“Yes’m,” answered the little girl, with a sob. “He’s—under here! His tunnel caved in on him.” She did not stop digging as she talked, but kept her hands going rapidly, scattering the sand back of her.
“Oh, my dear! How dreadful!” cried Mrs. Keller. Then she lost no more time, but also started digging beside Janet.
In less than half a minute—so quickly had it all happened—they had uncovered Ted’s face. The poor little chap was quite red, for he had held his breath, knowing what it would mean to breathe in sand—it would be worse, he felt sure, than breathing in water.
“Ah!” gasped Ted, taking a long breath as he felt the fresh air fanning his cheeks. “Ah! Um!”
Then Mrs. Keller noticed some pieces of shingles that Ted had used as a lining for his tunnel. Some of these had fallen over his face and had kept the sand out of his nose and mouth for a little while. Otherwise the boy might not have come out of it as luckily as he did.
“You poor child!” murmured Mrs. Keller. “I must take you right home and get a doctor.”
“Oh, I—I’m all right—thank you!” gasped the little Curlytop lad, for his breath was still short. “I’m all—right—now,” he went on, panting after his big gulps of fresh air. “I guess I dug my tunnel too thin near the top,” he said, “and that’s what made it fall in.”
“I wouldn’t crawl into a sand tunnel after this, if I were you,” said Mrs. Keller, when Ted had crawled out and had shaken the sand from his clothes. Some had gotten down inside his waist and was tickling his back, making him squirm.
“I’m not going to do it any more,” he said. “Or, if I do, I’ll put a lot of shingles inside like the men do when they dig sewer trenches.”
“I wouldn’t do it at all, if I were you,” warned Mrs. Keller, and Ted said he wouldn’t.