CHAPTER III
HARRIET HAS A NARROW ESCAPE
"Thave me! Oh, thave me!"
Tommy had turned over and righted herself before rising to thesurface. When she did appear she was within a foot or so of the pier.Her little blonde head popped up from under the water all of a sudden,and in that instant she opened her mouth in a wail for help. Tommy'scompanions were fairly hysterical with merriment. Tommy yelled again,begging them to "thave" her.
"I'll save ye, darlin'," cried Jane, throwing herself down andfastening a hand lightly in Tommy's hair, whereat the little girlscreamed more lustily than before. "Lend a hand here, my hearties. Thedarlin' wants to be saved. We'll save her, won't we?" Jane shouted ingreat glee.
"Of course we will," answered Harriet. She leaned over the edge of thepier, Jane raising the little girl until the latter's shoulders wereabove water; Harriet got hold of her dress and worked her hand alonguntil she had grasped Tommy by the ankles.
"Let go!" yelled Tommy.
She meant for Harriet to release her feet, but instead Jane McCarthyreleased her hold on Tommy's shoulders. The next second Tommy Thompsonwas standing on her head in the pond with Harriet Burrell jouncing herup and down, trying to get her out of the water, but taking more timeabout it, so it seemed, than was really necessary. Every time Tommy'shead was drawn free of the water she uttered a choking yell. There wasno telling how long the nonsense might have continued, had not MissElting thrust Harriet aside, resulting in Tommy's falling into thewater and having to be rescued again. Tommy was weeping when finallythey 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 hadbeen, they couldn't have lifted you and you wouldn't have fallen inagain."
"Fat like you? Never! I'd die firtht," replied Tommy. "But I may athit ith. I'm freething, Mith Elting."
"Get up and go ashore. Hazel, will you please see that Grace doesn'tsit 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 beinduced to move, which, after all, was not much faster than anordinarily slow walk. The others of the party remained out at the end,walking back and forth and waiting until the coming of the dawn, sothat they might see to that for which they had planned by daylight.
At the first suggestion of dawn, Harriet plunged into the pond withouta word of warning to her companions and began gathering up and pushingbundles of equipment toward the shore. Jane and Hazel were not farbehind her. Then Miss Elting, not to be outdone by her charges,plunged in after them. Margery, shivering, turned her back on them andwalked 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 thewater. I dare you to follow me." Tommy fairly flew down the pier;then, leaping up into the air, jumped far out, taking a cleanfeet-first dive into the pond, uttering a shrill little yell justbefore disappearing under the surface. But all at once she stood up,and, by raising her chin a little, was able to keep her head abovewater.
"Hello there, Tommy, what are you standing on?" called Harriet,puffing and blowing as she pushed a canvas-bound pack along ahead ofher.
"I don't know. I gueth it mutht be the automobile top. It ith nitheand thpringy."
"Please stay there until I get back. I wish to look it over. If youcan, I wish you would find the rear end of the car, so I may locate itexactly."
"What have you in mind, darlin'?" asked Jane, with a quick glance atHarriet.
"I'm going to try to get our clothes. The trunk is strapped andbuckled to the rear end, is it not?"
"Yes."
"Tell me just how those buckles are placed; whether there is also aloop 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 knewthem."
"Jane, you should learn to observe more closely. Most persons arecareless about that." Harriet began swimming toward the shore withJane.
"Thay! How long mutht I thtand here in the wet up to my prethiouthneck?" demanded Grace Thompson. Her feet seemed to be very light. Theypersisted in either rising or drifting away from the submergedautomobile top. Tommy kept her hands moving slowly to assist inmaintaining 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 wentunder, but came up sputtering and protesting. Instead of remaining tomark the sunken car, Tommy swam rapidly to shore. She found Harriet,Hazel and Jane sitting with feet hanging over the pier talking toMiss Elting. The four were dripping, but none of them seemed to mindthis. The sun soon would be up, and its rays would dry their clothingand bring them warmth for the first time since their disaster of thenight before.
"Do be careful," Miss Elting was saying when Tommy swam up, and,clinging to the pier with one hand, floated listlessly while listeningto what was being said.
"What's the matter, Tommy? Couldn't you stand it any longer?" askedHarriet.
"My feet got tho light that I couldn't hang on."
"She means her head instead of her feet," corrected Margery.
"I think I had better go after the trunk now," decided Harriet.
"I wish you would let me go with you," urged Jane.
