“It was Jimmy O’Neill who saved the baby and Parker Willett who rescued them both. He is so brave.” Agnes spoke softly and with a far-away look upon her face.
“That was brave; tell me about it.”
“He took a little skiff and ventured out upon that swift, raging water, when it was as much as one’s life was worth to go a rod from shore, and all in among those tree-tops along by the run, he steered the boat till he reached a place where Jimmy could be taken in the boat, and the child, too; the baby, you know, was tucked away in an old hollow stump and was sailing downstream that way. It was Jimmy who first saw him and got him aboard his raft; but they could not have reached shore but for Parker, and he lets Jimmy take all the credit, and will not listen to a word about his own part in it.” Agnes’s cheeks glowed, and she talked excitedly.
Jeanie looked at her in surprise. “I thought you did not like Mr. Willett, the man who tried to rob you of your home.”
“We do like him.” Agnes wisely adopted the plural. “He didn’t know that the house belonged to us, you know that. It was Muirhead who misled him.”
“Muirhead again; he is a disagreeable uncle to have. Was the baby really his? What a strange thing! Is it a nice baby, Agnes, or disagreeable like his father?”
“He is the bonniest bairnie,” Agnes replied. “I love him, and I am glad he is my little cousin, though I shall probably never see him again. Parker Willett took him home this morning, or at least he took him to Dod Hunter’s, and he will see that he gets home safely. I believe the reason Mr. Willett didn’t take him all the way was because he didn’t want Hump Muirhead to think he had any part in saving Honey. I venture to say he has told Dod that it was all Jimmy’s doings. Mr. Willett is going to leave us, Jeanie.”
“Is he? I should suppose he would, now that Jimmy has come. I don’t imagine you are very sorry.”
Agnes was silent, but the color rushed to her face. “We shall miss him,” she said after a moment. “I shall particularly,” she went on bravely. “No one was ever so polite and kind to me as he, for he never will let me do a thing which he can do for me. He will bring water from the spring and will get up early to work in the garden, and he waits on me as if I were a princess. Could I help missing him? Jimmy never does those things; he isn’t lazy, Jimmy isn’t, but he expects us to do all the little things while he does only the big ones.”
“That is more manly.”