VI.
“Then I found the little one’s mother, whom I knew by sight.
“She was a large, healthy-looking woman, and, as I rushed into her presence, was working at her spinning-wheel, singing meanwhile. When she saw me suddenly appear, scarcely half clothed, and soaking wet, she was seized with a fit of anger, and before in my trouble I could manage to explain myself, boxed me vigorously on both ears.
“It was the first time in my life I had received such treatment. Furious at this proceeding, I threw myself on her, calling her every name I could think of, and holding her by the skirt, I cried to her that out among the cabbages there lay a little boy who might be dead.
“The good woman, astonished, began to imagine from the little I was able to tell her, that she had been too quick; she concluded to follow me. I feared I was taking her to a dead child, all was so quiet over in the cabbage garden. But I was wrong. The little fellow I had pulled out of the water was in better condition than I. We found him sitting tranquilly in his wet garments, his arm resting carelessly on a fine large cabbage. Without saying a word, he was staring straight in front of him. But at the sight of his mother he suddenly recovered his voice, and commenced bellowing even louder than he had done when he was paddling in the river. Why should he cry? I thought it stupid to cry just when help had arrived. He was, however, not so far wrong, poor, fat little fellow: he was a little man who had already experienced many things in life; he knew well what awaited him. To tell the truth, he knew that his mother’s first action, in moments of excitement, was at once quick and varied.
“Seeing him in good condition, but wet from head to foot, mother Brazon lifted him up by one arm, and pulling up his frock, administered a spanking which considerably augmented the loudness of the little boy’s shrieks. I was indignant. It appears that I was wrong. I have since heard it said that, medicinally, the maternal treatment was admirably suited to the occasion. Is that true, doctor?”
“Quite true,” answered the doctor, laughing.
“With all this going on, I was scarcely contented; on the one hand, I was beginning to shiver with cold, and on the other, for the first time in my life, I found myself with strangers far away from the remainder of my clothes, and I had a terrible fear lest Madame Brazon should profit by the occasion to administer to me (otherwise than on my ears) the same treatment she had so recently applied to her own son, and which the doctor, no doubt, would have approved. But these two exercises had been sufficient to calm the good woman.
“We had no sooner entered the house than she proved herself a loving mother to little Auguste, and very kind to me. Quick as a wink she undressed us both entirely, and bundled us both, in spite of our resistance, between the white sheets of her big bed.
“Three minutes later she made us each drink a glass of sugared wine—very hot—which put Auguste in an extremely jubilant frame of mind. I could not share it. The worst was perhaps over. All was finished on our side of the river, but that which was soon going to pass on the other side began to occupy my mind. I thought alternately of papa, of mamma, of my uncle, of my wet clothes, of the two boxes on my ears, of the boat, and of aunt Marie. All this was very complicated for a childish brain, already confused. Little Auguste, searching for a warm place, had curled up in my arms and gone to sleep. Scarcely knowing it, I followed his example, and became unconscious in the middle of my sad reflections. It seems they let us sleep nearly two hours. When I awoke and found myself in that room and in that bed, and felt the head of a chubby little boy on my shoulder, I was, at first, much astonished. I opened my eyes without daring to move. But soon my memory returned, I remembered everything, and cried, ‘Papa! papa!’
“‘Present!’ replied my father. He had been there by my bedside,—my dear father,—for one hour, and my darling mother was there also. Aunt Sister Marie had been unable to leave, or she would have been there, too.
“Madame Brazon, it appears, had at length succeeded in recognizing in the small gentleman so scantily clad, whose ears she had so lately boxed, the little boy she had often seen in the garden across the river, and to explain the enigma, she had sent a neighbor to uncle Antoine’s. It had suddenly interrupted the game of chess. My father arrived soon after, bringing with him my uncle’s doctor. The doctor, after looking at the pretty picture we made in Madame Brazon’s bed, had said, ‘Let them sleep.’
“While waiting for us to wake up, father had sent to town for dry clothes; my mother had brought them herself. When I was dressed, my father took me between his knees and said to me:
“‘Tell me everything.’
“I gave him, in fewer words than I have just used, an exact account of what had happened. My father listened to me. I saw clearly that he was not angry. At one moment, however, I saw him grow pale; it was when he realized from my explanations that to go and undrown little Auguste (this was the word I used, and it has been so well remembered by all the family that I have not forgotten it), it was, I say, when he understood that I must certainly have crossed the river to reach the child.
“‘It is incomprehensible!’ said he to mamma and the doctor. ‘The middle of the river is every where at least five or six feet deep. What did he do?’
“‘Papa,’ said I, ‘I did as I saw the frogs do.’
“‘But then, my child, you swam.’
“‘I do not know, papa; perhaps—’
“‘Did the water go over your head?’
“‘No, papa, surely not.’
“‘You got no water in your mouth while you were going across to rescue little Auguste? You did not go altogether under water?’
“‘No, papa; no papa.’
“‘Very well, my wife,’ said my father to my mother, ‘that proves that when one has to swim, one can swim. Jacques swam, because occupied with something besides his fear of water, he thought only of the end he wished to attain. I am sure that he is now cured of his former fright, and that with a few good lessons he will become a good swimmer. And to be a good swimmer is very useful: it enables one to save one’s self as well as others. Without this baby, Madame Brazon, without his courage and sang-froid, your child would have been lost.’
“‘My God!’ she cried. ‘And I thanked him with two blows!’
“‘Yes, papa,—two hard ones!’
“‘Madame Brazon,’ said my father, ‘kiss my son on the two cheeks that you treated so roughly. There is nothing like a kiss to repair an injury. When one is kissed, all wounds are cured.’”