“You needn’t be. They’ll never blame you,” returned Hester, brusquely, and went out.
She wandered into the park at the foot of Whiffle Street and sat down. Here Rufus Doyle followed her with Baby Johnny. There had been heavy rains for the past week—until the day before. The gutters had run full and the park squad of “white wings” were raking the beaten leaves into windrows and flushing the sand and debris into the sewers. One basin cover had been laid back and left an open trap for unwary feet.
Rufus Doyle was trying to coax a gray squirrel near for Johnny to admire. But Johnny was not particularly interested in bunny. Hester saw the toddler near the open hatch of the sewer basin one moment; the next he had disappeared, and it seemed to her as though a faint cry rang in her ears.
She leaped up from the bench.
“Johnny!” she called.
Rufus was still engaged with the squirrel. Nobody seemed to have noticed the disappearance of the baby. Hester dashed to the open basin and peered down into the swirling brown water.
[CHAPTER IV—“THERE’S GOOD STUFF IN THAT GIRL”]
Again that cry—that weak, bubbling wail from out the darkness of the sewer basin. Something swirled past Hester’s strained vision in the dervish dance of the debris floating in the murky water. It was a tiny hand, stretched forth from a skimpy blue-cloth sleeve.
It was Johnny Doyle’s hand; but the child’s body—the rest of it—was under water!
The water was not more than six feet below the surface of the ground; but deep, deep down was the entrance of the big drain that joined the main sewer taking the street water and sewerage from the whole Hill section. Johnny was being sucked down into that drain.