The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea | Page 8

fastening a hand lightly in Tommy's hair, whereat the little girl screamed more lustily than before. "Lend a hand here, my hearties. The darlin' wants to be saved. We'll save her, won't we?" Jane shouted in great glee.
"Of course we will," answered Harriet. She leaned over the edge of the pier, Jane raising the little girl until the latter's shoulders were above water; Harriet got hold of her dress and worked her hand along until she had grasped Tommy by the ankles.
"Let go!" yelled Tommy.
She meant for Harriet to release her feet, but instead Jane McCarthy released her hold on Tommy's shoulders. The next second Tommy Thompson was standing on her head in the pond with Harriet Burrell jouncing her up and down, trying to get her out of the water, but taking more time about it, so it seemed, than was really necessary. Every time Tommy's head was drawn free of the water she uttered a choking yell. There was no telling how long the nonsense might have continued, had not Miss Elting thrust Harriet aside, resulting in Tommy's falling into the water and having to be rescued again. Tommy was weeping when finally they dragged her to the pier and wrung the water out of her clothing.
"Now, don't you wish you were _fat_?" jeered Margery. "If you had been, they couldn't have lifted you and you wouldn't have fallen in again."
"Fat like you? Never! I'd die firtht," replied Tommy. "But I may ath it ith. I'm freething, Mith Elting."
"Get up and go ashore. Hazel, will you please see that Grace doesn't sit down on the cold ground?"
Hazel Holland led the protesting Tommy along the pier to the shore, where she walked the little girl up and down as fast as she could be induced to move, which, after all, was not much faster than an ordinarily slow walk. The others of the party remained out at the end, walking back and forth and waiting until the coming of the dawn, so that they might see to that for which they had planned by daylight.
At the first suggestion of dawn, Harriet plunged into the pond without a word of warning to her companions and began gathering up and pushing bundles of equipment toward the shore. Jane and Hazel were not far behind her. Then Miss Elting, not to be outdone by her charges, plunged in after them. Margery, shivering, turned her back on them and walked shoreward.
"'Fraid cat! 'fraid cat!" taunted Tommy, when she saw Margery coming.
"I'm no more afraid than you are. You're afraid to go into the water. The only way you can go in is to fall in or be pushed!"
"Am I? Ith that tho? Well, I'll thhow you whether I am afraid of the water. I dare you to follow me." Tommy fairly flew down the pier; then, leaping up into the air, jumped far out, taking a clean feet-first dive into the pond, uttering a shrill little yell just before disappearing under the surface. But all at once she stood up, and, by raising her chin a little, was able to keep her head above water.
"Hello there, Tommy, what are you standing on?" called Harriet, puffing and blowing as she pushed a canvas-bound pack along ahead of her.
"I don't know. I gueth it mutht be the automobile top. It ith nithe and thpringy."
"Please stay there until I get back. I wish to look it over. If you can, I wish you would find the rear end of the car, so I may locate it exactly."
"What have you in mind, darlin'?" asked Jane, with a quick glance at Harriet.
"I'm going to try to get our clothes. The trunk is strapped and buckled to the rear end, is it not?"
"Yes."
"Tell me just how those buckles are placed; whether there is also a loop through which the strap has been run, and all about it."
"How should I know?"
"You put the trunk on, didn't you?"
"Surely, but I can't remember all those things, even if I ever knew them."
"Jane, you should learn to observe more closely. Most persons are careless about that." Harriet began swimming toward the shore with Jane.
"Thay! How long mutht I thtand here in the wet up to my prethiouth neck?" demanded Grace Thompson. Her feet seemed to be very light. They persisted in either rising or drifting away from the submerged automobile top. Tommy kept her hands moving slowly to assist in maintaining her equilibrium.
"Wait until I return, if you will, please," answered Harriet.
"Thave me! I can't wait. Here I go now!" She slipped off and went under, but came up sputtering and protesting. Instead of remaining to mark the sunken car, Tommy swam rapidly to shore. She found Harriet, Hazel and Jane sitting with feet hanging over the pier talking to Miss Elting. The