The incoming fishermen saw the baby in the water, and saw the two children screaming and wailing on the pier, and they put forward with all speed to make a rescue.
Tod and Dotty were really doubled up with laughter, but pretended they were in agonies of grief as the two boats made desperate attempts to reach the drowning child.
"The old idiots!" exclaimed Tod; "they might know that a live baby wouldn't float around like that. It would have sunk long ago."
"Of course it would," agreed Dotty. "Won't they be mad when they get it!"
The fishermen, having had little experience with French dolls the size of live babies, assumed, of course, that it was a real child in the water, and they wasted no time in marvelling as to why it should continue to ride blithely on top of the waves. They simply put forth every effort to reach the white object, whatever it might be, but the perversity of wind and wave continued to thwart them.
At last, however, very near shore, the fishermen drew near enough to grab the doll and draw it into their boat, just as they rowed in on top of a huge breaker and beached near the pier.
Tod and Dotty ran swiftly to them, eager to see their chagrin and dismay at having rescued the doll.
The men were all out on the beach and they showed a belligerent demeanour as the children appeared.
"Ye little wretches," cried one big rawboned man, "what d'ye mean by foolin' us like that?"
His manner even more than his words were distinctly threatening, and Dotty was scared, but Tod answered him directly.