CHAPTER XVIII

MOTHER WIT TO THE RESCUE

The young ruffian who was so notorious about the Four Corners was really in a serious predicament. In making a long cast the boulder had rolled under him and, being precipitated into the pond, he was pinned to the bottom by his legs. The two boys with him had sprung into the pond, and were now wet to their necks; but they could not roll back the heavy boulder.

Just as Laura and Chet, with their school mates, arrived Hebe sank back with a gurgle, and the water went over his head. He had been barely able to keep his mouth and nostrils out of water until that moment.

"Hebe's gettin' drowned! Hebe's gettin' drowned!" yelled Mike, the victim's young brother, dancing up and down on the shore.

"Get in there at once and hold his head up!" commanded Laura Belding. "Then we'll roll away the stone. But he _will_ drown if you don't hold him up."

Mike did as he was bid. When Hebe got his breath again he began to use language that was unfit for the girls to hear, at least.

"Say!" exclaimed Chet, his eyes blazing, "you stop that or I'll hold your head under the water myself. What kind of a fellow are you, anyway?"

Hebe gasped and kept still. Perhaps he had scarcely realized who the people were about him. Laura said:

"Can't you boys, all together, roll away that stone?"

"We'll try," said Lance, already beginning to strip off his shoes and stockings. "Come ahead, Chet."

They made even Purt Sweet join them, bare-footed and with their trousers rolled up as far as they would go. They waded in and got around the rock. Hebe was in a sitting posture, and the weight of the stone bore both his legs down into the muddy bottom. But there was hard-pan under the mud, and it was impossible to drag the victim from beneath the huge rock.

But the boys couldn't even jar the rock. It had slipped from the bank and rolled a little, and now it was settling slowly into the ooze, bearing Hebe's legs down under it.

The situation was serious in the extreme. Slowly, as Hebe settled beneath the rock, the water was creeping up about his lips and nose. Although he held his head back the water would, in time, rise above his mouth. And the rise was as steady as a tide.

Again and again Chet Belding and his comrades tried to push the huge rock over. But, as at first, they could not even budge it. Mike began to cry again. Hebe said, gruffly:

"I reckon I gotter croak, eh? This ain't no nice way to die, you bet!"

"Die--nothing!" cried Laura.

She ran back to the car and tore the piece of rubber pipe away from the bulb of the horn. Handing this to Hebe, she showed him how he could lie back in a more comfortable position, if he wished, and breathe through the tube. She produced some cotton, too, so that he could stop his ears and nostrils.

"Now, you keep up your courage," Mother Wit told him. "We'll soon find a way of getting you out of this. You're not dead yet."

Hebe said nothing, but he watched her, when his eyes were above water, with a grateful air.

"But I tell you, Laura, we can't begin to start this stone even," growled Chet, in her ear. "You will have to think of something better than _this_."

"So I will," cried Laura. "I'll think of a rope."

"A rope?"

"Yes. A good, strong one. One that will go around that rock and then be plenty long enough to hitch to one of the cars--the big car. I believe we can start the rock that way."

"Hurrah!" cried Lance. "She's got the idea! What do you say, Chet?"

"Looks like it. But how about the rope? Where'll we get it?"

"We got a goot one at our house," said Otto, who was sitting down, puffing, after having strained at the rock. "Dot hay rope, he be juist de t'ing."

"The hay rope for ours, then," cried Chet. "Come on, Otto. We'll go after it!"

He started for the machines, the Swiss youth after him. They got in the Belding car immediately and started the engine. Purt Sweet sprang up with a yell and ran along the shore of the pond after the car.

"Oh, oh! Stop!" he shrieked.

But Chet did not hear him. Lance caught Pretty by the arm and demanded to know what he was yelling about.

"Why," gasped Purt, "they've driven off with a whole lot of the lunch the girls spread on the seats. And look at them go! Why! it'll all be joggled onto the floor of the tonneau before they get back."

"Oh--_you_!" exclaimed Lance, balked for words with which to express his contempt.

The Belding car was quickly out of sight. The boys and girls gathered around the spot where Hebe Pocock had met with his accident. Nobody could help him, and he began to be in extreme pain. His head was under water a good deal of the time; but the piece of rubber pipe allowed him to breathe, and Mike, or the other smaller boy from the Four Corners, held Hebe's face above water as much as possible.

