"Oh, we'll manage it, dear Mansy, somehow, never fear! We are getting through our difficulties splendidly!"

But when they did get the tub safe under the window--which was accomplished at last--and Alfy had expressed his joy with a loud hurrah, then the new difficulty presented itself in full force. They were afraid to open the lower sash of the window, as the level of the water was just above it.

"How am I to scramble over the upper sash?" she exclaimed; "and how am I to get down on the other side?"

"Yes! and the room is full of water," cried Edie from the window above.

"Not full, Edie!" expostulated Alfy.

"Well, there is a great deal all over the floor, and in all the lower rooms," explained his sister.

"Oh! dear me! what a mess to clear up," exclaimed Mansy.

"Let me get in and see," said Alfy st.u.r.dily.

"Do take care, and don't cut yourself with the gla.s.s!" Mansy cried, as she saw him clambering up over the top sash of the window. This he had first pulled down as far as he could, and he also helped himself by the sash lines. The breaking of the gla.s.s might of course prove very dangerous, but he found another difficulty when, having climbed over the sash, he stood a-tiptoe on the bottom of the window frame inside the room, and clung for support to the top sash. How was he to descend? Inside the room was dark, but he thought he saw the gleam of water. He hesitated to jump at hazard, not knowing where he might alight.

"Lower a candle, Edie," he cried, "and then I can see my way better!"

So presently down came a lighted candle, bobbing to and fro as the little sister lowered it. Alfy caught it with one hand and held it inside the room. "Oh! what a mess," he exclaimed, as he saw the water all over the apartment, with teapot cosy, music, papers, wool-mats, and all kinds of well-known pleasant household things floating despondingly on its muddy surface.

"What shall we do?" cried Mansy from the outside. "Oh! help me to get indoors, so that I can clear up a bit!"

"I don't see yet how I am to get down, Mansy. The table is too far off for me to jump to it, and the water seems high!"

"Oh! you mustn't get in the water, Master Alfy!" shrieked poor Mansy, "Oh, I am so tired of this rockety old washin' tub! Can't you get me out, Alfy dear?"

"I'll get you out, Mansy, somehow, never fear," a.s.sented Alfy cheerily.

"Now, Edie dear, can you let down a chair and some ha.s.socks for me to stand on?"

And the busy girls above tied string to the back of a chair and carefully lowered it, and some ha.s.socks followed.

Alfy soon placed the chair in the room and piled the ha.s.socks on it.

Then lightly stepping on to them, he was able to make his way to the table, and also to the sideboard. Next, by means of chairs and ha.s.socks he made his way to the staircase, and, having hastily mounted it, put his head out of the nearest upstairs window and shouted, "Hullo, Mansy!"

"Oh! bless the boy!" exclaimed Mansy with a start. "You have got up there, have you? I do wish I was safe up there, too, Alfy!"

"You soon will be, Mansy," he replied cheerily.

"Oh! we are glad you've come," cried his sisters, as he met them and kissed them. "But how are we to get Mansy up? She can never climb in through the window!"

"She'd fall in the water," remarked Jane, "and there would be a pretty to-do!"

"Do you think we could pull the tub up with Mansy in it to the window?"

asked Alfy.

"It would be very heavy," suggested Jane.

"And Mansy might fall out," exclaimed the younger sister, with eager face and wide-open eyes.

"The distance is not very great," remarked Alfy, as he leaned out of the window and looked down. "And it is less still, of course, up to the top sash of the window, where I got in. Oh! I know," he added joyfully; "we will push the table in the downstairs room close to the window and put a chair on it, and then, if we can pull Mansy up to the same level, she can creep in over the sashes of the window, on to the chair."

"Oh! that will be delightful," said the girls. But, at first, Mansy would not hear of it. Poor Mansy! her ideas of dignity had been sadly disturbed this evening. "Me pulled up in a washin' tub?" she exclaimed. "The idea! the very idea of such a thing! And I know you'd let me fall!"

"If we did, it wouldn't hurt you," said Alfy, "because the tub would float, you know. Come on, Mansy, it's the only way I can see!"

She suffered herself to be persuaded by Alfy, and to yield to the logic of circ.u.mstances. So she fastened the piece of clothes-line that was left in the tub firmly through its two handles, and Alfy, with the girls, went downstairs, and, standing on chairs and ha.s.socks, managed to push the table close up to the window, through which they expected Mansy to enter. Then a chair was placed upon it, so that she could creep in with comparative ease.

The next thing was more difficult. It was to haul up the tub a little way with Mansy in it. By tying a piece of thin kite string to the end of the rope, they were able easily to pull up the rope from Mansy, and then they turned it round the bed-post, and all four pulled hard together. Mansy herself helped very much by pushing the paddles against the window ledge; and presently they felt that the tub was slowly moving.

"Hurrah!" cried Alfy, "we shall do it!"

"Oh! it's off the water, and swinging about; do be careful!" cried Mansy.

"Steady it against the wall," cried Alfy. "Pull away, Jane; pull, Edie; now, all together!"

And so with pulling and shouting, and with Mansy also doing her best to help, for she was thoroughly determined to enter the house this time, if possible, they raised the tub.

But just as she was preparing to creep in the window--either the children relaxed their efforts, or they were not aware of the necessity of holding the rope very tight when not pulling--suddenly, down went the tub, splash!

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried Mansy, "I shall be drowned."

The children rushed to the window terror-stricken. But they soon found, to their great relief, that Mansy was more frightened than hurt, and in fact was not hurt at all, though much splashed with water.

"Oh, I thought the rockety thing was going down," she cried; "it went down pretty far."

"But it's all right, Mansy," said Alfy cheerfully; "and now, we'll try again, and keep tight hold this time!"

Mansy was very frightened, but eventually she did try, and all working away for the same object, she did at last manage to clamber in on the chair, and pick her way on chairs and ha.s.socks over the water to the stairs.

Oh! what kissings and congratulations there were, when she found herself safe and sound, once more, with all the children!

Next morning the difficulty of providing food presented itself, as they knew it would. They had barely enough for one good meal. And as they scanned the watery scene around the house, there seemed no sign, and but little likelihood of any person coming to them from the village.

"I must go in the tub to the nearest land," said Alfy, "and then run to the village. I shall not be long."

"What! go in that rockety thing again, Alfy?"

"Why, yes, Mansy. You see it will be lighter with only one in it. And I will take the line and rope. Oh! I shall manage."

And so he pushed off. The flood was still flowing, and carried him quickly away from the house. He guided the tub to the laburnum tree, where a piece of the rope was still hanging. "I will get that rope,"

said he, and twisting a piece of the line in the tub round the tree, he climbed up. He found his task more difficult than he had supposed, but when he had succeeded and was about to descend, behold! to his amazement and chagrin the line had become loose, and the action of the water was just floating the tub away out of his reach.

He made a desperate endeavour to save it by trying to throw into it the tin which was still attached to the rope in the tree. But it missed; and on floated the tub, slowly, but provokingly, bobbing about in the morning sunshine, leaving him alone in the tree!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ON FLOATED THE TUB, LEAVING HIM ALONE IN THE TREE!"]