aist,
with her short, silky black hair plastered to her head with the whey,
and small lumps of curd sticking all over her head and shoulders, so
that she looked as if she had been out in a sharp-cornered snow storm.
She tried to rub her streaming eyes dry with her wet fists.

"I don't like this white water," she said, wiping her wet face on her
wetter sleeve. "It's nasty stuff. It's worse than the ocean. It's sour
water, Helen. Just taste it."

"I can't," said Helen. "How can you get out? Can you step on those white
stones?"

"They won't hold me up. They're such funny stones. They all go to pieces
when you squeeze them," said Zaidee, grasping some with both hands, to
illustrate. "Could you put the stool over for me to stand on?"

"I can't, 'cause I'm standing on it. P'raps I can pull you out, Zaidee.
See if I can."

Zaidee waded over to the side of the tank, and tried to climb up the
smooth, tin-lined surface, while Helen tugged from above.

When this did not work, the children stared at each other wistfully.

"Do you s'pose you'll have to stay there always?" said Helen, at last,
in a half whisper.

"No. I'll holler," said Zaidee, with confidence, "and somebody will
come. If only I could get _boosted_ a little bit! Helen!" with a sudden
inspiration, "you jump over here and I'll stand on your knee as I do on
'Liza's when she boosts me up into the apple-tree. Then I could climb
right over."

Helen hesitated. This plan did not strike her favourably.

"Oh, Zaidee! I don't want to get down there into that white water. It
smells so loud, and I'd get my feet all wet, and my dress wet, too."
Helen was one of the children whom dirt distresses, and no soil ever
seemed to cling to her clothes or hands. Zaidee was not in the least
particular, or, perhaps, she would not have lunched on woolly worms.

"But I've got to get out, Helen," she persisted. "I'm all sticky inside.
I don't like it. Please jump in and boost me out;" for the problem of
getting Helen out never occurred to either of these young philosophers.

Helen looked very unwilling, but she was too used to doing as Zaidee
ordered to object further; she slowly put one leg over the edge of the
tank till her foot touched the whey. Then she shivered, and hesitated.
Zaidee took hold of her leg for fear she would draw it back, but,
pulling it a little harder than she intended, Helen immediately fell
over on to Zaidee, who, unable to keep her footing on the smooth tin