5. Grace Darling

Once there was a terrible storm at sea, and a steamship was dashed upon the rocks and split in two. One-half of the ship was washed away, and those of the passengers who were still alive, were clinging to the other half upon the low rocks, lashed by the angry waves. About a mile away in a lighthouse a brave girl, named Grace Darling, the daughter of the lighthouse-keeper, heard, above the noise of the winds and waves, the screams and cries of the drowning men, and when daylight dawned she could see the wreck and the men clinging to the masts. “Let us go out in the lifeboat and save them?” she cried. But her father, who knew the danger in such a storm, replied, “It is of no use. We can never reach them!” “We can never stay here and see them die, father,” Grace said; “let us try to save them.” So the heavy lighthouse boat was launched, and with Grace pulling at one oar, and her father at the other, they reached the wreck and rescued, one by one, the worn-out men, whom they rowed safely to the lighthouse. Then Grace became as tender a nurse as she had been brave as a sailor, for she cared most kindly for the shipwrecked men until the storm ceased and they were strong enough to go to their own homes. The heroism of this young woman became known everywhere. Thousands sang her praises. Artists visited the lighthouse to take her portrait. Three thousand dollars were subscribed and presented to her. Distinguished people sent her letters of gratitude. But through all such praise Grace Darling remained as modest as she was brave, saying, “I did not suppose I had done anything worthy of so much notice.” When a few years afterward she died, over her grave, in a little churchyard by the sea, not far from the lighthouse, a monument was raised in her honor, where it stands to-day. It is a marble statue of a woman lying at rest with a boat’s oar held fast in her right hand.