A Little Miss Nobody Part 2

voices. They seemed to be calling to the boy, for once he lifted his s.h.i.+ning face and shouted something.

Nancy looked keenly in the direction his eyes took. Through the trees she saw that an automobile stood on the bridge--or right at its beginning. The boy belonged to the automobile party. They had spied the lilies, and he had come down to wade into the pond for them.

Of course he was getting them for the other girls--he would give none to Nancy.

She could see the chauffeur, in his duster and goggles, standing in the road, too. But the girls who chatted so gaily, and shouted to the boy in the water, she could not see at all, try her best.

The lad had now a great bunch of the water-lilies; but the girls above evidently wanted them all. They encouraged him to wade out farther; there were some fine ones on the outer edge of the patch.

"Don't be afraid!" Nancy heard one shrill-voiced girl call. "What's the matter, Bob? Is the water wet?"

"That's all right, Goosey!" said the boy. "But you know well enough I can't swim. And there's a hole here----"

"Oh!"

The boy, lilies and all, suddenly went under! His half-strangled cry did not reach the ears of those in the automobile. And it was evident that they could not see the lily patch very well, for they were laughing and chattering without an idea that the boy was in danger.

He came to the surface in a moment. Nancy had only sprung out upon the open path. But it was plain he had told the exact truth when he said he could not swim--and his mouth had been open when he went under that first time.

The boy uttered a sobbing cry and went down again. Nancy knew that the water must be already in his lungs. He was drowning--swiftly and surely--while the current bore him steadily toward the millrace.

How could she help him? Nancy could swim--and swim well. Miss Prentice did not neglect proper outdoor athletics for her girls. She engaged a swimming instructor at one of the big public baths in Malden for two afternoons a week all through the school year.

But the girl very well knew that she could not swim in the swift current of the race. She could not plunge in and aid the drowning boy.

Nor was there anything that she could fling to him--anything that would bear him up until help could come. The bank was so steep and high! For an instant Nancy could only scream, and her st.u.r.dy voice drowned immediately the chatter and laughter of the girls in the automobile.

She saw the chauffeur spring down the path toward the bank of the pond and she ran to meet him. For a second time the boy's head appeared above the surface. The hand gripping the great bunch of lilies beat the air; but Nancy saw that his eyes were wide open and that he seemed to have recovered his courage.

Although he could not fight the current, he was trying to get his breath without swallowing any more water.

"The boy'll drown!" gasped the chauffeur, white-faced and helpless.

Nancy could see the side of the automobile more clearly now. Lashed to the running-board was an extra tire, fully inflated. She seized the shaking man by the hand.

"Get a knife! get a knife!" she commanded. "Haven't you a knife?"

"Ye-yes," he gasped, fumbling in his pocket.

"Come on!" she ordered, and ran up the path to the road where the automobile stood.

He came, opening the knife as he ran. The girls in the car were shrieking now. Nancy did not even look at them; it is doubtful if they saw her. She pointed to the tire and the chauffeur understood.

He started to cut the las.h.i.+ngs recklessly; but she stopped him with a cry. The stout cord was what she wanted. Quickly she looped it around the tire and he seized it and ran back to the pond's edge.

The imperiled boy was half-way through the race; the brown current curled about him, trying to bear him down.

With a shout the chauffeur threw the tire into the water ahead of the boy. The latter had sufficient presence of mind to seize it, and the chauffeur dragged him toward the bank.

But it was too steep, and the boy was too much exhausted to climb out without help.

"You'll--you'll have to help me!" gasped the boy in the water.

But the man could not both cling to the rope and lend the unfortunate victim of the accident a hand. Nor was there a tree or bush to which he might tie the rope.

The boy had hooked one arm over the improvised life-preserver. But his head had sunk low on his breast. He was almost completely exhausted, and the current, tugging at his legs, must soon sweep him from his insecure hold.

CHAPTER III

ON THE WAY TO PINEWOOD

For half a minute Nancy Nelson had been inactive. Her quick mind had suggested the way the boy in the millrace might be saved; but the chauffeur of the automobile was the instrument by which the helpless victim's course down the current had been r.e.t.a.r.ded.

But now it looked as though he would be lost, after all. Below the race the water was most boisterous--and there were many jagged rocks. If he was drawn through the race he would be seriously injured on the rocks, if not drowned.

The bright-minded girl saw all this in those few seconds. She scrambled down the steep bank, clutching at the chauffeur's ankle as she went.

"You'll have to hold both of us for a minute!" she cried.

"Go ahead! I understand!" he returned, swaying his body back as he clung to the stout cord, and digging his heels into the bank.

Nancy hung over the swift current and stretched her right hand down to the boy.

"Get hold! Grab me!" she called, gaspingly.

"I--I'll pull you in," he replied, in a strangled tone.

"Do what I tell you!" she cried, angrily.

She flung herself farther out just as his left arm was unhooked from the inflated tire. She seized his wrist; he had presence of mind enough to seize hers in return.

"Let go of the tire!" she sang out to the chauffeur, and he obeyed.

He was a strong young man. As the tire went whirling down the stream he drew them both up the bank--the girl first, clinging with desperation to the wrist of the half-drowned boy.

Wet, spattered, with mud, and exhausted, Nancy got a footing on firm ground once more. The chauffeur grabbed at the boy's other arm, and he was quickly lying on the bank, too.

"It--it almost got me!" gasped the boy.

His face was streaked with mud, and he was altogether a sorry spectacle.

But through it all he had clung to the bunch of water-lilies.

"Here! Take 'em!" he panted, thrusting the blooms into Nancy's hand.

"You--you're all right! Say! wha-what's your name----"