On the Breast of the Tide (1914)

Big Jim Huntley lives in a cabin on a rock-bound coast, with his pretty wife, Jennie, and their darling daughter, Vera. Ideal happiness would be theirs, were it not for the fact that Jim is addicted to strong drink. He cannot keep away from the village grog shop o' nights, a weakness most distressing to his gentle wife. Finally her situation grows so unbearable that she orders him to leave and never to return until he has made a man of himself. Shocked into second thought, he resolves to maroon himself on a little island until he has conquered the demon, rum. There, alone, he fights it out, smashes his last flask of whiskey, and once again feels that he is master of himself. Little Vera is playing in a boat which breaks adrift, and she is carried to sea by the tide, which sweeps by the little island, where her father is the sole inhabitant. The boat strikes a reef, capsizes, and she is about to be drowned, when Jim swims to her rescue. When he finds that he has saved his own little child, his thankfulness is so great, that he is positive no temptation can ever sway him from the duties at his own fireside. So he returns on the breast of the tide with his own little one clasped in his arms, a sober and a changed man.

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Summary Details
GenresDrama Short