Читать книгу The Girls of Central High at Basketball: or, The Great Gymnasium Mystery - Morrison Gertrude W. - Страница 4

Again that cry – that weak, bubbling wail from out the darkness of the sewer basin. Something swirled past Hester’s strained vision in the dervish dance of the debris floating in the murky water. It was a tiny hand, stretched forth from a skimpy blue-cloth sleeve.

It was Johnny Doyle’s hand; but the child’s body – the rest of it – was under water!

The water was not more than six feet below the surface of the ground; but deep, deep down was the entrance of the big drain that joined the main sewer taking the street water and sewerage from the whole Hill section. Johnny was being sucked down into that drain.

The girl, her mind keenly alert to all this, shrieked unintelligible cries for help – unintelligible to herself, even. She could not have told afterward a word she said, or what manner of help she demanded; but she knew the boy was drowning and that she could swim!

With her clothing to hold her up a bit Hester believed she could swim or keep afloat even in that swirling eddy. The appealing little hand had no more than waved blindly once, than Hester gathered her rather full skirts about her and jumped, feet first, into the sewer-basin.

That was no pleasant plunge, for, despite her skirts, Hester went down over her head. But her hands, thrashing about in the water, caught the baby’s dress. She came up with Johnny in her arms, and when she had shaken the water from her eyes so that she could see, above was the brown face of one of the street cleaners. He was lowering a bucket on a rope, and yelling to her.

What he said Hester did not know; but she saw her chance, and placed little Johnny – now a limp, pale rag of a boy – in the bucket, and the man drew him up with a yell of satisfaction.

Hester was not frightened for herself. She felt the tug of the eddy at her feet; but she trod water and kept herself well above the surface until the man dropped the bucket down again. Then she saw the wild eyes and pallid, frightened face of Rufus at the opening, too; and a third anxious countenance. She knew that this belonged to Nellie Agnew’s father.

“Hang on, child!” exclaimed the physician, heartily. “We’ll have you out in a jiffy.”

Hester clung to the rope and was glad to be dragged out of the filthy basin. She sat on the ground, almost breathless, for a moment. Rufe, with a wild cry, had sprung to Johnny. But the doctor put the half-witted lad aside and examined the child.

“Bless him! he isn’t hurt a mite,” declared Dr. Agnew, cheerfully. “Run, get a taxi, Rufe! Quick, now! I’ll take you and Johnny, and Miss Hester, too, home in it.”

Everybody was used to obeying the good doctor’s commands, and Rufus Doyle ran as he was told. Hester was on her feet when the cab returned, and Dr. Agnew was holding the bedraggled and still unconscious Johnny in his arms.

“We’ll take you home first, Hester,” said Dr. Agnew. “You live nearest.”

“No, no!” exclaimed Hester. “Go by the way of Mrs. Doyle’s house. The baby ought to be ’tended to first.”

“Why, that’s so,” admitted the physician, and he looked at her a little curiously.

Hester whisked into the cab and hid herself from the curious gaze of the few passers-by who had gathered when the trouble was all over. The taxi bore them all swiftly to the Doyles’ humble domicile. It was on a street in which electric cabs were not commonly driven, and Rufe was mighty proud when he descended first into a throng of the idle children and women of the neighborhood.

Of course, the usual officious neighbor, after one glance at Johnny’s wet figure, had to rush into the house and proclaim that the boy had been drowned in the lake. But the doctor was right on her heels and showed Mrs. Doyle in a few moments that Johnny was all right.

With a hot drink, and warm blankets for a few hours, and a good sleep, the child would be as good as new. But when the doctor came out of the house he was surprised to find the cab still in waiting and Hester inside.

“Why didn’t you go home at once and change your clothing?” demanded Dr. Agnew, sharply, as he hopped into the taxi again.

“Is Johnny all right?” asked Hester.

“Of course he is.”

“Then I’ll go home,” sighed Hester. “Oh, I sha’n’t get cold, Doctor. I’m no namby-pamby girl – I hope! And I was afraid the little beggar would be in a bad way. He must have swallowed a quantity of water.”

“He was frightened more than anything else,” declared Dr. Agnew, aloud. But to himself he was thinking: “There’s good stuff in that girl, after all.”

For he, too, had heard the whispers that had begun to go the rounds of the Hill, and knew that Hester Grimes was on trial in the minds of nearly everybody whom she would meet. Some had already judged and sentenced her, as well!