WHAT WAS STUCK IN THE MUD
Russ began to whistle a tune, as he often did when he was puzzled. It
was not that he was puzzled about the thing he saw--and which Rose had
seen first--but at once Russ felt that he must discover a way to get the
blatting object out of the mud.
"What do you know about that!" cried Tad Munson. "That's John Winsome's
red calf. See! He's sunk clear to his backbone in the mud."
"Oh, dear me!" cried Rose. "The poor thing!"
She had said that twice before, but everybody was so excited that none
of them noticed that Rose was repeating herself. In fact, both Vi and
Margy said the very same thing, and in chorus:
"Oh, the poor thing!"
"Is that a red calf, Tad Munson?" asked Laddie. "For if it is, it's a
riddle. Its head and its neck and its tail are all splattered with mud."
"It was a red calf when it went into the swamp, all right," said Tad
with confidence. "I know that calf, all right. And John Winsome told me
only this morning that he had lost it."
"Who put it in that horrid swamp?" Vi demanded.
"I guess it just wandered in," said Tad.
"And it is sinking down right now," Russ tried. "See it?"
Indeed the poor calf--a well grown animal--was in a very serious plight.
It was eight or ten feet from the edge of the road where the logs were.
And the calf had evidently struggled a good deal and was now quite
exhausted. It turned its head to look at the children and blatted again.
"Oh, dear!" said Margy, almost in tears, "it is asking us to help it
just as plain as it can."
"I'm going to run and tell John Winsome--right now I am!" shouted Tad,
and he turned around and ran back along the road they had come just as
fast as he could run.
But Russ stayed where he was. His lips were still puckered in a whistle
and he was thinking hard.
"What can we do for the poor calf, Russ?" asked Rose.
She seemed to think that her brother would think up some way of helping
the mired creature. No knowing how long Tad would be in finding the
owner, and it looked as though the calf was sinking all the time.
Russ Bunker had quite an inventive mind. The other children were
helpless in this emergency, but he began to see how he could help the
calf stuck in the muddy swamp. He ran to the roadside fence, which was a
good deal broken down just at the edge of the open swamp lands. The
fence rails were so old and dry that Russ could pull them, one at a
time, away from the posts. He dragged the first one to the spot where
the calf was blatting so pitifully. Although these cedar rails had been
split out of logs many years before, they were still very strong.
"Come on, Rose! You can help drag these rails too," cried Russ, quite
excited by the thought that he might be able to save the calf before Tad
Munson brought help.
"Oh! what are you going to do? Are you going to burn that poor calf like
the Indians used to burn folks?" asked Vi, who remembered something she
had heard at Uncle Fred's ranch. "You going to burn the calf at the
stake?"
This was a horrifying thought, but even Laddie, who was very
tender-hearted, was too much excited to think of this. He said to his
twin sister:
"How silly, Vi! You couldn't burn those old rails on that wet place. The
fire would go right out."
"Russ won't burn it, or let it drown either," Margy said, with much
confidence in their older brother.
Meanwhile Russ and Rose were pulling off fence-rails and dragging them
to the edge of the swamp. Then, while Rose brought more, Russ began to
lay the rails on the quivering mire, side by side but about a foot
apart, the ends of the first row of rails being only a few inches from
the side of the calf.
Having made a foundation of four rails upon the soft muck, Russ began to
lay the next tier across them, thus building a platform. It was a shaky
platform, but he crept out upon it slowly and carefully and the lower
rails did not sink much.
"Won't you sink down in the mud, too, if you do that, Russ?" asked Vi
curiously. "Won't those old rails get splinters in your hands?"
"Oh!" cried Laddie, jumping up and down in his excitement, "then you'll
be the riddle, Russ. 'I went out to the woodpile and got it'--you know."
"Maybe it's a riddle--what I'm going to do for the poor calf when I can
reach him," their brother said. "I know I can get to him; but how can I
pull him up out of the mud?"
This was a harder question to answer than one of Vi's. The rails did not
sink much under Russ's weight, and he believed he could get within reach
of the calf. But, having reached the animal, what could the boy do?
"Bla-a-at!" bawled the calf, his smutched head lifted out of the mire.
"Oh, dear! The poor bossy!" gasped Rose, staggering along with another
rail. "How you going to help him, Russ?"
"Give me that rail," commanded her brother, standing up gingerly upon
the crisscrossed rails. "I bet I can keep him from sinking any farther,
anyway. And maybe Tad will find his owner before long."
Russ had just thought of something to do. He balanced himself carefully
and took the last rail from Rose.
"Oh, Russ!" cried Vi, "your shoes are getting all muddy."
"Well, I can clean them, can't I?" panted the boy.
"How can you when you haven't any blacking and brush here?" asked Vi.
Russ paid her and her question no attention. He had too much to think of
just then. He pointed the rail he held downward and pushed it into the
mire just beyond the far end of the platform he had built. The calf
bawled again, and struggled some more; but Russ knew he was not hurting
the creature, although he could feel the end of the rail scraping down
along the calf's side.
He pushed down with all his might until at least half the length of the
rail was out of sight. It was poked down right behind the calf's
forelegs. Russ thought that if he could pry up the fore-end of the calf,
the animal could not drown in the mud.
This is what he tried to do, anyway. And although the calf began to
struggle again, being evidently very much frightened, Russ was able to
force the end of the rail up, and lifted the calf's head and shoulders.
"Oh, Russ, you're doing it!" cried Rose.
The other children jumped up and down in their delight, and praised him
too. All but Mun Bun. He didn't say anything, for the very good reason
that he was no longer there to say it!
Nobody had noticed the little boy for the last few minutes. Mun Bun
always liked to help, and he had first followed Rose to try to pull a
rail off the fence. This was too heavy for Mun Bun, so he had wandered
along the road to find a rail or a stick or something that he could drag
back to help make Russ Bunker's platform.
None of the others had noticed his absence, and Mun Bun was out of sight
when Russ, with the help of Rose, bore down on the end of the fence
rail far enough to hoist the calf half way out of the mire.
"Where's Mun Bun?" demanded Rose, looking around.
"Can you save the calf, Russ?" asked Vi.
Russ, however, like Rose, was instantly alarmed by the absence of Mun
Bun. A dozen things might happen to the littlest Bunker here in the
swamp.
"Where is he?" rejoined Russ. He jumped up and the rail began to tip
again, dousing the poor calf into the mire.
"Don't, Russ!" screamed Rose. "He's going down again!"
Russ sat down on the fence rail, and the calf came up, bawling
pitifully. It was a very serious problem to decide. If they ran to find
Mun Bun, the calf would be lost. What could Russ Bunker do?