"Do pitch them out again, and let them swim home. They'll swamp the boat directly. Here, bail out, Edna," tossing her the sponge, which she caught and threw at Cricket, saying, "I can't get down in all that water. Your feet are wet, already, Cricket."
"It's too bad," said Cricket, meekly. "Couldn't you really tie a rope around me, auntie, and drag me along? I wouldn't mind. I couldn't swim all the way in, for I'd get tired, but I wouldn't mind being tied on behind."
"You're pretty bad, but we won't make a tow of you this time," said auntie, merrily. "I can't say what I'll do next time, though. Now we must get off those wet clothes, and wring them out, and hang them up to dry. You can put on your mackintosh."
Mackintoshes and shawls always formed part of the equipment of an all day's sail, since [at any time] a squall might come up. Edna and Eunice and Hilda held up a long shawl in a triangular fence around Cricket, while she got out of most of her clothes. Auntie rubbed her dry, and wrung out what she still had on, as best she could with another shawl, and then she put on her mackintosh. Will had also been getting rid of some of the superfluous water, but a boy's sailing dress is so beautifully simple that a wetting more or less does not matter. He took off his stockings, and hung them over the boom to dry, and presently Cricket's dress and petticoats fluttered beside them.
"Regular canal-boat style. Family wash drying on deck," said Archie, and then he hooted at Cricket as she appeared from behind the shawl. A little figure draped in a mackintosh is not a model for an artist.
"That's very becoming, young one," said Archie. "You look as fat as a match."
"A match for you, then," returned Cricket, serenely, for Archie had the proportions of a hairpin.
"I want to call a meeting of the Echo Club, immediately," said Will, standing up, "and I put the motion as president pro tem; that on any expedition in the future, of which Miss Jean Ward, usually called Cricket, is a member, that a wringing-machine be furnished and carried, at the club's expense."
"Who would you have to poke fun at, if you didn't have me?" demanded Cricket, quite undisturbed. "But I'll second the motion about the wringing-machine. I wonder why you didn't get as wet as I did?"
Another shout at this.