“You mustn’t put those wet clothes on,” said one lady.
“Oh, they’re dry,” said Johnny, feeling of the clothes. “They’re as dry as tinder.”
At this they all laughed again. There was a very wet place on the wharf where the clothes had lain.
Fortunately Mother was out when he first got home, and Lisa the maid was very kind in helping him get dry clothes. It was queer, but perhaps his others had not been as dry as tinder, after all.
Johnny deliberated all the afternoon as to whether he should tell his mother what had happened or not. She was so everlastingly anxious about such things. But when she came to his room to say good night, he burst out with it.
“Mother, I fell in the water today.”
“Oh, my boy!”
“Yes, I just tumbled right in.” He got up in bed, eager to show how he fell. “But it was horrid afterward, because some fine ladies and gentlemen came, who ate and drank there on the wharf a long time; and then Nils the fisherman lent me his blouse, and they gave me some cream cakes”—
“Why in the world should Nils lend you his blouse?”