So Toby and the other two found them when they finally arrived. The planks were arranged so that Joel could be raised and sustained by their means; after which the little procession of swimmers headed for the bank.
When they arrived, Joel was lifted out of the water and carried tenderly up to a patch of green sward lying in the shade of a wide-branching oak. Here they laid him down on his chest, while Jack proceeded to work over him, instructing the other fellows just what they were to do to assist.
He knelt astride with one knee on either side of Joel’s body, and commenced pressing down regularly on the small of his back, so as to induce an artificial respiration. At the same time, Toby and one of the other fellows worked the unconscious boy’s arms back and forth like a pair of pistons; while the third fellow started to rub his cold lower extremities.
At first Joel seemed pretty far gone, and his appearance sent a chill through the sympathetic heart of Toby Hopkins. But after they had kept up this vigorous treatment for a little while, there were signs of returning animation. Joel belched out a gallon of water, Toby always insisted, and inside of ten minutes was able to talk, though Jack insisted on keeping up the rubbing until the boy’s body was a rosy hue from the irritation.
“Now get some clothes on, Joel, and you’ll soon be feeling prime,” he told the other, whose lips were still blue and quivering.
Joel had had quite enough of swimming for one day. Indeed, he would be pretty cautious about getting any distance away from the shore after that, having received a most fearful shock. Still, boys recover from such things, given a little time, and Joel had always been reckoned a fellow who did not know the meaning of the word “fear.”
The other boys had apparently lost the joy of bathing for that day. They, too, started to don their clothes, and begged Toby to “hold up,” so that they might get a lift to town in the flivver; which, being a whole-souled fellow, of course, “Hop” was only too glad to do.
Later on, after arriving home, Jack and Toby talked matters over between themselves. This new and entirely unexpected happening had been only another link in the growing chain of troubles hanging over the head of the captain of the Chester baseball team.
“What if we hadn’t chanced to be on the road just at that very minute, Jack?” ventured Toby, with a shiver; “poor old Joel would certainly have been drowned, because neither Frank nor Rufus had the slightest idea what to do so as to save him. And that would have broken up our combination in the nine, all right, because we’d find it hard to replace such a runner and fielder and batter as Joel.”
“Of course,” said Jack, “the worst thing of all would be losing a friend. Joel is a mighty fine all-around fellow, and most of us are fond of him. And just as you say, the game would like as not have to be postponed, because how could we play as we would want to with a chum lying dead at home? So I’m grateful because we did chance to be Johnny-on-the-spot.”