"Capital! just the stroke! Keep it up! Hear 'em cheering!"
The cheering spurred on the boys, and in less than five minutes they landed in the midst of a wildly excited and loud-cheering crowd. And wasn't there a hugging and kissing, and hand-shaking and back-slapping!
Just as the women were up to their necks in it, to use a homely figure, some one happened to glance at the boat. The glance extorted a scream.
"A baby, a darling baby! See, see, see! a little baby in the boat!"
A moment's dazed surprise, and every one crowded to the boat. Joe, who had not moved far from the boat's nose, and who only waited for the violence of the welcome to abate a little that he might call attention to the precious freight, waved the jostling crowd back, and in a few words related the incident of the rescue.
A great wave of feeling passed over the crowd as he spoke. The women wept copiously as the scene was conjured us, and strong men unconsciously shed briny tears as the story reached its culminating point of the discovery of the helpless and orphaned babe, bound to the dead breast of her who had thus made the great sacrifice of motherhood.
While Joe was reciting the story of the rescue, Jimmy Flynn held on to his mother's arm and whispered excitedly into her ear. The narrator had hardly finished ere Mrs. Flynn stepped forward to his side and faced the crowd. Ordinarily, this woman was undemonstrative and shy. Now she is unconscious of any timidity. The moment was an inspired one; to produce which Jimmy's whisperings had played an important part.
"Mr. Blain, and friends all, give me the darling baby. It'll take the place of the one God took from me last month. The clothes'll fit——"
The bereft mother could get no further. Any woman who has lost a child will tell you why.
"My friends, you all know Mrs. Flynn, as I know her. If it were a matter of choosing between you, I should still say that no one in the town is better fitted for the sacred duty of mothering this little flood-driven stranger. None of us can say to whom the child belongs; whether there is a father or near relations. But until it is claimed by those who can prove the right to do so, the very best of all possible arrangements, and one I regard as providential, will be for Mrs. Flynn to take this baby to nourish and cherish it."