Chet and Otto were not gone an hour; but it seemed, as Lance said, "a creation of time." Pocock was pretty weak when the rope was brought. Meanwhile the chauffeur had run the big car along the road and backed it near the rock and headed in the proper direction. They passed the heavy cable around the boulder and then wrapped it around the car so that the strain would not come in any one place and perhaps do the car damage.

"You bigger boys get in there," said Laura, "and take Hebe under the arms. As soon as the rock moves pull him out. For the rope may slip and the rock slide back deeper into the water than it is now. That would kill him, perhaps."

"You're right, Laura," said her brother, gravely. "We'll take care."

Chet and Lance went to the aid of the unfortunate youth. Otto managed the rope. The chauffeur started his engine and got into his seat.

"Ready! start easily," called Laura, when the boys were placed directly behind Hebe.

The car lurched forward; the rope strained and creaked; then--slowly but surely--the rock began to move.

"Easy, boys!" commanded Laura.

Hebe shrieked with pain. The boulder rolled and the rope slipped. But the two boys darted back into deeper water, dragging the victim of the accident with them.

It was all over and Hebe was released in a few seconds. But he had lost consciousness and they carried him out and put him into the Belding car.

"Shall we take him home?" Chet demanded.

"He ought to have a doctor at once," said Laura. "Better still, he ought to be taken to the hospital."

"That's what we'll do," said Chet, quickly. "Lance, you and Purt come with me. We'll make him easy in the tonneau. And gee! here's the luncheon all in a jumble."

"What did I tell you?" wailed Prettyman.

"Oh, get in! get in!" exclaimed Chet. "You can stuff your face with all those goodies while we ride into town. And maybe this poor fellow will come to his senses and try Nellie's lemon meringue pie--it's a dandy, Nellie!"

By the shortest road they could take--through the Four Corners--the ride to the City Hospital was bound to occupy an hour--and another to return. Meanwhile the remainder of the party had their lunch and then went after the nut harvest. Despite the incident of the wounded Pocock, the day ended happily enough and they went home at dusk with stores of chestnuts and shellbarks.

The Beldings were late, of course, and Mammy Jinny, their old black cook, held back dinner for them, but with many complaints.

"It's jest de beatenes' what disher fambly is a-comin' to," she grumbled, as she helped wait at table when the family had gathered for the belated meal. "Gits so, anyhow, dat de hull on youse is out 'most all day long. Eberything comes onter Mammy's shoulders."

"That's all right, Jinny. They're good and broad," said Mr. Belding, for she was a privileged character.

"Ya--as. Dat's wot youse allus say, Mars' Belding. Den dere was de watah man come ter bodder we-uns. Sech a combobberation I never do see. I tol' him we nebber drink no tap watah, but has it bro't in bottles, same as nice fo'ks does----"

"The water man?" repeated Mrs. Belding, curiously. "I can't imagine who that could be."

"Ya--as, ma'am!" exclaimed Mammy Jinny, who certainly loved the sound of long words, and hard words. "He come yere enquiratin' erbout de tuberculosis in de watah."

"Crickey jacks!" gasped Chet, choking. "What's that?"

"My son!" begged his mother. "Please do not use such awful expressions. You are worse than Jinny."

"Ain't nothin' de matter wid wot I sez!" declared the old black woman. "Dat's wot he wanted ter know erbout--de tuberculosis in de watah."

Mr. Belding recovered his breath. "Was by chance the man asking about the _consumption_ of water, Jinny?" he asked.

"Dat's it," said the black woman. "Same t'ing, ain't it? Miss Laura say so. 'Consumption' an' 'tuberculosis' jes de same--heh?"

"That's one on you, Laura!" shouted Chet, as Mammy Jinny indignantly waddled out. "Shouldn't teach Mammy words of more than one 'syllabub.' You've been warned before.

"By the way," he added, for they had told their parents about the adventure of the afternoon, "that Pocock is in the ward with the man Hester Grimes saved from the forest fire--right in the next bed to Billson. Pocock had both legs broken, the doctors told me--one above the knee and the other below. He's going to have a bad time of it."

"Pocock, eh?" said Mr. Belding. "Hebron Pocock is the name of the person who applied to the Board of Education for the job of watchman at the girls' gymnasium. I believe he gave Henry Grimes as reference. But I think we shall keep Jackway. He's a faithful soul and, whoever got into the gym. and did that damage, I am convinced that it was not Jackway's fault."

"No; it wasn't Jackway's fault," muttered Chet to Laura. "But I guess we could find the person at fault pretty easily, eh?"