“I can’t get my feet out of this mire,” said poor Miss Larkin; “it’s like a quicksand.”
“Is it?” inquired King, with great interest; “I always wondered what a quicksand was like. But I don’t care for it much, myself,” he added, looking ruefully at his own shoes, muddied all over, and, indeed, half sunk in the ground.
“How shall we get out, King?” asked Kitty. “I think this is a horrid place.”
“Oh, we’ll get out all right,” answered King, cheerfully. “Here, this is the way to do it. Turn down these bushes, and walk on ’em, see?”
It was a good plan, only the bushes chanced to be brambly ones, and their hands were scratched and their clothes were torn in their struggle to get out of the mud.
King lifted Rosy Posy high, in an endeavor to get her over unharmed; but thinking it was all a fine game, the little one gave a wriggle of delight, and fell plump into the soft mud.
“Oh, you mud-turtle!” cried King. “Well, Rosy Posy, you’re a sight now! But it’s lucky you didn’t fall into the bramble bush.”
“And scratch out both your eyes,” added Marjorie.
“Mine are about scratched out,” said Kitty, plaintively.
“Try the other bush, Kit, and scratch ’em in again,” proposed King, who was struggling manfully to carry his littlest sister and help Miss Larkin at the same time.