He stopped short, as if he could not exactly say how disastrous it would have been for him.
There was a running fire of praise and of questions poured at Jack, by the gathering knot of people on the shore, and it was several minutes before his father spoke again.
"They're cool now," he said. "Turn 'em, Jack, and walk 'em out by the bridge, and up to the mill. Then come home to dinner."
Jack pretended not to see quite a different kind of group gathered under the clump of tall trees. Not a voice had come to him from that group of lookers-on, and yet the fact that they were there made him tingle all over.
Two large, freckle-faced, sandy-haired women were hugging each other, and wiping their eyes; and a very small girl was tugging at their dresses and crying, while a pair of girls of from twelve to fourteen, close by them, seemed very much inclined to dance. Two small boys, who at first belonged to the party, had quickly rolled up their trousers and waded out as far as they could into the Cocahutchie. Just in front of the group, under the trees, stood Mary Ogden, straight as an arrow, her dark eyes flashing and her cheeks glowing while she looked silently at the boy on the wagon in the stream, until she saw him wheel the grays. Even then she did not say anything, but turned and walked away. It was as if she had so much to say that she felt she could not say it.
"Aunt Melinda! Mother!" said one of the girls, "Jack isn't hurt a mite. They'd all ha' been drowned, though, if there was water enough."
"Hush, Bessie," said one of the large women, and the other at once echoed, "Hush, Bessie."
They were very nearly alike, these women, and they both had long straight noses, such as Jack's would have been, if half-way down it had not been Roman, like his father's.
"Mary Ann," said the first woman, "we mustn't say too much to him about it. He can only just be held in, now."
"Hush, Melinda," said Jack's mother. "I thought I'd seen the last of him when the gray critters came a-powderin' down the road past the house"—and then she wiped her eyes again, and so did Aunt Melinda, and they both stooped down at the same moment, saying, "Jack's safe, Sally," and picked up the small girl, who was crying, and kissed her.