“In came Norah,” said Jim. “(I’ll take it out of you now, my girl!) She realised at once what had happened and waded in from the bank and pulled the old pram off her poor little brother! I came up, spluttering, to see Norah, looking very white, just preparing to dive in after me!”
“You never saw such a drowned rat!” said Norah, taking up the tale. “Soaked—and muddy—and very cross! And the first thing he did was to abuse my poor old wheely-boat!”
“Well—wouldn’t you?” Jim laughed. “Had to abuse something! Anyhow, we righted her and Norah waded farther in after the sticks, which had floated peacefully away, and we pulled the wheely-boat ashore. Then we roared laughing at each other. I certainly was a drowned rat, but Norah wasn’t much better, as she’d slipped nearly into the hole herself, in pulling the pram off me. But when we’d laughed, the first thought was—‘How are we going to dodge Mrs. Lister!’ It was a nasty problem!”
“What did you do?”
“Well, after consultation we got up near the house, planting the pram in some trees. We dodged through the shrubbery until we reached that old summer-house, and there I left Norah and scooted over to the stables, and borrowed an overcoat belonging to a boy we had working and a pair of his boots. Dad was away, or I might have gone straight to him. I put on the borrowed things over my wet togs (and very nice I looked!) and trotted off to the side of the house. No one seemed about, so I slipped into my room through the window and then into Norah’s, and got a bundle of clothes, and back I scooted to the summer-house, left Norah’s things there, and found a dressing-room for myself among some shrubs close by.
“Well, do you know, that old cat, Mrs. Lister, had seen us all the time? She’d actually spotted us coming up the paddock, dripping, and had deliberately planted herself to see what we’d do. She knew all about my expedition after clothes; then she followed us to the shrubbery, and descended upon us like an avalanche, just as we got half-dressed!”
“‘May I ask what you naughty little children are doing?’ she said.
“Well, you know, that put my back up a bit—’cause I was nearly twelve, and Dad didn’t make a little kid of me. However, I tried to keep civil, and tell her what had happened; but she told me to hold my tongue. She grabbed Norah by the shoulder, and called her all the names under the sun, and shook her. Then she said, ‘You’ll come to bed at once, miss!’ and caught hold of her wrist to drag her in.
“Now Norah had sprained her wrist not long before, and she had to be a bit careful of it. We all knew that. She didn’t cry out when Mrs. Lister jerked her wrist, but I saw her turn white, and knew it was the bad one.”
“So he chucked himself on top of old Mrs. Lister, and pounded her as hard as he could,” put in Norah, “and she was so astonished she let me go. She turned her attention to Jim then, and gave him a terrible whack over the head that sent him flying. And just then we heard a voice that was so angry we hardly recognised it for Dad’s, saying—