very
red face and began to walk slowly away without a word.

"Where are you goin?" called Gypsy from the branches.

"Home," said Joy.

"Oh, don't; come, we won't laugh any mote. Come back, and you needn't
climb. You can stay underneath and pick up while we throw down."

"No; I've had enough of it. I don't like chestnutting, and I don't like
to be laughed at, either. I shan't stay any longer."

"I'm real sorry," said Gypsy. "I couldn't help laughing at you, you did
look so terribly funny. Oh, dear, you ought to have seen yourself! I
wish you wouldn't go. If you do, you can find the way alone, I suppose."

"I suppose so," said Joy, doubtfully.

"Well, you'd better take Winnie; you know you brought him, and I can't
keep him here. It would spoil everything. Why, where is the child?"

He was nowhere to be seen.

"Winnie! Win--nie!"

There was a great splash somewhere, and a curious bubbling sound, but
where it came from nobody could tell. All at once Delia broke into
something between a laugh and a scream.

"O--oh, I see! Look there--down in that ditch beyond the
elder-bushes--quick!"

Rising up into the air out of the muddy ground, without any visible
support whatever, were a pair of feet--Winnie's feet, unmistakably,
because of their copper toes and tagless shoestrings--and kicking
frantically back and forth. "Only that and nothing more."

"Why, where's the--rest of him?" said Joy, blankly. At this instant
Gypsy darted past her with a sudden movement, flew down the knoll, and
began to pull at the mysterious feet as if for dear life.

"Why, what _is_ she doing?" cried all the girls in a breath. As they
spoke, up came Winnie entire into the air, head down, dripping,
drenched, black with mud, gasping, nearly drowned.

Gypsy shook him and pounded him on the back till his breath came, and
when she found there was no harm done, she set him down on a stone,
wiped the mud off from his face, and threw herself down on the grass as
if she couldn't stand up another minute.

"Crying? Why, no; she's laughing. Did you ever?"

And down ran the girls to see what was the matter. At the foot of the
knoll was a ditch of black mud. In the middle of this ditch was a round
hole two feet deep, which had been dug at some time to collect water for
the cattle pasturing in the field to drink. Into this hole, Winnie, in
the course of some scientific investigations as to the depth of the
water, had fallen, unfortunately, the wrong