“No, we’re only stuck in the mud,” Bert answered. “You just stay there, Flossie and Nan, and you, too, Freddie, and I’ll jump off and push the boat out of the mud. It’s just stuck, that’s all.”
“Oh, don’t jump in—it’s deep!” cried Nan.
But she was too late. Bert, quickly rolling his trousers up as far as they would go, had leaped off the raft, making a big splash of water.
[CHAPTER II—TO THE RESCUE]
“Bert! Bert! You’ll be drowned!” cried Flossie, as she clung to Nan in the middle of the raft. “Come back, you’ll be drowned!”
“Oh, I’m all right,” Bert answered, for he felt himself quite a big boy beside Freddie.
“Are you sure, Bert, it isn’t too deep?” asked Nan.
“Look! It doesn’t come up to my knees, hardly,” Bert said, as he waded around to the side of the raft, having jumped off one end to give it a push to get it loose from the bank of mud on which it had run aground. And, really, the water was not very deep where Bert had leaped in.
Some water had splashed on his short trousers, but he did not mind that, as they were the old ones his mother made him put on in which to play.
“Maybe we can get loose without your pushing us,” said Freddie, as he moved about on the raft, tilting it a little, first this way and then the other. Once before that day, when on the “boat” alone, it had become stuck on a hidden bank of mud, and the little twin had managed to get it loose himself.