It was not long before they discovered a woman running like mad toward the spot. Of course this was no other than Sarah, whose heart had been chilled by the news fetched by Adolphus Smith, the truth being considerably garbled, it is to be feared. She arrived panting, and with her eyes full of horror, as though she fully expected to find her darling Brutus lying there all wet and cold. Upon discovering the shrinking little form, she seized him in her arms, and dropping to the ground began rocking back and forth as she hugged him tight, meanwhile covering his ebony little face with motherly kisses. "Hebben be praised, I ain't done lost my Brutus after all. Dat 'Dolphus he skeered me nigh to death wif his stuttering story as how my chile be'n in de mill-pond. What's all dis row about, anyhow? I hopes none o' you folks done play a joke on me, dat's right. It'd be de wustest thing yuh eber done, let me tells yuh." The parson thereupon proceeded to tell her the real facts. Sarah hugged the rescued boy some more, and then on hearing how his life had been saved by the actions of two white boys, she looked up at Hugh and Thad. "Why, it am de young Morgan boy, glory, if it ain't!" she ejaculated, and Hugh was a little afraid the good woman, in her gratitude, might want to transfer her embraces from Brutus to him, so he held out his hand, with one of his smiles, saying: "We were only too glad to be on the spot and give the boy a helping hand, Sarah. I didn't know at the time he was your child, though that wouldn't have made any difference. We dried his clothes at a fire we made, and he's all right." Sarah, even as she squeezed Hugh's hand, was looking at Brutus out of the tail of her eye, as though an awful thought had just then burst upon her. "An' he hab on his bestest Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes, too. I done hopes dey ain't shrunk on him, so he cain't git in 'em agin. Dat clerk he nebber guarantee dat dey wouldn't creep up if de boy he done falls in de pond. But how did it happen, I'd like to know." Hugh thereupon took it upon himself to explain just how Brutus in trying to "show-off" before his little girl companions had ventured out too far, and managed to cause his raft to go to pieces. Sarah looked threatening, so Hugh hastened to "pour oil on troubled waters." "Brutus has suffered enough for punishment, I should think, Sarah," he told her. "He's had his lesson, and will never try anything like that again. You should be thankful it's no worse. Besides, let me tell you, he's a little hero. He fought like everything to save himself, and never let out so much as a cry. The girls did all the yelling. You ought to be proud of his grit." "That's right, you had, Sarah," added Thad, thinking it his duty to "put in an oar" so as to save Brutus from the "smacking" he seemed to be dreading.