“Are minnows good to eat?” asked Cricket, who was kneeling on the bank, and looking down into the water. “I b’lieve I could catch them with my hand.”
She rolled up her cambric sleeves, and dipped her arm in the water. The minnows slipped tantalizingly near. A particularly big fellow flashed by.
“Oh, what a bouncer!” Cricket cried. She plunged forward, and of course she lost her balance and went head and shoulders into the water, in the endeavour to save herself. Phil, who stood nearest, pulled her up, dripping.
“Cricket Ward!” exclaimed Eunice, completely disgusted. “I never saw anything like you. I believe you’d fall into the water if there wasn’t a saucerful.”
“I b’lieve I would,” acknowledged Cricket, meekly, rubbing her short, dripping curls with the boys’ handkerchiefs.
“You’re pretty wet,” said Edith. “I’m afraid you’ve got to go home.”
“Oh, no, I won’t,” said Cricket, much surprised at this suggestion. “I’ll just go round those bushes and wring my waist out, and I’ll get dry pretty soon, I reckon. My skirt isn’t very wet.”
“You can put on my sacque, Cricket,” suggested Daisy. “Mamma made me wear it, and it’s awfully hot. Then you can hang your waist over your arm to dry, so we can go on.”
So Cricket and Daisy retired from view for a while. When they returned the rest of the party set up a shout. Daisy was much shorter than Cricket, so that the sleeves scarcely came below her elbow, and the bottom of the sacque hung only an inch or so below her waist.
“I don’t care,” said Cricket, comfortably. “It covers me up, and my waist will be dry soon. Do let’s go on. We won’t get to the blackberry pasture till noon. It must be pretty nearly eleven o’clock now.”