Horace took the two poles and followed; but the moment he stepped on the log it rolled quite over, carrying Prudy under.
I do not know what Horace thought then, but he had to think fast. If he had been older he might have plunged in after Prudy, but he was only a little boy, seven years old, so he ran for the house. O, how he ran!
Aunt Madge was ironing in the back kitchen. She heard heavy breathing, and the quick pattering of feet, and the words gasped out, "Prudy's in the river!"
"Prudy!" screamed aunt Madge, looking wildly at the boy's face, which was as white as death.
"Run, tell grandpa!" cried she, and flew down the steps, and out across the field towards the river, as if she had wings on her slippers, though it seemed to her they were clogged with lead.
"Has she just been saved from death only to be drowned?" was one of the quick thoughts that rushed across aunt Madge's dizzy brain. "I shall be too late! too late! And her mother gone! God forgive me! It is I who should have watched her!"
Poor aunt Madge! as if any one was to blame but Horace.
There was a child crying down by the river.
"Not Prudy," thought aunt Madge. "It sounds like her voice, but it can't be. She has sunk by this time!"
"Don't be afraid, Prudy!" cried Mr. Allen, who was just behind aunt Madge, "we are running to you."