As they spoke, up came Winnie entire into the air, head down, dripping, drenched, black with mud, gasping, nearly drowned.
Gypsy shook him and pounded him on the back till his breath came, and when she found there was no harm done, she set him down on a stone, wiped the mud off from his face, and threw herself down on the grass as if she couldn't stand up another minute.
"Crying?
Why, no; she's laughing.

Did you ever ?" And down ran the girls to see what was the matter.

At the foot of the knoll was a ditch of black mud.

In the middle of this ditch was a round hole two feet deep, which had been dug at some time to collect water for the cattle pasturing in the field to drink.

Into this hole, Winnie, in the course of some scientific investigations as to the depth of the water, had fallen, unfortunately, the wrong end foremost, and there he certainly would have drowned if Gypsy had not seen him just when she did.
But he was not drowned; on the contrary, except for the mud, "as good as new;" and what might have been a tragedy, and a very sad one, had become, as Gypsy said, "too funny for anything." Winnie, however, "didn't see it," and began to cry lustily to go home.
"It's fortunate you were just going," said Gypsy.