“Come on!” called Charlie.  “We’ll have some fun with my new auto!  I’ll let it run around the yard.”

This he did to the delight of the other boys.  As for the girls, they gathered on the other side of the school yard for their own particular recess fun.

Sue, Mary Watson, Sadie West, Helen Newton and some others raced about, playing tag and jumping rope.

“Oh, I know what we can do!” suddenly cried Helen, when they were all tired from having romped about playing tag.

“What?” asked Sue.

“Let’s go down to the end of the yard where the men are digging, and see how big the hole is,” suggested Helen.

“Oh, teacher said we mustn’t!” exclaimed Sadie.

“Well, we won’t go very close,” went on Helen.  “She just told us to be careful not to fall in.  But if we don’t go too close we can’t fall in.”

This seemed a safe way of looking at it, and the girls were curious to see what the workmen had done at the far end of the school yard.  The laborers had been digging for some days, fixing water pipes, and had made a deep trench, so deep that when a man stood down in it only his head showed above.

Just now none of the men was near the hole, all having gone away to get other tools, and as the boys were busy playing at the other end of the yard, or watching Charlie’s auto, the girls could explore the digging by themselves.

“It’s nothing but a hole!” said Sue, in some disappointment, as they approached as near as they dared and looked in.

“I’d like to go down in it!” exclaimed Helen, who was rather daring.

“Oh!” cried Sue.  “Come back!  Don’t go too close!”

But Helen did not heed.  She went up to the very edge of the long, deep trench, and was looking in when suddenly her feet slipped out from under her, and down she went, sliding right into the hole!

“Oh!  Oh!” she cried.

“Oh!  Oh!” screamed the other girls, and in such excited voices that Miss Bradley came running out of the classroom and the boys crowded down to the end of the yard.

“What has happened?” asked the teacher.

“Helen Newton fell into the big hole!” cried Sadie West.

“Did the dirt cave in on her?” asked Miss Bradley.

Fortunately, it had not.  The walls of the trench were firm and solid, and the only thing that had happened was that Helen was down in the deep trench, and could not get up by herself.  She was crying now.

“Don’t cry,” said Miss Bradley.  “You’re all right.  We’ll soon get you out.  Now you other boys and girls keep back from the edges, or you’ll cause the sides to cave in and they’ll cover Helen!  Keep back, Bunny, Sue, every one!”

This was good advice, and as the other children moved back away from the trench there was less danger.  Miss Bradley was just going to send one of the boys to call the janitor when two workmen came back.  They broke into a run as they saw the crowd about their digging place, for they had told the teacher to keep the children away from it.