The train was whistling, so they had to forego the giggling fit that was upon them and run for the station. The small branch that they must pa.s.s before they got there, was swollen beyond recognition, but one stepping-stone obligingly projected above water and with a mighty leap they were over. The accommodating accommodation train reached the station of Grantly before they did, but the kindly engineer and conductor waited patiently while the girls, puffing and panting, raced up the hill.

They had hardly recovered their breath when Billy and Mag boarded the train at Preston.

"Well, if you girls aren't s.p.u.n.ky!" cried Billy admiringly as he sank in the seat by Nan, which Lucy had tactfully vacated, sharing the one with Mag. "Mag and I were betting you couldn't make it this morning."

"We just did and that is all," laughed Nan, recounting the perils of the way.

"And only look at my boots! Did you ever see such sights?" cried Lucy.

"Oh, Heavens! One of Helen's rubbers is gone!"

"That must have happened when I fished you out with the fence rail. I heard a terrible sough but didn't realize what it meant. They were so much too small for you," said Nan.

"Small, indeed! They were too big. Their coming off proves they were too big," insisted Lucy.

"I'm glad your feet didn't come off too, then," teased Nan. "At one time I thought they were going to."

Billy produced a very shady handkerchief from a hip pocket and proceeded to wipe off the girls' shoes, while he sang the sad song of the Three Flies:

"'There were three flies inclined to roam, They thought they were tired of staying at home, So away they went with a skip and a hop Till they came to the door of a grocer-ri shop.

"'Away they went with a merry, merry buz-zz, Till they came to a tub of mo-las-i-uz, They never stopped a minute But plunged right in it And rubbed their noses and their pretty wings in it.

"'And there they stuck, and stuck, and stuck, And there they cussed their miserable luck, With n.o.body by But a greenbottle fly Who didn't give a darn for their miser-ri.'"

"But what I am worrying about," he continued when his song had been applauded, "is how you are going to get home. Our car has been put out of commission for the winter. Mag and I had to foot it over the hill this morning, but our path is high and dry, while the road to Grantly is something fierce. If you get off at Preston and go home with us, I'll get a rig and drive you over."

"No, indeed, we couldn't think of it," objected Nan. "This is only the beginning of winter and we can't get off at Preston every day and impose on you and your father's horses to get us home. We shall just have to get some top boots and get through the mud somehow."

"But you don't know that stream. If it was high this morning, by afternoon it will be way up. The Misses Grant should have told you what you were to expect. They should have a bridge there, but it seems Miss Ella wants a rustic bridge and Miss Louise thinks a stone bridge would be better, so they go a century with nothing but a ford."

"Going home I mean to pull another rail off the fence and do some pole vaulting," declared Lucy. "I hope I can find Helen's big old rubber I left sticking in the mud."

"It may stay there until the spring thawing," said Mag. "You had better stick to the path going home. It is better to stick than get stuck."

"I wish I had some stilts," sighed Nan. "They would carry me over like seven league boots."

"Can you walk on them?" asked Billy.

"Sure! Walking on stilts is my one athletic stunt," laughed Nan. "I haven't tried for years but I used to do it with extreme grace."

That afternoon Billy had a mysterious package that he stowed under the seats in the coach.

"What on earth is that?" demanded Mag.

"Larroes to catch meddlers!"

"Please, Billy!"

"Well, it's nothing but some fence rails to help Nan and Lucy get home.

I'm afraid the Misses Grant will object if they pull down a fence every time they get stuck in the mud."

The parcel proved to contain two pairs of bright red stilts found at a gentleman's furnishing store. They had been used to advertise a certain grade of very reliable trousers, of an English cut. Just before the train reached Preston Billy unearthed them and presented Nan and Lucy each with a pair.

"Here are some straps, too, to put on your books to sling them over your shoulders. You can't walk on stilts and carry things in your hands at the same time. Tie your umbrellas to the stilts! So long!" and Billy fled from the coach before the delighted girls could thank him.

Going home over the muddy road was very different from the walk they had taken that morning. In the first place it had stopped raining and their umbrellas could be closed and tied to the stilts. The air was cold and crisp now and there was a hint of snow. They stopped in the little station long enough to strap their books securely and get their packs on their backs, and then, mounting their steeds, they started on their way rejoicing.

"I wonder if I can walk," squealed Nan. "It has been years and years since I tried," and she balanced herself daintily on the great long red legs.

"Of course you can! Once a stilt walker, always a stilt walker!" cried Lucy, starting bravely off.

Nan found the art was not lost and followed her sister down the muddy hill to the branch. Billy was right: it had been high in the morning but was much higher in the afternoon. The one stepping-stone that had kept its nose above water on their trip to town was now completely submerged.

"Ugggh!" exclaimed Lucy. "My legs are floating!" And indeed it was a difficult feat to walk through deep rushing water on stilts. They have a way of floating off unless you put them down with a most determined push and bear your whole weight on them as you step.

"Look at me! I can get through the water if I goose step!" cried Nan.

"Isn't this the best fun ever? Oh, Nan, I pretty near love Billy for thinking of such a thing. Don't you?"

"Well, I wouldn't say love exactly."

"I would! I can't see the use in beating 'round the bush about such matters. He is certainly the nicest person we know and does more kind things for us."

"He is nice and I do like him a lot," confessed Nan.

"Better than the count and Mr. Tom Smith?"

"I don't see what they have to do with it," and Nan got rosy from her exertion of goose stepping through the water and up the muddy hill.

"Well, the old count talked about taking a trip with you to the land of dreaming, wherever that is, and Tom Smith took you on fine flying bats, but Billy here, he gets some stilts for you and lets you help yourself through the mud. I say, give me Billy every time!"

"Billy is a nice boy; but Count de Lestis is an elegant, cultured gentleman; and Tom Smith--Tom Smith--he--he----"

"I guess you are right--Tom Smith, Tom Smith he he! But flying machines wouldn't do much good here in the mud, and stilts will get us over the branch dry shod. There's Helen's rubber!" and Lucy adroitly lifted the little muddy shoe out of the mire on the end of one of her stilts and with a skillful twist of the wrist flopped it onto dry ground.

When they reached the top of the hill where the road became better they hid their stilts in the bushes, up close to the fence, carefully covering them with dry leaves and brush.

"Our flamingo legs," Nan called them. During that winter many times the girls crossed the swollen stream on those red stilts and truly thanked the kind Billy Sutton who had thought of them. They would cache them under the little station, there patiently and safely to await their return.

It was always hard to walk through the water and on one dire occasion when the stream was outdoing itself, having burst all bounds and spread far up on the road, poor Nan goose stepped too far and fell backwards in the water. Fortunately it was on her homeward journey and she could get to Valhalla and change her dripping garments. She came across the following limerick of Frost's which she gleefully learned, feeling that it suited her case exactly:

"'There was once a gay red flamingo Who said: By the Great Jumping Jingo!

I've been in this clime An uncommon long time But have not yet mastered their lingo.'"

CHAPTER XI