but soon came to, and when Mrs. Storefield came home she first cried over her
as if she would break her heart, and kissed her, and then she kissed me,
and said, `Now, Dick Marston, you look here. Your mother's a good woman,
though simple; your father I don't like, and I hear many stories about him
that makes me think the less we ought to see of the lot of you the better.
But you've saved my child's life to-day, and I'll be a friend
and a mother to you as long as I live, even if you turn out bad,
and I'm rather afraid you will -- you and Jim both --
but it won't be my fault for want of trying to keep you straight;
and John and I will be your kind and loving friends as long as we live,
no matter what happens.'

After that -- it was strange enough -- but I always took
to the little toddling thing that I'd pulled out of the water.
I wasn't very big myself, if it comes to that, and she seemed to have
a feeling about it, for she'd come to me every time I went there,
and sit on my knee and look at me with her big brown serious eyes
-- they were just the same after she grew up -- and talk to me
in her little childish lingo. I believe she knew all about it,
for she used to say, `Dick pull Gracey out of water;' and then she'd
throw her arms round my neck and kiss me, and walk off to her mother.
If I'd let her drown then, and tied a stone round my neck
and dropped through the reeds to the bottom of the big waterhole,
it would have been better for both of us.

When John came home he was nearly as bad as the old woman,
and wanted to give me a filly, but I wouldn't have it, boy as I was.
I never cared for money nor money's worth, and I was not going to be paid
for picking a kid out of the water.