“It’s going to run right over him!” screamed Margy.
“He’ll be smashed!” and Violet covered her eyes with her hands.
“Let the old doll go!” shouted Rose.
But Russ did not heed. Straight across the street, directly in front of the truck he ran, and toward Vi’s doll Esmeralda that was lying in the highway, where she had been dropped by the stray dog.
The man driving the big truck, after giving one call of warning, had ceased, and was now doing his best either to steer out of the way, so he would not run over Russ, or else to put on the brakes. This last was not so easy to do as the street just there was down hill and the truck was a heavy one.
Russ reached the doll before the truck got to it. The Bunker boy picked up Vi’s plaything and started to run out of danger, but he slipped on a stone and down he fell in the dust of the road.
“Oh! Oh!” cried his mother. “Oh, Russ!”
Russ was down, but, as he said afterward, he was not “out.” He rolled to one side, out of the way of the thundering big wheels of the truck. A moment later he was on his feet, dirty and dusty, but holding proudly aloft the doll he had rescued.
By this time the man had brought his truck to a stop, a little distance from the place where Russ had fallen and where the doll had been lying.
“That was a narrow escape for you, youngster!” exclaimed the man rather sternly. “You ought not to do things like that!”