Chapter Fifteen.
By a wonderfully kindly arrangement of nature we recover very rapidly when we are young; and before half an hour had passed I was seated on the thwart, using one of the oars, while the boy was using the other, but he kept leaving off rowing to gaze earnestly in my face; and when I smiled at him to show him that I was better, he showed his white teeth, and even then I could not help thinking what a bright, chubby-looking face he had, as he plunged his oar in again, and tugged at it, rowing very clumsily, of course, but helping me to get the boat along till we reached the rough logs and the stumps which formed our landing-place, where I was very glad to get ashore and make the boat fast.
“Well, George, how many fish?” cried my father, as I went up to the house, to find him in the garden trying to direct the big black how to use his hoe.
“None, father,” I said, half hysterically, for I was quite broken down.
“Why, what’s the matter?” he said. “Hallo! Been in?”
“Yes—been drowned—that boy.”
“What!” cried my father, furiously.
“No, no! He jumped in—saved me—I was going down.”