“I can’t come out, Mother,” said Bert, who was not so frightened, now that he saw help at hand.
“You can’t come out? Why not?”
“’Cause I’m stuck in the mud—or maybe it’s quicksand. I’m sinking in the quicksand. Or I would sink if I didn’t keep hold of the raft. I dassn’t let go!”
“Oh, my!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey. “What shall I do?”
“Can’t you pull him out?” asked Nan. “We tried, but we can’t.”
They had done this—she and Flossie and Freddie. But Bert’s feet were too tightly held in the sticky mud, or whatever it was underneath the water.
“Wait! I’ll come and get you,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. She was just about to wade out to get Bert, shoes, skirts and all, when along came puffing, fat Dinah, and, just ahead of her, her husband, Sam.
“What’s the mattah, Mrs. Bobbsey?” asked the colored man, who did odd jobs around the Bobbsey home.
“It’s Bert! He’s fast in the mud!” answered Mrs. Bobbsey. “Oh, Sam, please hurry and get him out!”
“Yas’am, I’ll do dat!” cried Sam. He did not seem to be frightened. Perhaps he knew that the pond was not very deep where Bert was, and that the boy could not sink down much farther.