Leaping to the railing of the balcony, she poised there an instant, staring down at the rocks plainly visible in the still water.
Then, as Sweeper Joe reached out to grasp her by the shoulder, she jumped.
She struck the water head foremost in a shallow dive which wrenched her back but kept her from striking the river bottom. Brushing wet hair from her eyes, she began to stroke. Her shoes were heavy as lead and impeded her.
The force of Penny’s dive had carried her many feet from shore into deep water, and the river current swept her farther away from the docks. Weighted down by the shoes, she knew she did not have sufficient strength to swim to shore with them on.
Burying her face in the water, she doubled up, and groping down, untied them, one at a time.
“Those were good shoes,” she thought with regret as she kicked them off and saw them settle into the river.
Penny struck out with smooth crawl strokes for the nearby pier. Her skirt kept wrapping itself about her legs. Unwilling to discard it, she tucked it high about her waist which made swimming much easier.
Reaching the pier, she was pulling herself out onto it, when Ma Harper and the two men came running out of the house to intercept her.
“Oh! Oh!” thought Penny. “It’s not going to be as easy as I assumed.”
Joe ran out on the pier, while Ma and the other man separated, one starting upstream and the other down. No matter which way she turned, Penny saw that her escape would be cut off.