Janet thought this over for a moment, and then she said:
“Well, I can throw my flowers to you up there on the bank. You can give ’em to Trouble to keep, and then I can take hold with both hands.”
“Yes, you can do that!” agreed Teddy. “Go ahead! Throw me your flowers. I’ll give ’em to Trouble.”
“But don’t let the mud turtle eat ’em!” pleaded Janet, as she tossed the pretty bouquet to her brother. The gathering of the blue flowers had gotten Janet into a lot of trouble.
“My turkle eats grass—hims don’t like flowers!” said Baby William, as Ted laid the blossoms down on the ground beside his little brother.
Janet now had both hands free, and she took a good hold of the grapevine rope. Teddy braced his feet in the grass, and began to pull. Janet pulled also, lifting her feet out of the sticky mud, and, with a queer, sucking sound as she lifted her legs, first the right and then the left, she soon found herself free of the bog. She stepped out on firm ground, and was soon upon the bank with Ted and Trouble.
“Oh, what an awful lot of mud!” cried Teddy, as he looked at his sister’s feet. And well might he say that, for she was covered with muck up to her waist.
“I guess I better wade out in the lake, with my shoes and stockings on, and wash off,” said Janet. “I can’t get any wetter, but I can get a little cleaner.”
“I guess you can,” decided Teddy.
He and Trouble (who carried the flowers, while his brother held the turtle) walked to the shore of the lake where the water was shallow. There Janet waded in and splashed around. Of course she got very wet—and with her clothes, shoes and stockings on, too!—but the mud was washed off.