ut not succeeding very well, for the wreck had been a Bremen
bark with an assorted cargo and some fifty passengers, all emigrants.
German seemed their only tongue, and none of Mrs. Kinzer's
pleasure-party spoke German.

"Too bad," Ford Foster was saying, when there came a sort of wail from a
group at a little distance, and it seemed to close with--"pauvre
enfant."

"French!" he exclaimed. "Why, they look as Dutch as any of the rest.
Come on, Annie, let's try and speak to them."

The rest followed a good deal like a flock of sheep, and it was a sad
enough scene which lay before them. No lives had been lost in the wreck,
though there had been a great deal of suffering among the poor
passengers, cooped up between-decks with the hatches closed, while the
storm lasted. Nobody drowned, indeed, but all dreadfully soaked in the
surf in getting ashore; and among the rest had been the fair-haired
child, now lying there on his mother's lap, so pinched and blue, and
seemingly so lifeless.

French, were they? Yes and no; for the father, a tall, stout young man,
who looked like a farmer, told Ford they were from Alsace, and spoke
both tongues.

"The child, was it sick?"

Not so much sick as dying of starvation and exposure.

Oh, such a sad, pleading look as the poor mother lifted to the moist
eyes of Mrs. Kinzer as the portly widow bent over the silent boy. Such a
pretty child he must have been, and not over two years old; but the salt
water was in his tangled curls now, and his poor lips were parted in a
weak, sick way, that spoke of utter exhaustion.

"Can anything be done, mother?"

"Yes, Dabney; you and Ham, and Ford and Frank, go to the yacht, quick as
you can, and bring the spirit-heater, lamp and all, and bread and milk,
and every dry napkin and towel you can find. Bring Keziah's shawl."

Such quick time they made across that sand-bar!

And they were none too soon; for, as they came running down to their
boat, a mean, slouching sort of fellow walked rapidly away from it.

"He was going to steal it."

"Can't go for him now, Dab; but you'll have to mount guard here while we
go back with the things."

He did so, and Ham and Frank and Ford hurried back to the other beach to
find that Mrs. Kinzer had taken complete possession of that baby. Every
rag of his damp things was already stripped off, and now, while Miranda
lighted the "heater" and made some milk hot in a minute, the good lady
began to rub the little suff