"Now hold tight!" cried the little boy. "I'm going to pull!"
Flossie braced her feet in the sand on the bank of the brook and her brother began to pull himself out of the mud. His feet had sunk down to quite a depth, and when he first pulled he made Flossie slide along the ground until she cried:
"Oh, Freddie, you're going to make me stuck, too! Don't pull me into the water!"
Freddie stopped just in time, with the toes of Flossie's shoes almost in the water.
"Did you pull loose a little bit?" she asked.
"Yes, a little. But I don't want to pull you in, Flossie. If you could only hold on to a tree or a rock, then I wouldn't drag you along."
"Maybe I can hold to this tree," and Flossie pointed to one near by. "If I can stretch my arms I can reach it."
"Look for a longer tree branch to hold out to me," said Freddie, and when his sister had found this she could reach one end to her brother, keep the other end in her right hand, and with her left arm hold on to a small tree. The tree braced Flossie against being pulled along the bank, and when next Freddie tried, he dragged his feet and legs safely from the sticky mud, and could wade out on the hard, gravelly bottom of the brook.
"I guess that was a mud hole where some fish used to live," said the little fellow, as he came ashore, a little bit frightened by what had happened.
"Your feet are all muddy," said Flossie, "and you are all wet around your knees."