The girls saw him disappear, and stood, a most subdued little group. Dimple felt herself to be in a very unhappy plight, and dreaded meeting any one. How should she get home through the town without being seen? She looked very miserable and woe-begone as she thought of all this.
"Well, girls, we'll have to be up and doing," said Callie. "We've a five mile walk before us, and it's a pretty hot day, so we'll have to take it slowly. You'll have plenty of time to get dried off, before we get there, Eleanor, so don't look so unhappy, you poor little midget. Think how dreadful it is for me who got you into this scrape. I can never forgive myself for it."
"I'll tell you what let's do," said Libbie. "Let Eleanor take off her frock, and we'll wash it out in the river, and dry it as we go along. We're not likely to meet any one, and it's so hot she'll not take cold going without it. We can hold it out between us as we walk along, so it will dry before we get home, and it will be clean at least."
Dimple was so grateful for this suggestion that she could have hugged Libbie; but she did not know her very well, and only expressed her thanks very fervently. At the first opportunity the frock was washed out, and really looked much better. "I wish I could do my stockings, too," said Dimple, "but I couldn't go barefoot. Mamma wouldn't like me to, although I'd like to." So this part of her dress had to remain as it was, and the girls took up their line of march again.
"I am so thirsty I don't know what to do," said Callie. "If I don't have a drink I'll drop by the way. I hate to think of drinking that warm river water; besides, it isn't so easy to get it."
"There's a spring somewhere further along," said Emma Bradford. "If we can manage to exist till we reach it, we can rest there. We shall be half starved, too, by the time we get home."
"If we only had something to eat we could sit down by the spring till it grew cooler, and we'd have a sort of a picnic. Oh, girls, we left all our fishing tackle in the boat! I never once thought of it."
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
"Perhaps Bill What's-his-name will bring it back when he comes with the boat. We've made a pretty expensive trip of it, as it is, without losing our fishing tackle. Think what that four dollars would buy: such a lot of ice cream and soda water," said Callie.