When the crumbs were all scattered for the birds, and the papers and boxes neatly buried, except one box of sandwiches they had not eaten and which they saved for Peter, Aunt Polly declared that she wanted to sit quietly for an hour and knit. Linda, too, had her embroidery, but the four little Blossoms wanted to go wading.
So Meg and Bobby and Dot and Twaddles took off their shoes and stockings and pattered over the pine needles that covered the grass down to the edge of the brook.
Bobby dipped one foot in to test the water.
"Wow, it's cold!" he said. "Just like ice, Jud."
"You won't mind it after you've been in a little while," Jud assured him. "Now when I say come out, you're to come. No teasing to stay in! Is that agreed?"
"All right," promised the four little Blossoms. "Oh, ow! isn't it cold?"
The first thing Dot did was to step in a deep hole and get her dress and tucked-up skirt wet nearly to her shoulders.
"It's all right," said Meg calmly. "Aunt Polly brought some dry things with her. I guess she expected Dot to go in bathing instead of wading."
This made Dot very indignant, but she pattered along after the others, and in a few minutes forgot to be cross. When you are wading in a clear, cold brook with little dancing leaves making checkered patterns on the water, and a green forest all around you, you can not stay cross long.
"I see something," said Bobby suddenly. "Look! Over there where it's wide! Don't you see it, Meg?"
"Looks like clothes," said Meg, shading her eyes with her hand, for the sun on the water dazzled her. "Maybe it's a wash. Aunt Polly said some of the hired men around here wash their clothes in the brook. Let's go and see."
"Here, here! Where are you going?" called Jud, as they began to scramble down.
"We saw something on the other side of the brook," explained Bobby. "We're going over to see what it is."
"Well, you just wait," ordered Jud. "That's the widest part of the brook down there, and all that side is swampy land. You can't land on it. You'll sink in. Wait till I take my shoes off, and I'll come and help you."
Jud took off his shoes and socks and rolled his trousers up to his knees. He wasn't afraid that the four little Blossoms would drown, for the brook was not very deep in any part. But it was wide at the point where Bobby wanted to cross, and there was no bank, only a piece of swamp, on the other side.