and very luckily it carried him to where a ship
was anchored, with her great cable sloping down the stream. He struck
against this cable, and as he did so, he let go of the billet, so that
it went one side of the cable, while Chin-Fan went the other. Then he
took hold of the cable with both his chubby hands, and next he screamed
as loud as his little lungs would let him.

A sailor on the bow of the ship heard the scream, and was not long in
finding that it came from the cable. Chin-Fan kept it up until he was
rescued, and just about the time he was taken on board the ship he was
missed by his mother. She came paddling down the river in search of him,
and shouted to everybody she met that her baby was missing. The sailor
held little Chin-Fan up so that she could see him, and in a very short
time he was back in his place on the deck of the boat.

For a good while after that incident Chin-Fan kept at a respectful
distance from the side of the boat, and he did not show any desire to
make the acquaintance of strange babies in the water. His mother taught
him how to swim, and he became a boatman at Canton, and afterward he was
a sailor on one of the great steamers that run between San Francisco and
China. He did a great many brave things in and on the water, and his
mother was very proud of him; she said she always knew he would be a
famous sailor, when he showed so much good sense and coolness at the
time of his first plunge.

THE STORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.

BY EDWARD CARY.

CHAPTER I.

One hundred and fifty years ago a sturdy, hard-working farmer lived near
the southern bank of the Potomac River, in what was then th