Trying, but not succeeding very well; for the wreck had been a Bremen bark, with an assorted cargo and some fifty passengers, all emigrants.

German seemed to be their only tongue, and none of Mrs.Kinzer's pleasure-party spoke German.
"Too bad," Ford Foster was saying about it, when there came a sort of wail from a group at a little distance, and it seemed to close with,-- "_Pauvre enfant!_" "French!" exclaimed Ford.

"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 that lay before them.

No lives had been lost in the wreck; but there had been a good deal of suffering among the poor passengers, cooped up between decks, with the hatches closed, while the storm lasted.

Nobody drowned, indeed; but all had been 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 nearly 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 languages.
"The child, was it sick ?" Not so much "sick" as dying of starvation and exposure.