reached out her little gloved hand.[60]

[60]

All my old embarrassment rushed over me. I became nervous at the critical moment when I should have been cool. I never could tell just how it happened—whether her glove was slippery, or my foot slipped on a piece of ice under slush, or what—but the next moment we were both of us sitting down in fourteen inches of very cold, very muddy water.

THE NEXT MOMENT WE WERE BOTH OF US SITTING DOWN IN FOURTEEN INCHES OF VERY COLD, VERY MUDDY WATER.

My best beaver hat flew off and was run over by a passing sled, while a little dog ran away with Hetty's seal-skin muff.[61]

[61]

I floundered around in that puddle for about two minutes, and then I got up. Hetty still sat there. She was white, she was so mad.

"I might a known better," said she. "Let me alone. I'd sit here forever, before I'd let you help me up."

The boys were coming home from school, and they began to hoot and laugh. I ran after the little dog who was making off with the muff. How Hetty got up, or who came to her rescue I don't know. That cur belonged about four miles out of town, and he never let up until he got home.

I grabbed the muff just as he was disappearing under the house with it, and then I walked slowly back. The people who didn't know me took me for an escaped convict—I was water-soaked and muddy, hatless, and had a sneaking expression, like that of a convicted horse-thief. Two or three persons attempted to arrest me. Finally, two stout farmers succeeded, and brought me into the village in triumph, and marched me between them to the jail.

"Why, what's Mr. Flutter been doin'?" asked the sheriff, coming out to meet us.

"Do you mean to say you know him?" inquired one of the men.

"Yes, I know him. That's our esteemed fellow-citizen, young Flutter."

"And he ain't no horse-thief nor nuthin'!"

"Not a bit of it, I assure you."[62]

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