"No; two of us would be in each other's way. You folks had better stayhere and wait. There will be plenty to do after I get the trunkashore, provided I do. We must have all our outfit together bysunrise, for we have a day's work ahead of us. Want to get up, Tommy?"
"Yeth."
Harriet reached down and assisted Grace, dripping, to the pier. Thenshe slipped in and swam in a leisurely way to the sunken automobile,which she located after swimming about for a few moments. The nextthing to do was to find the rear end of the car. This was quicklyaccomplished. Harriet took a long breath, then dived swiftly. Itseemed to her companions that she had been gone a long time, when,finally, the girl's dark head rose dripping from the pond. She shookher head, took several long breaths, then dived again.
Three times Harriet Burrell repeated this. At last, after a briefdive, they saw the black trunk leap free to the surface of the pond.The Meadow-Brook Girls uttered a yell. Harriet had accomplished a taskthat would have proved to be too much for the average man. Down there,underneath the water, crouching under the backward tilting automobileon the bottom of the pond, she had unbuckled three stubborn straps,rising to the surface after unbuckling each strap, taking in a newsupply of delicious fresh air, then returning to her task.
Before the Meadow-Brook Girls had finished with their shouting,cheering and gleeful dancing, the black luggage had drifted somedistance from the spot where it had first appeared. So delighted werethey with the result of Harriet Burrell's efforts that, for themoment, the others entirely forgot the girl herself. But all at onceMiss Elting came to a realization of the truth. Something was wrong.
"Harriet!" she cried excitedly. It was unusual for the guardian toshow alarm, even though she might feel it. "Where is Harriet?"
The shouting and the cheering ceased instantly.
"Oh, she's just playing a trick on us," scoffed Margery Brown.
Suddenly the keen eyes of Jane McCarthy caught sight of something thatsent her heart leaping. That something was a series of bubbles thatrose to the surface. Jane gazed wide-eyed, neither moving norspeaking, then suddenly hurled herself into the pond. Two loudsplashes followed her own dive into the water. Tommy and Miss Eltingwere plunging ahead with all speed. Jane was the first to reach thescene. She dived, came up empty-handed, then dived again. Tommyessayed to make a dive, but did not get in deep enough to fully coverher back. Miss Elting made an error in h
er calculations, as Jane haddone on the first dive, missing the sunken automobile by several feet.
Now Hazel sprang into the water and swam to them as fast as she knewhow to propel herself. Jane shot out of the water and waved both armsfrantically above her head.
"Spread out!" she cried in a strained, frightened voice.
"Did--didn't you find her?" gasped Miss Elting.
"No."
Jane was gone again, leaving a wake that reached all the way to thebeach, so violent had been her floundering dive.
Tommy, who had raised her head from the water a short distance fromwhere the guardian was paddling, uttered a scream.
"There thhe ith!" she cried; "there she ith! Right down there. Come ina hurry. She ith under the car. I could thee her plainly. Oh, I'm thothcared!" Tommy began paddling for the shore with all speed.
Miss Elting did not answer. Instead, she took a long dive. About thistime Jane came up. Hazel, who was making for the spot where theguardian had disappeared, pointed to it. Jane understood. It took herbut a few seconds to reach the center of the rippling circle left bythe guardian; then Crazy Jane's feet kicked the air a couple of times.She had taken an almost perpendicular dive. But it seemed that she hadnot been under water more than a second or two when she lunged to thesurface. A few feet from her Miss Elting appeared, threw herself overon her back and lay gasping for breath.
"She'th got her!" screamed Tommy. "Harriet ith dead!"
Gazing out over the pond she saw Jane swimming swiftly toward shore,dragging the apparently lifeless body of Harriet Burrell. Miss Eltingand Hazel were closing up on Jane rapidly. Reaching her side a momentlater, the guardian took one of Harriet's arms and assisted in towingher in.
Tommy remembered afterward having been fascinated by the expressionsin their faces. She stared and stared. The faces of the two women werewhite and haggard. Still farther back she saw only Hazel's eyes. Theywere so large that Tommy was scarcely able to credit their belongingto Hazel. Had Tommy known it, her own face was more pale and haggardat that moment than those of her companions.
Jane dragged Harriet ashore; then Miss Elting grasped the unconsciousgirl almost roughly, flung her over on her stomach and began applying"first aid to the drowned."
"Ith--ith she dead?" gasped Tommy.
"She's drowned, darlin'," answered Crazy Jane McCarthy abruptly.
The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea; Or, The Loss of The Lonesome Bar Page 3