“Oh, Grandpa, she fell in!”

“Come and get her out of the well!”

“Bring the long-handled rake, Grandpa!”

Grandpa was so surprised, at first, that he did nothing except stand still and look at the children.  Then he managed to ask: 

“Who is it?  What is it?  What happened?  Who fell down the well?  Did Bunny fall in?  Did Sue?”

Then as he saw the two children themselves standing and looking at him, Grandpa Brown knew nothing had happened to either of them.

“But who is in the well?” he asked.

“My rubber doll,” answered Sue.  “Bunny let the string slip when we gave her a bath.”

“But I didn’t mean to,” Bunny said.  “I couldn’t help it.  But you can get her out with the rake; can’t you, Grandpa.  Same as you did the bucket.”

“Well, I guess maybe I can,” Grandpa Brown answered.  “I’ll try anyhow.  And, after this, you children must keep away from the well.”

“We will,” promised Bunny.

The well bucket often came loose from the rope, and grandpa had several times fished it up with the rake, which he tied to a long clothes-line pole.  In a few minutes he was ready to go to the well, with Bunny and Sue.  Grandpa Brown carried the rake, and, reaching the well, he looked down in it.

“I don’t see your doll, Sue,” he said.

“Oh, then she’s drowned!  Oh, dear!”

“But I see a string,” went on Grandpa Brown.  “Perhaps the string is still fast to the doll.  I’ll wind the string around the end of the rake, and pull it up.  Maybe then I’ll pull up the doll too.”

And that is just what grandpa did.  Up and up he lifted the long-handled rake.  Around the teeth was tangled the end of the string.  Carefully, very carefully, Grandpa Brown took hold of the string and pulled.

“Is she coming up, Grandpa?” asked Sue anxiously.

“I think she is,” said grandpa slowly.  “There is something on the end of the string, anyhow.  But maybe it’s a fish.”

Grandpa smiled, and then the children knew he was making fun.

“Oh, dear!” said Sue.  “I hope my doll hasn’t turned into a goldfish.”

But nothing like that had happened.  Up came the rubber doll, safely, on the end of the string.  Water ran from the round hole in the doll’s back—­the hole that was a sort of whistle, which made a funny noise when Sue squeezed her doll, as she did when “loving” her.

“There you are!  Your doll’s all right,” said Grandpa Brown.  “Now you children must not come near the well again.  When you want to give your doll a bath, Sue, dangle her in the brook, where it isn’t deep.  And if you put a cork in the hole in her back, she won’t get full of water and sink.”

“That’s so,” said Bunny Brown.  “The water leaked in through that hole.  We’ll stop it up next time, Sue.”

“Oh, no!” Sue cried.  “That hole is where she breathes.  But I’ll only wash her in a basin after this, so she can’t get drowned.”