Here was a little creek, tumbling over some small gray rocks; the same "creek" where Horace had sometimes gone fishing.
"True as you live," said Dotty to herself, "here's a teenty-tonty river." There was no way of crossing the creek, and the child felt as if she had come to the very end of the world.

Her courage began to fail.
"Dotty Dimple," said she, stamping her foot, "don't you cry! If you do cry, Dotty Dimple, I'll shut you up in the closet." But, in spite of these brave words, the unhappy child felt two or three tears raining down her cheeks.

She now seated herself on the grass, and screamed for Abby.
"When she comes," thought Dotty, "I'll tell her she's 'shamed herself!" At first it seemed as if Abby were answering her; but the sound proved to be only the echo of Dotty's own voice.

O, she might scream all the afternoon, and Abby wouldn't try to hear! O, dear; before anybody would come, a bear, or a wolf, or a whale might rush right out of the woods and eat her up! Then how Abby would cry! Abby's mother would whip her with a big stick, and say, "there, now; what made you go behind the trees, and let that little Parlin girl lose herself, and get ate up! I don't think you're very polite, you naughty girl!"-- O, how everybody would cry! But what was that little funny thing on the water?
Forgetting her sudden fear of bears and whales, a fear which Abby herself had put into her little head, Dotty gazed at the "funny thing." Could it be a little truly sailboat?
Yes, it certainly was.

How it got into the creek Dotty never stopped to think; the question was, how could she get it out?
She blew it with her breath, but it only floated farther away.