7, which used to be the Mercy Robin, and were jerking the timber shores out, one of the men stooping under her stern beheld something white and gleaming.

He put his hand down to it, and, lo! it was a child, in imminent peril of a deadly crush, as the boat came heeling over.

"Hold hard!" cried the man, not in time with his voice, but in time with his sturdy shoulder, to delay the descent of the counter.

Then he stooped underneath, while they steadied the boat, and drew forth a child in a white linen dress, heartily asleep and happy.
There was no time to think of any children now, even of a man's own fine breed, and the boat was beginning much to chafe upon the rope, and thirty or forty fine fellows were all waiting, loath to hurry Captain Robin (because of the many things he had dearly lost), yet straining upon their own hearts to stand still.

And the captain could not find his wife, who had slipped aside of the noisy scene, to have her own little cry, because of the dance her children would have made if they had lived to see it.
There were plenty of other women running all about to help, and to talk, and to give the best advice to their husbands and to one another; but most of them naturally had their own babies, and if words came to action, quite enough to do to nurse them.