"There's a little life here--not much, but some--you was well worth fishing up!" he said approvingly, after a brief interval.

"Polly!" he called, raising his voice.
This brought Mrs.Cavendish from one of the two cabins that occupied the center of the raft.

She was a young woman, still very comely, though of a matronly plumpness.

She was in her nightgown, and when she caught sight of Yancy she uttered a shriek and fled back into the shanty.
"I declare, Dick, you might ha' told a body you wa'n't alone!" she said reproachfully.
Her cry had aroused the other denizens of the raft.

The tow heads of the six little Cavendishes rose promptly from a long bolster in the smaller of the two shanties, and as promptly six little Cavendishes, each draped in a single non-committal garment, apparently cut by one pattern and not at all according to the wearer's years or length of limb, tumbled forth from their shelter.
"Sho', Polly, he's senseless! But you dress and come here quick.