And now I must tell you of a wonderful adventure that befell the Nodding Donkey about a week after he had come to live with the lame boy, and how he saved Joe’s home from being flooded with water.

Joe had been playing with his Nodding Donkey all day, but toward evening the little lame boy’s legs pained him so that he had to be put to bed in a hurry.  And in such a hurry that he forgot all about the Nodding Donkey and left him on the floor in the kitchen, under the sink, which Joe had pretended was a cave of gold.

“I wonder if I am to stay here all night!  It is growing bitterly cold, too!” thought the Donkey, as Joe’s father and mother took their boy up to bed.  “They must have forgotten me.”

And that is just what had happened.  After Joe had gone to sleep his father and mother sat in the dining room talking about him.

“I think we shall have to have the doctor come and see Joe to-morrow,” said Mr. Richmond.  “His legs seem to be getting worse.”

“Yes,” answered Mrs. Richmond.  “Something must be done.”

They were both very sad, and sat there silent for some time.

Meanwhile, out in the kitchen, at the sink, something was happening.  Suddenly a water pipe burst.  It did not make any noise, but the water began trickling down over the floor in a flood.  Right where the Nodding Donkey stood, in the pretend cave, the water poured.  It rose around the legs of the Donkey, and he felt himself being lifted up and carried across the kitchen toward the dining room door.

The burst pipe had caused a flood, and the Nodding Donkey was right in it!

CHAPTER VIII

A BROKEN LEG

Had Mr. and Mrs. Richmond not been in the next room, the Nodding Donkey might have kicked up his heels and have jumped out of the stream of water that was running from the burst pipe of the sink across the floor.  But knowing people were so close at hand, where they might catch sight of him, the Donkey dared not move.

All he could do was to float along with the stream of water, which was now getting higher and higher and larger and larger.  The water felt cold on the legs of the Donkey, for this was now winter, and the water was like ice.  So the Nodding Donkey shivered and shook in the cold water of the flood, and wondered what would happen.

Out in the dining room, next the kitchen, sat Joe’s father and mother.  They were silent and sad, thinking of their lame boy.

They were thinking so much about him, and what the doctors would have to do to him to make him well and strong, that neither of them paid any heed to the running water.  If they had not been thinking so much about Joe they might have heard the hissing sound.

But suddenly Mrs. Richmond, who was looking at the floor, gave a start, and half arose from her chair.

“Look!” she cried to her husband.  “There is Joe’s Nodding Donkey!”