Harry succeeded in speaking calmly, but his manner showed how urgent he deemed the need of haste, and try as she would Grandma found herself unequal to the occasion. Her limbs refused to support her, and once inside the house she sank into the nearest chair, and, burying her face in her hands, broke into an agony of sobs and tears. To have little Brevet missing at such an anxious moment was more than her over-strained nerves could bear. Courage saw instantly it was for her to take command of the situation, and sending the children hither and thither through the house as Harry had directed, she herself hurried away for the stimulant of which Grandma Ellis so sorely stood in need.
Meanwhile poor old Joe, who in his alarm for Brevet’s safety had lost his head completely, had been wasting precious moments in looking in the most impossible places.
“Oh, Mars Harry, whar can dat blessed child be?” he said, coming up to Harry with the tears streaming down his face.
“Have you looked over on the island, Joe?”
“Oh, I never thought of dat, Mars Harry,” but the misery that was in Joe’s voice showed that he took in instantly all the dreadful possibilities, if the storm should break with Brevet alone on the island. They hurried as fast as they could to the shore, and there, sure enough! was Brevet, hard at work, getting his little camp into shape for the coming storm he had evidently been the first to discover. At that precise moment he was busy hauling down the little camp flag, but that he was not in the least disconcerted was perfectly evident. In the awful ominous hush preceding the storm, they could even catch the familiar strain of “I’se a little Alabama Coon.”
“We must not frighten him, Joe,” Harry said, his breath coming short and fast, “we must just call to him to come right back. But where is the boat, Joe? Where is the boat?”
“Oh, Mars Harry! Mars Harry! look dere,” and now the fear in Joe’s voice had turned to veriest anguish; and Harry looking, saw the precious boat in mid-river, the oars still resting in the oar-locks, but as hopelessly beyond reach as though in mid-ocean.
“Oh, Joe!” cried Harry, looking down at the helpless arm bound firmly in the splints. Then, crying, “I will get a man from the stables; stay right where you are, Joe,” he was gone in a flash. A man from the stables! Joe knew how long that must take. No, there was just one thing to be done, and stripping off boots and jacket, in the next second he was breast deep in the water, and in the next striking out bravely for the island. It was a hard tug for the old man, for the current was strong; but Brevet, still unmindful of his danger, sang away with a will, and the words came distinctly over the water,—
“I’se a little Alabama Coon,
I hasn’t been born very long.”