Part 3 (2/2)

”What makes your cheeks so red?” asked Gypsy.

”I guess it's scarlet fever, or maybe it's appleplexy, you know.”

”Oh!”

Just then Winnie gave a little scream.

”Look here--Gyp.! The boat's goin'clock down. I don't want to go very much. I saw another toad down there.”

”I declare!” said Gypsy, ”we're going to be swamped, as true as you live!

It isn't strong enough to bear two,--sit still, Winnie. Perhaps we'll get ash.o.r.e.”

But no sooner had she spoken the words than the water washed up about her ankles, and Winnie's end of the raft went under. The next she knew, they were both floundering in the water.

It chanced to be about three feet and a half deep, very cold, and somewhat slimy. Gypsy had a strong impression that a frog jumped into her neck when she plunged, head first, into the deep mud at the bottom. After a little splas.h.i.+ng and gasping, she regained her feet, and stood up to her elbows in the water. But what she could do, Winnie could not. He had sunk in the soft mud, and even if he had had the courage to stand up straight, the water would have been above his head. But it had never occurred to him to do otherwise than lie gasping and flat on the bottom, where he was drowning as fast as he possibly could.

Gypsy pulled him out and carried him ash.o.r.e. She wrung him out a little, and set him down on the gra.s.s, and then, by way of doing something, she took her dripping handkerchief out of her dripping pocket and wiped her hands on it.

”O--o--oh!” gasped Winnie; ”I never did--you'd ought to know--you've just gone'n drownded me!”

”What a story!” said Gypsy; ”you're no more drowned than I am. To be sure you _are_ rather wet,” she added, with a disconsolate attempt at a laugh.

”You oughtn't to have tooken me out on that old raft,” glared Winnie, through the shower of water-drops that rained down from his forehead, ”you know you hadn't! I'll just tell mother. I'll get sick and be died after it, you see if I don't.”

”Very well,” said Gypsy, giving herself a little shake, very much as a pretty brown spaniel would do, who had been in swimming.

”You may do as you like. Who teased to go on the raft, I'd like to know?”

”_Besides_,” resumed Winnie, with an impressive cough; ”you're late to school, 'cause mother, she said you was to come right up when she sent me down, only I--well I guess, I b'lieve I forgot to tell you,--I rather think I did. Anyways, you're late,--_so_!”

Gypsy looked at Winnie, and Winnie looked at Gypsy. There was an awful silence.

”Winnie Breynton,” said Gypsy, solemnly, ”if you don't get one whipping!”

”I don't care to hear folks talk,” interrupted Winnie, with dignity, ”I am five years old.”

Gypsy's reply is not recorded.

I have heard it said that when Tom espied the two children coming up the lane, he went to his mother with the information that the fishman was somewhere around, only he had sent his fishes on ahead of him. They appeared to have been freshly caught, and would, he thought, make several dinners; but I cannot take the responsibility of the statement.

It was very late, much nearer ten o'clock than nine, when Gypsy was fairly metamorphosed into a clean, dry, very penitent-looking child.

She hurried off to school, leaving Winnie and his mother in close conference. Exactly what happened on the occasion of that interview, has never been made known to an inquiring public.

On the way to school Gypsy had as many as six sober thoughts; a larger number than she was usually capable of in forty-eight hours. One was, that it was too bad she had got so wet. Another was, that she really supposed it was her business to know when school-time came, no matter where she was or what she was doing. Another, that she had made her mother a great deal of trouble. A fourth was, that she was sorry to be so late at school--it always made Miss Melville look so; and then a bad mark was not, on the whole, a desirable thing. Still a fifth was, that she would never do such a thing again as long as she lived--_never_. The sixth lay in a valiant determination to behave herself the rest of this particular day. She would study hard. She would get to the head of the cla.s.s. She wouldn't put a single pin in the girls' chairs, nor tickle anybody, nor make up funny faces, nor whisper, nor make one of the girls laugh, not one, not even that silly Delia Guest, who laughed at nothing,--why, you couldn't so much as make a doll out of your handkerchief and gloves, and hang it on your pen-handle, but what she had to go into a spasm over it.

No, she wouldn't do a single funny thing all day. She would just sit still and look sober and sorry, and not trouble Miss Melville in the least. Her mind was quite made up.

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