The cry came up louder: it was Prudy's voice.
Mr. Allen leaped the fence at a bound, and ran down the bank. The child was out of the water, struggling to climb the bank, but slipping back at every step. She was dripping wet, and covered with sand.
Mr. Allen lifted her in his arms, and there she lay, sobbing as if her heart would break, but not speaking a word.
When she was lying, clean and warm, in soft blankets, and had had a nap, she told them how she got out.
"The log kept jiggling," said she, "and I couldn't hold on, but I did. I thought my father would say I was a nice little girl not to get drowned, and let the fishes eat me up, and so I kept a-holdin' on."
"Only think," said grandma, shuddering, and looking at Horace, "if Prudy hadn't held on!"
Horace seemed very sad and humble, and was still quite pale.
"It makes you feel mortified, don't it, 'Race?" said Prudy, smiling; "don't you feel as if you could cry?"
At these first words little Prudy had spoken to him since she fell into the water, the boy ran out of the room, and hid in the green chamber, for he never would let any one see him cry.
"O, won't you forgive him?" said Prudy, looking up into Mrs. Clifford's face; "won't you forgive him, aunt 'Ria? he feels so bad; and he didn't catch a fish, and he didn't mean to,—and—'twas the log that jiggled."