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Page 75
Two mortal hours the girls hung in the well before help came, and
then Carter, passing near the well, heard what seemed to him like
a faint and muffled cry.
Scarcely thinking it could be the children, he paused and
listened.
Again he heard a vague sound, which seemed as if it might be his
own name called in despairing tones.
Guided more by instinct than reason, he went and looked over the
well-curb, and was greeted with two jubilant voices, which called
up to him:
"Oh, Carter, Carter, pull us up! We're down the well, and we're
nearly dead!"
"Oh, my! oh, my!" groaned Carter. "Are ye drowned?"
CHAPTER XX
AN EVENTFUL DAY
"Not a bit," chirped Midget, who was determined to be plucky to
the last; "we just came down here to get cooled off, and somehow
we can't get up."
"Well, if ye aren't a team of Terrors!" exclaimed the exasperated
Carter. "I've a good mind to let ye stay down there and GET cooled
off!"
Carter was really frightened, but Marjorie's voice was so
reassuring that his mood turned to anger at the children's
foolishness. As he looked into the situation, however, and saw the
girls clasping each other as they hung half-way down the well, his
alarm returned.
"How CAN I get ye up, ye bad babies! Whichever one I pull up, the
other one must go down and drown!"
The reaction was beginning to tell upon Molly, and her bravery was
oozing out at her fingerends.
"Let me down," she wailed, brokenly; "it was all my fault. Save
Marjorie and let me go!"
"No, indeed," cried Marjorie, gripping Molly closer; "I'm the
heaviest. Let me go down and pull Molly up, Carter."
"Quit your nonsense, Miss Midget, and let me think a minute. For
the life of me I don't know how to get ye out of this scrape, but
I must manage it somehow."
"It's easy enough, Carter," cried Marjorie, whose gayety had
returned now that a rescue seemed probable. "You pull me up first
and let Molly go down, but not as far as the water,--and when I
get nearly up, there's a stick through the chain that will stop
me. Then I'll get out, and you can pull Molly up after."
But Molly's nerve was almost gone. "Don't leave me," she cried,
clutching frantically at Midge. "Don't send me down alone, I'm so
frightened!"
"But, Molly dear, it's the only way! I'd just as leave let you go
up first, but I'm so heavy I'd drop ker-splash! and you'd go
flying up!" But Molly wouldn't agree to go down, and she began to
cry hysterically. So Carter settled the question.
"It's no use, Miss Midget," he called down, in a stern voice, "to
try to send Miss Molly down. She's in no state to take care of
herself, and you are. Now be a brave little lady and obey my word
and I'll save you both; but if you don't mind me exactly, ye'll be
drowned for sure!"
Marjorie was pretty well scared at Molly's collapse, and she
agreed to do whatever Carter commanded.
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