," said the boy admiringly.

"Just as easy," replied Mary Jane, for when she found she could do what he
had asked she was anxious to have it appear to be as easy for her as for
him.

"Come on," the boy suggested, "let's race!"

"Race?" asked Mary Jane, "how?"

"'Round the pool. You start this way, and I'll start that way and the one
that gets around home first beats."

"All right," agreed Mary Jane, "let's."

Now before Mary Jane saw the boy by the pool, Mrs. Merrill spied some very
beautiful grasses over at one side of the gardens; the very sort of
grasses, she decided, that Mary Jane's grandmother would like to use in
her flower beds by the driveways. And of course she wanted to find out the
names of the grasses so she could write to grandmother about them. Seeing
that Mary Jane was so absorbed in the pool and the lilies, she slipped
over to look at the name sign which she knew would be stuck right by the
roots. She jotted the name down in her note book, looked along at a few
others and--turned back to the pool just in time to see her small daughter
and a strange boy run racingly along the rim of the pool straight at each
other.

"Mary Jane! Mary Jane!" she called, "jump down onto the ground! Jump
down!"

Whether Mary Jane heard her and became confused, or whether the boy's
bumping into her made her lose her balance, nobody ever quite found out.
But anyway, right before Mrs. Merrill's astonished eyes, Mary Jane Merrill
tumbled 'kplump--into the lily pool!

Fortunately the lily pool wasn't very deep so Mary Jane didn't fall far.
But she did hit the bottom pretty hard; so hard that when she bobbed up,
her head out of water and her feet on the bottom, she hardly knew what had
happened to her.

Mrs. Merrill screamed and Mr. Merrill, Alice, three policemen and about
twenty other people came running to see what had happened. It wasn't
necessary for anybody to jump in and make a triumphant rescue for Mary
Jane was so close to shore that Mrs. Merrill had taken firm hold of her
hand and pulled her out just as all the folks got there. So there was
nothing for them to do but to stare and to ask questions.

"How did she do it?" asked the first policeman.

"Hurt you any?" asked the second.

"You and your mother come with me," said the third (and Mary Jane guessed
right away from his voice that he must have some little girls of his own),
"and I'll show you where you can dry your clothes."

The procession of police