Minerva rushed out to within bawling distance of James, and I lighted a candle and lowered it by means of a clothes line for about ten feet.
“I see her! She’s swimming!” I exclaimed, and then the candle went out and I drew it up.
I then tied an eight-quart pail on the line and lowered that, and when I felt it hitting water I called to the cat reassuringly, hoping that it would have sense enough to get inside of the pail. I pulled and felt the weight of the cat.
“I’ve got her,” said I to Ethel and Cherry, who stood, interested spectators, at the kitchen door.
“Yes, Minerva needn’t have called James. My, the cat must be water logged. She’s heavy.”
I pulled hand over hand, and at last the pail was near enough for me to reach down and taking it’s bail, pull it over the edge.
“Where’s the cat?” said Ethel in astonishment.
I lowered the bucket again, although I felt that it was time thrown away. While I was trying to attract Miss Pussy’s attention Cherry, looking out into the moonlight, said,
And a minute later he came in. He had not quite reached home when he heard Minerva’s agonized calls, and came in obedience to them.
“I guess so. Light the lantern, Minerva,” said he, and Minerva sprang to the cellar stairs and brought out a lantern which she lighted promptly.
“No, sir, cats hate water, but they can swim all right.”
He stepped into the woodshed and came back in a minute with a coil of new clothes line. This he doubled and then tied it around his waist, asking me to hold on to the end of it.
The lantern he fastened to the other rope’s end.
“Keep yourself braced,” said he. “I wont fall, for I’ve often been down there to clean it, but if I do, you can pull me up.”
“Try _not_ to go, James,” said I, looking at his two hundred pounds, and at the slender rope.
We wrenched off the case of the pump, and stepping down he was lost to sight almost immediately.
I lowered the lantern and he made his way to the water.
“Do you suppose the cat slipped?” I asked Minerva.
“Well, she won’t be thirsty when she comes out. What do you find, James?”
“Ooh,” said Ethel, and “Ugh,” said Cherry, but Minerva said,
“Lawdy, I wondered what I had done with that.”
“I’m afraid she’s sunk. She ain’t here. That’s certain.”