These facts Tess and Dot observed and digested in their small minds before the woman reached the curb.
"Isn't she pretty?" whispered Tess.
Before Dot could reply there sounded a wild cry from the man on the pole. The guy-wire had slipped.
"'Ware below!" he shouted.
The woman did not notice. Perhaps the close cap she wore kept her from hearing distinctly. The writhing wire flew through the air like a great snake.
Tess dropped her history and sprang up; but Dot did not loose her hold upon the rather battered "Alice-doll" which was her dearest possession. She clung, indeed, to the doll all the closer, but she screamed to the woman quite as loudly as Tess did, and her little blue-stockinged legs twinkled across the grass to the point of danger, quite as rapidly as did Tess' brown ones.
"Oh, lady! lady!" shrieked Tess. "You'll be killed!"
"Please come away from there—please!" cried Dot.
Their voices pierced to the strange lady's ears. Just as the pole began to waver and sink sidewise, despite the efforts of the men with the spikes, she looked up, saw the gesticulating children, observed the shadow of the pole and the writhing wire, and sprang upon the walk, and across it in time to escape the peril.
The wire's weight brought the pole down with a crash, in spite of all the men could do. But the woman in the gray cloak was safe with Tess and Dot on the greensward.