They looked at
each other with scared faces, but they did not want to alarm the little
girls, and so Callie said, with a forced laugh: "Oh, that's all right.
We'll get in easily enough. Some one will see us from the shore, or a
boat will come along that can tow us in. It's rather fun to have a
little adventure." However, she eagerly scanned the shore and the
water; but no help seemed to be near, and the boat was drifting on and
on.
Dimple realized that they were moving further and further away from
home, as she saw the objects on the shore grow smaller and smaller. The
big tears began to gather in her eyes.
"Don't cry, dear," said Callie, soothingly. "We'll get home all right."
"But suppose we shouldn't. Suppose we should drift on and on down to
where the steamboats come up, and we should keep going till it got dark,
and nobody should see us, and we should get run into and drowned. Oh
dear! I want my mamma, and my papa."
Florence took alarm at this, and, putting her head in Dimple's lap,
began to cry too.
The older girls were scarcely less frightened, for they knew there was a
danger in their reaching the rapids, and in being whirled around between
the rocks, when they would be very likely to upset, even in a boat like
the one in which they were. They managed, however, to show less fear, in
their endeavor to calm the younger children.
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