UP A LADDER
Charlie Star needed no second urging. Bunny had forgotten all about his
toy ship, but Charlie gave one look and saw that it had safely blown on
shore. Then Charlie sped after his chum.
"We're coming, Sue! We're coming!" cried Bunny. "Don't be afraid!"
"We'll get you out!" added Charlie.
The brook that ran back of the Brown house was rather deep in places,
and some of these places were near shore where the bank went steeply
down into the water. It was at one of these places that Sue had fallen
in.
The little girl had been looking for "sweet-flag." This is the root of a
plant something like the cat-tail in looks--that is, it has the same
kind of long, narrow ribbon-like leaves.
But while the root of the sweet-flag is pleasant to gnaw, though a
trifle smarty, the root of the cat-tail is of no use--that is, as far as
Sue could tell. She wanted some sweet-flag, but not cat-tail root, and
to find out which was right she had to pull up many of the long, green
streamers. If Sue had known how to tell the difference otherwise it
would have been easier.
It was in bending over to pull up some of the flag roots that she had
leaned too far, and suddenly she found herself in the water. She had
slipped off the muddy bank at a place where it was steep and the water
was deep.
Luckily Sue had slipped in feet first, and now she was standing in water
over her waist, yelling for Bunny to come and help her.
Breathless, the two boys reached the little girl. They could see then,
that she was in no special danger, since the water was not over her
head. If Sue had fallen in head first instead of feet first that would
have been sadly different.
"Come on out! Come on out!" cried Bunny, reaching his hand toward his
sister.
"I--I can't!" she answered.
"Why not?" Charlie asked.
"'Cause I'm stuck. I'm stuck in the mud!" Sue answered.
"Oh!" exclaimed Bunny. "Then we have to pull you out!"
"That's right!" said Charlie Star. "I'll help!"
"Look out you don't fall in yourselves!" warned Sue, as they held out
their hands to her. "It's awful slippery!"
And the bank was, as Charlie and Bunny soon found, for Charlie nearly
slid in as Sue had done and Bunny almost followed. But by digging their
heels in the slippery mud they held on and soon they had pulled Sue out
of the hole.
But, oh, in what a sad plight was the little girl!
She was soaking wet to a line above her waist, and she was splashed with
water above that, some mud spots being on her face, one on the end of
her nose making her appear rather odd. Her shoes and stockings were
covered with black, mucky mud.
"Oh! Oh, dear!" exclaimed Sue, looking down at her legs, and began to
cry.
"Don't cry!" advised Charlie.
"I--I can't help it!" wailed Sue. "And there's something on my nose,
too!"
"It's only a blob of mud," said Bunny. "I'll wipe it off," and he did,
very kindly.
"Look--look at my shoo-shooes!" sobbed Sue.
"Splash 'em in the water," advised Charlie. "Sit down on the bank, Sue,
and splash your feet in the water."
"What'll I do that for?" she asked, through her tears. "I'm wet enough
now!"
"Yes, I know," said Charlie. "And you can't get any wetter by dabbling
your feet and legs in the water. But it will wash off the mud. You might
as well wash it off."
"That's right," agreed Bunny. "Your legs will dry better if they are
just wet, instead of being wet and muddy, Sue. Dabble 'em in the brook."
Sue thought this must be good advice, since it came from both boys. She
was about to sit down near the place where she had slid into the brook,
but Charlie said:
"No, not there! That water's all muddy. Come on down to a clean place."
This Sue did, sitting on the grassy bank and thrusting her feet and legs
into the water up to her knees, splashing them up and down until most of
the mud was washed from her stockings and shoes.
"Now we'll take you home," said Charlie.
"No!" exclaimed Sue. "I don't want to go home!"
"You don't want to go home?" repeated Bunny. "Why not? You have to get
dry things on, Sue! Mother won't scold you for falling into the brook
when it wasn't your fault!"
"I know she won't," Sue said. "But--but--I'm not going in the house
looking all soaking wet! There's company--some ladies came to call on
mother before we went out to play--and they'll see me if I go in the
front door. I'm not going to have them laugh at me!"
"We'll take you in the side door then," offered Bunny.
"That'll be just as bad," whimpered Sue. "They can see me from the
window."
"Well, then we'll go in the back way," Charlie proposed.
"No!" sobbed Sue. "If I go in the back way Mary'll see me, and she'll
say, 'bless an' save us!' and make such a fuss that mother'll come out
and it will be as bad as the front or side door!" complained the little
girl. "I don't want to go home all wet!"
"But you'll have to!" insisted Bunny. "You can't stay out here till you
get dry. You must go to the house, Sue!"
"Not the front way nor the side way nor the back way!" Sue declared.
"Then how are you going to get in?" asked Bunny. "Do you want to go in
through the cellar?"
"I'd have to come up in the kitchen," objected Sue, "and Mary would see
me just the same and she'd say, 'bless an' save us!'"
"Well, but how are you going to get in?" Bunny demanded. "There isn't
any other way."
"Yes, there is!" suddenly exclaimed Charlie.
"How?" asked Bunny Brown.
"Up the painter's ladder," went on Charlie. "They're painting the roof
of your sun parlor. And the ladder's right there. We can get Sue up the
ladder to the roof of the sun parlor, and there's a second-story window
she can get in so nobody can see her, and change her things."
"Oh! A ladder!" gasped Sue, when she heard how Charlie and her brother
planned to get her into the house unseen by company. "A ladder!"
"Sure!" cried Bunny. "That's the best way! Charlie and I'll help you
up."
"You won't let me fall?" asked Sue.
"Course not!" declared Charlie. "I've climbed lots of ladders!"
"So have I!" boasted Bunny Brown. "And so have you, Sue Brown!"
"And can't anybody see me if I go up the painter's ladder?" asked Sue,
who was feeling most uncomfortable, being clammy and wet.
"Nobody'll see you!" declared Charlie. "The ladder's away off on one
side of the sun parlor. Mary can't see you from the kitchen, and your
mother and the company can't see you."
"Is the painter there?" Sue went on. She was asking a good many
questions and making a number of objections, I think.
"No, the painter isn't there," Charlie said. "I saw him going back to
the shop after more paint when we came down here."
"All right then!" sighed Sue. "Help me up the ladder!"
Cautiously the children approached it. There the ladder stood, a big
one, on a long slant leading from the ground to the roof of the
one-story sun parlor. From the roof of this extension were several
windows Sue could climb into, one opening from her own room.
No one was in sight, and the painter had not come back. Sue was just
starting up the ladder, with Bunny going before her and Charlie
following her, when the little girl happened to think of something
else.
"S'posin' the roof's just been painted?" she asked. "How can I walk on
it?"
This was a poser for a moment until Charlie exclaimed:
"If it is I'll get some boards and we can lay them down to walk on."
Sue had no further excuse for not going up the ladder, and she began to
climb. She reached the top, and it was found that the painter had spread
his red mixture on only part of the roof. There was room enough to walk
on the unpainted part to her room window.
She was just climbing in, with the help of the boys, when she suddenly
noticed something that made her exclaim:
"Oh, look! How did that happen?"