got out so far." Florence said this as she
was watching a chip rapidly drifting down stream. Suddenly she became
aware that the shore was further away than she supposed, and she cried,
"Oh, how wide the water is! See how far it is to the shore."

The other girls looked up, startled, and to their dismay discovered that
their boat had slipped its moorings and was fast drifting down the
river, nearer and nearer to the current of midstream. They looked at
each other with scared faces, but they did not want to alarm the little
girls, and so Callie said, with a forced laugh: "Oh, that's all right.
We'll get in easily enough. Some one will see us from the shore, or a
boat will come along that can tow us in. It's rather fun to have a
little adventure." However, she eagerly scanned the shore and the
water; but no help seemed to be near, and the boat was drifting on and
on.

Dimple realized that they were moving further and further away from
home, as she saw the objects on the shore grow smaller and smaller. The
big tears began to gather in her eyes.

"Don't cry, dear," said Callie, soothingly. "We'll get home all right."

"But suppose we shouldn't. Suppose we should drift on and on down to
where the steamboats come up, and we should keep going till it got dark,
and nobody should see us, and we should get run into and drowned. Oh
dear! I want my mamma, and my papa."

Florence took alarm at this, and, putting her head in Dimple's lap,
began to cry too.

The older girls were scarcely less frightened, for they knew there was a
danger in their reaching the rapids, and in being whirled around between
the rocks, when they would be very likely to upset, even in a boat like
the one in which they were. They managed, however, to show less fear, in
their endeavor to calm the younger children.

"Why, we'll get home long before we reach the steamboats," said Emma
Bradford, cheerfully. "Haven't you seen the river in a freshet? and
don't you know how it carries all sorts of things along? haystacks, and
sheds, and even houses with people in them, I've seen, and they are
always rescued."

Libbie Jackson was looking over the side of the boat. "It is very
shallow here. We could almost walk ashore," she said.

"We are right over the old ford," said Callie. Suddenly she sprang to
her feet and began to tear off the skirt of her frock. As soon as she
was freed from it she began to wave it frantically. "I see some one on
shore," she exclaime