till I turn her round. I'll bring her up on the larboard side,"
replied Gypsy, in the tone of an old salt of fifty years' experience.

So she paddled up to the oak-tree, and Winnie jumped on board.

"I guess we'll have time to row across and back before school," said
Gypsy, pushing off.

Winnie maintained a discreet silence.

"I don't suppose it's very late," said Gypsy.

"Oh, just look at that toad with a green head, down in the water!"
observed Winnie.

They paddled on a little ways in silence.

"What makes your cheeks so red?" asked Gypsy.

"I guess it's scarlet fever, or maybe it's appleplexy, you know."

"Oh!"

Just then Winnie gave a little scream.

"Look here--Gyp.! The boat's goin'clock down. I don't want to go very
much. I saw another toad down there."

"I declare!" said Gypsy, "we're going to be swamped, as true as you live!
It isn't strong enough to bear two,--sit still, Winnie. Perhaps we'll get
ashore."

But no sooner had she spoken the words than the water washed up about her
ankles, and Winnie's end of the raft went under. The next she knew, they
were both floundering in the water.

It chanced to be about three feet and a half deep, very cold, and somewhat
slimy. Gypsy had a strong impression that a frog jumped into her neck when
she plunged, head first, into the deep mud at the bottom. After a little
splashing and gasping, she regained her feet, and stood up to her elbows
in the water. But what she could do, Winnie could not. He had sunk in the
soft mud, and even if he had had the courage to stand up straight, the
water would have been above his head. But it had never occurred to him to
do otherwise than lie gasping and flat on the bottom, where he was
drowning as fast as he possibly could.

Gypsy pulled him out and carried him ashore. She wrung him out a little,
and set him down on the grass, and then, by way of doing something, she
took her dripping handkerchief out of her dripping pocket and wiped her
hands on it.

"O--o--oh!" gasped Winnie; "I never did--you'd ought to know--you've just
gone'n drownded me!"

"What a story!" said Gypsy; "you're no more drowned than I am. To be sure
you _are_ rather wet," she added, with a disconsolate attempt at a laugh.

"You oughtn't to have tooken me out on that old raft," glared Winnie,
through the shower of water-drops that rained down from his forehead, "you
know you hadn't! I'll just tell mother. I'll get sick and be died after
it, you s