"Jus—just climbed out."
"Roger Fairchild! You're shivering! And that window wide open behind you! Come upstairs with me this instant and I'll put you to bed between hot blankets. It's a mercy I discovered those wet clothes. I'll have Katie bring you some hot broth the moment you're in bed."
Roger, under a mountain of covers, was thankful that he hadn't had to divulge the important part Jeanne Duval had played in his rescue. All that morning, when his mother asked troublesome questions, he shivered so industriously that the anxious little woman fled for more hot blankets or more hot broth. The blankets were tiresome and he already held almost a whole boyful of broth; but anything, he thought, was better than telling that he had been pulled out of the lake in a smelly old fish net; and by a girl! A small girl at that.
But, in spite of his care, the truth, or at least part of it, was to come out. The very next day, a small red-headed, barefooted, and very ragged boy appeared at the Fairchilds' back door. He carried a fish-pole in one hand, a navy-blue cap in the other. Inside the cap, neatly printed in indelible ink, were Roger's name and address; for Roger, like many another careless boy, frequently lost his belongings.
"My sister," said Michael Duval, handing the cap and the pole to the cook, "sent these here. She pulled 'em out of the lake—same as she did the fat boy what lives here."
"How was that, now?" asked Katie, with interest.
"Wiv a fish net. It was awful deep where he fell in—way over your head."
"Wait here, sonny. I'll tell the missus about it."
But when Katie returned after telling "Missus," she found no small red-headed boy outside the door. Michael had turned shy, as small boys will, and had fled. Neither Katie nor Mrs. Fairchild, gazing down the street, could catch a glimpse of him.
But Mrs. Fairchild managed to extract a little more information from Roger, now fully recovered from his unlucky bath.