ave been?

"I say, girlie, Elsa, whatever your name is, quit it! You're behaving
horrid! _Metty isn't dead._ He's very much happier than--than I am, at
this minute. He's eating water-melon and you'd show some sense if
you'd do that, too. When his mother got back, after stealing her
melon, she found things in a fine mess. Old Cap'n had fished the
youngster out but he wasn't going to have him drip muddy water all
over his nice clean 'ship.' Not by a long shot! So he carries him by
the boat-hook, just as he'd got him, over to the grass and hung him up
in a little tree that was there, to dry. Yes, sir! Gave him a good
spanking, too, Mrs. Bruce said, just to keep him from taking cold!
Funny old snoozer, ain't he?"

In spite of herself Elsa stopped sobbing and smiled; while relieved by
this change Gerald hurriedly finished his tale.

"He was hanging there, the Cap'n holding him from falling, when his
mother came tearing down the hill and stopped so short her melon fell
out her skirt--ker-smash! 'What you-all doin' ter mah li'l lamb?' says
she. 'Just waterin' the grass,' says he. 'Why-fo'?' says she. ''Cause
the ornery little fool fell into the river and tried to spile his nice
new livery. Why else?' says he. Then--Did you ever hear a colored
woman holler? Made no difference to her that the trouble was all over
and Methuselah Washington Bonaparte was considerable cleaner than he
had been before his plunge; she kept on yelling till everybody was
half-crazy and we happened along with--Billy! Say, Elsa----"

"Gerald, I mean Mr. Blank, is all that true?"

"What's the use eyeing a fellow like that? I guess it's true. That's
about the way it must have been and, anyway, that part that our good
skipper fished the boy out of the water is a fact. Old Ephraim
grand-daddy hated Cap'n Jack like poison before; now he'd kiss the
ground he walks on, if he wasn't ashamed to be caught at it. Funny!
That folks should make such an everlasting fuss over one little black
boy!"

"I suppose they love him," answered Elsa. She was amazed to find
herself walking along so quietly beside this boy whom she had thought
so rough, and from whom she shrank more than from any of the others.
He had certainly been kind. He was the one who had stayed to help her
home when even Dorothy forsook her. She had hated his rude boisterous
ways and the sound of his voice, with its sudden changes from a deep
bass to a squeaking falsetto. Now she felt ashamed and puni