The murmurs of assent were unanimous. Joe, without any more delay, stepped into the boat, and, picking up the child—which all this time looked round, wondering in its baby way at this ado—put the little one into its foster-mother's hands.
The river baby was evidently delighted beyond measure to receive a warm motherly embrace; judging, at any rate, by the way it gooed and crowed.
As soon as she could get through the admiring throng, Mrs. Flynn hastened home, and before long the baby, washed and dressed anew, was filling its "little Mary" with sweet new milk.
CHAPTER XI
THE BREAKING-UP
"With trumping horn and juvenile huzzas,
At going home to spend their Christmas days,
And changing Learning's pains for Pleasure's toys."
TOM HOOD.
Out through the gateway of the National School, on one sultry afternoon in late December, tumbled a pack of noisy boys and scarcely less noisy girls; the while they kicked up a fine dust, yelling in an uproarious fashion. Were you, a stranger, to ask the cause of this demonstration of voice and capering limbs, you would be answered by a score of voices in rousing chorus—
"Hip, hip, hurray for Christmas Day!
School's broke up, hip, hip, hurray!"
However strongly one might be disposed to question the quality of the couplet as he listened to the trumpetings of this cluster of children, he would cheerfully admit the gusto of the proceedings as the juveniles issued pell-mell.
If truth be told, the master was no less pleased than the youngsters when the actual moment of dismissal came. Like all schools, this particular one was infected for weeks previously with a spirit of restlessness, which made it well-nigh impossible to secure the undivided attention of the children. There was no disposition for serious study, and Simpson, who was a wise teacher, attempted no coercive measures. Natural history was presented in its most attractive forms. Grammar and arithmetic were for the most part tabooed, and instead of puzzling refractory brains with arithmetical and grammatical abstractions, the children lived in the jungles of India, crossed Sahara, took a trip to the Booties, wandered into Arctic circles, or, what was equally exciting, made transcontinental trips in company with Sturt, Burke and Wills, Leichhardt, and other great Australian explorers.