“Why didn’t I call Edward! Oh, if Edward were here!” moaned Mrs. Rowe, rushing upon the wharf, and peering over the side.
“There isn’t any kelp to hinder my seeing to the bottom, ma’am,” cried the ranchman from the boat below.
Mrs. Rowe wrung her hands. “O Weezy, Weezy, my dear little daughter!”
“If I only knew just where she slipped in, I’d dive for her,” called the pitying voice from beneath. “I’d get her for you if I could, ma’am.”
Meanwhile little Miss Weezy, the unconscious cause of all this anguish and commotion, lay half asleep upon the neighboring bluff behind some tall tufts of alfalfa.
She had scrambled out of the ocean almost as quickly as she had fallen in. Then she had started to run home, but, at the top of the one hundred steps, had become giddy and sunk down to rest. Oh, she was so tired, so very, very tired! And it was so nice and warm on the bluff. To go on to The Old and New seemed too great an effort; it was easier to lie still in the sunshine. Besides, didn’t she want to dry her wet clothes? What would mamma say to her because she had spoiled her pretty dress? By and by she opened her eyes and blinked at the wharf below. She saw her mother rushing up and down the planks, she saw the teamster pushing off from shore.
“Wonder what makes mamma act so funny? Wonder what that man’s doing with the boat?” she thought drowsily. But she was too languid really to care; and in the act of wondering again closed her eyes.
She did not see Kirke race to the pier to learn what was the matter; she did not hear her mamma cry,—
“Oh, Kirke, Kirke, your little sister’s in the ocean!”
But when Kirke took in the full meaning of his mother’s words and shouted, half beside himself,—