Mrs. Slater gave a startled cry, and looked toward where Sue pointed.
Surely enough, while they had been watching the box and while Bunny and Harry had been getting it to shore the tide had risen and now covered part of the strip of sand on which they had all walked out. As Sue said, it was an island, and the only way to get to shore was to wade.
"I'm going to take off my shoes and stockings!" cried the little girl, hopping up on the box and beginning to loosen her laces. "You'd better take off your shoes, too, Mrs. Slater. If you don't you'll get your feet wet when you have to wade to shore. Course you haven't got your mother here to scold you if you get your shoes wet, but maybe your husband mightn't like it," went on Sue. "You can wade same as I can."
"We don't have to take off our shoes and stockings, 'cause we have 'em off already," said Bunny. "Harry and I can wade."
"It looks as if I'd have to do that," said Harry's mother. "I wonder if the water is very deep," she went on, as she looked at the water which had covered the shore end of the little tongue of land.
"No, it isn't deep!" declared Bunny, and he waded out into it. "But it keeps on getting deeper when the tide comes up. You'd better take your shoes and stockings off now, Mrs. Slater, else maybe it'll be away up over your head soon."
"I shouldn't want that to happen," she said, with a laugh. "I believe I shall have to do as you children have done, and go barefoot," and she glanced at Sue, who, by this time, had off her shoes and stockings.
Harry's mother looked at the stretch of water separating the little party from the mainland. As Bunny had said, it would get deeper the higher the tide rose, though, of course, it would not go over Mrs. Slater's head. She sat down on the box, as Sue had done, and was just beginning to take off her shoes when a voice called to them.
"Wait a minute! I'm coming to get you!" was what they all heard, and, looking up, Bunny Brown saw Bunker Blue rowing along in his sailboat. The sail, however, was not up now.
"Oh, Bunker, come and get us!" cried Sue. "We're caught by the tide, and——"