“If I come pull you out, I’ll get stuck, too! What on earth are we to do?”
“Throw me a plank,” wailed Lucy in the tones of a drowning man. Her feet were going in deeper and deeper. Helen’s rubbers were almost submerged and there seemed to be nothing to keep Lucy’s shoes and finally Lucy from going the way of the rubbers.
Nan dropped her books, umbrella and lunch on the bank and pulled a rail from the fence. Lucy clutched it and with a great pull and a sudden lurch which sent Nan backwards into the blackberry bushes, the younger girl came hurtling from what had threatened to become her muddy grave.
The train was whistling, so they had to forego the giggling fit that was upon them and run for the station. The small branch that they must pass before they got there, was swollen beyond recognition, but one stepping-stone obligingly projected above water and with a mighty leap they were over. The accommodating accommodation train reached the station of Grantly before they did, but the kindly engineer and conductor waited patiently while the girls, puffing and panting, raced up the hill.
They had hardly recovered their breath when Billy and Mag boarded the train at Preston.
“Well, if you girls aren’t spunky!” cried Billy admiringly as he sank in the seat by Nan, which Lucy had tactfully vacated, sharing the one with Mag. “Mag and I were betting you couldn’t make it this morning.”
“We just did and that is all,” laughed Nan, recounting the perils of the way.
“And only look at my boots! Did you ever see such sights?” cried Lucy. “Oh, Heavens! One of Helen’s rubbers is gone!”
“That must have happened when I fished you out with the fence rail. I heard a terrible sough but didn’t realize what it meant. They were so much too small for you,” said Nan.
“Small, indeed! They were too big. Their coming off proves they were too big,” insisted Lucy.