You see, they were afraid of water, and it really wasn’t much wonder, for they had never even had a real bath in their whole lives. I’ve known children to feel just the same way about water in these days. They can’t bear it, even on a wash-cloth.
Hawk-Eye was on the stone behind them. “Jump,” he shouted, “or I’ll give you something to cry for.” And that was the very first time that any parent ever said that about giving them something to cry for, and they’ve been saying it ever since, to my personal knowledge.
You see that, with Limberleg in front calling “Jump” and Hawk-Eye behind saying such alarming things, the Twins were in a tight place. There was nothing to do but jump. So Firetop took a flying leap, and Firefly followed him. Unluckily she came just a little too soon. She jumped on to Firetop. His feet flew out from under him, he lost his footing on the stone, and they both rolled into the cold water.
The crying they had done before wasn’t anything to what they did then, I can tell you. That is, as soon as their heads were out of the water again.
They might have been carried away by the current, if Hawk-Eye hadn’t instantly thrown his spear across to the farther shore and jumped in after them. He seized one of them with each hand and waded with them to land. Then he picked up his spear again from the ground where it had fallen.
If you will believe me, the Twins held tight to their own little spears all the time, even when they were under the water! It was all they had to hold to, to be sure, and besides, they loved those spears more than
we love dolls and roller skates and marbles and baseball, all put together.
Limberleg laughed at the dripping little figures.
“You look like a pair of water-rats,” she cried. The Twins could not see anything funny in that. Little streams of water trickled down their backs, and they didn’t like it. The rock that was on the point of land between the two rivers was not far away from the place where they landed.