“I—I—now—I fell in!” spluttered Sam, as if there was any need of an explanation. “I—I—now—fell right in!”
“I should say you did!” laughed Bert. He could laugh now, and so could the other boys, for Sam was not in the least hurt.
Sam balanced himself for a moment on the edge of the barrel and then slipped down and out, over the edge. The water ran from him and made little puddles around his feet.
“How did it happen? Are you sure you aren’t hurt?” asked Miss Riker.
Sam did not answer the first question, but to the second he replied.
“Oh, no’m—thank you—I’m not hurt. I—I’m just—wet!”
“Yes, we see you are,” observed Miss Riker, trying not to smile, for by this time she began to suspect that something was wrong. No boy sitting in his seat in a quiet schoolroom, where “speaking pieces” is going on, can fall out of the window and into a barrel of water without having done something himself to bring it about.
Once it was certain that Sam had suffered no more than a wetting, the teacher began to cast about to find an explanation. Her quick eye caught sight of the string running in through the open window to the schoolroom. Stepping to the window she looked inside and saw that the string was fastened to Sam’s desk.
Another look, on the ground near the barrel, disclosed the football and the feathers on it. Then she understood.
“Oh, I see,” she murmured. “This was a sort of—joke, Sam? Was that it?”