"Now, look heah, young Ned! What you mean by dis heah sort o' doins? Didn't you promise me faithful to be back agin in a month? An' ain't de month done gone, an' heah you is a idlin' about on a ma'sh, an' it Sunday mawnin' too? Jes' you come straight 'long home now."
After she had spent her first breath in a tirade which was half scolding and half coddling,—for that was always her way with Ned, whom she had spoiled all his life, from the cradle upward,—she paused long enough for Ned to explain that he and his companions could not go to her until the tide should rise at least a foot more.
"Now listen, boys," he said; "she'll keep it up till the rising tide brings her to us, and we're in for an hour of it."
"Why not persuade her to go back and get breakfast ready by the time we get there?" asked Jack.
"Go back? Not she. My month was up yesterday, and as I didn't put in an appearance, she set out to find me and bring me home this morning, and you just bet she won't go home without me. She'll row this way as fast as the rising water will let her, and she'll keep on scolding and coddling me all the time. Then she'll jump in here and hug me as if I were her long-lost baby boy. Hear her!"
Maum Sally fulfilled Ned's prediction to the letter. As she drew nearer, and made out the forlorn condition of the young Crusoes, discovering, little by little, how ragged they were, she scolded more and more savagely, while Ned laughed and heartily enjoyed it all, taking pains to direct her attention to the various losses he had sustained, and hinting now and then at the difficulties he had encountered and the dangers he had passed. Each word of his gave Maum Sally a new theme for her scolding, and as the little boat pushed itself up to the big one she leaped from the one into the other, changing her tone, manner, and expression in the very middle of a sentence, somewhat thus:
"I tell you, young Ned, ef I gits my han's on you, you ugly, provokin', no 'count young scape—darlin', blessed boy, aint ole Sally happy to git her arms roun' you agin, and hug you jis like you was a baby agin; an' now I's got you safe in these arms agin, I tell you I's happy."
The sudden change in the sentence occurred just as Maum Sally stepped from one boat into the other, and fell upon Ned with that savage fury of affection which only a dear old black nurse can feel.
To row out of the marsh when the water grew a little deeper, and then to row home to a late but toothsome breakfast, was easy enough now. Then a long day of complete rest followed, and the whole story of the wreck of the Red Bird was a memory merely.