Now before Mary Jane saw the boy by the pool, Mrs. Merrill spied some very beautiful grasses over at one side of the gardens; the very sort of grasses, she decided, that Mary Jane's grandmother would like to use in her flower beds by the driveways. And of course she wanted to find out the names of the grasses so she could write to grandmother about them. Seeing that Mary Jane was so absorbed in the pool and the lilies, she slipped over to look at the name sign which she knew would be stuck right by the roots. She jotted the name down in her note book, looked along at a few others and--turned back to the pool just in time to see her small daughter and a strange boy run racingly along the rim of the pool straight at each other. "Mary Jane! Mary Jane!" she called, "jump down onto the ground! Jump down!" Whether Mary Jane heard her and became confused, or whether the boy's bumping into her made her lose her balance, nobody ever quite found out. But anyway, right before Mrs. Merrill's astonished eyes, Mary Jane Merrill tumbled 'kplump--into the lily pool! Fortunately the lily pool wasn't very deep so Mary Jane didn't fall far. But she did hit the bottom pretty hard; so hard that when she bobbed up, her head out of water and her feet on the bottom, she hardly knew what had happened to her. Mrs. Merrill screamed and Mr. Merrill, Alice, three policemen and about twenty other people came running to see what had happened. It wasn't necessary for anybody to jump in and make a triumphant rescue for Mary Jane was so close to shore that Mrs. Merrill had taken firm hold of her hand and pulled her out just as all the folks got there. So there was nothing for them to do but to stare and to ask questions. "How did she do it?" asked the first policeman. "Hurt you any?" asked the second. "You and your mother come with me," said the third (and Mary Jane guessed right away from his voice that he must have some little girls of his own), "and I'll show you where you can dry your clothes." The procession of policemen and onlookers, led by a very wet and greatly embarrassed little girl, crossed the gardens, crossed the street and went into a comfortable big building. There a kindly matron produced a big bathrobe in which Mary Jane sat while her dress was wrung out and dried. And wasn't she glad there was a good hot sun so things could dry quickly! Finally, when Mary Jane was beginning to get awfully hungry, mother announced that the clothes were dry and that she had pulled and stretched them the best she could in the place of ironing. So Mary Jane dressed and they went in search of Alice and her father. "Well, you certainly do mix up baths with your picnics," laughed Mr. Merrill when he saw them coming. "Remember the time you fell into Clearwater, Pussy?" "But it isn't so bad, really, Dadah," said Mary Jane, "and I'm not wet now." "So you're not," said Mr. Merrill, "but _I_ am hungry--anybody agree with me?"