Still he would have them. Round and round the swamp he went, the shoes
pinching and pulling harder at every step, till at last he grew quite
desperate and, giving a big jump, he landed right out in the swamp in
the very middle of a large clump of the flowers. Then something
strange happened, his feet sank down, down into the mud and water until
the little shoes were soaked right off. Poor, wayward Timothy's best
friends were gone, but he did not know that. He just waded around in
the swamp and picked cowslips to his heart's content.

At last, however, Timothy grew very tired. He hurt his foot on a sharp
stick. A great green frog jumped into his face and startled him. He
had more flowers than he could carry. Suddenly he remembered school
and his lost shoes and thought of what his mother had told him. Oh!
how he did wish now that he had done just as she asked him to do.

"What shall I say to the teacher?" he thought. "Oh, what shall I do?
How I wish I had gone straight to school as the little shoes tried to
have me go!"

Weary and sad Timothy climbed the bank. Wiping the mud from his
clothes with his handkerchief and taking his satchel, he started slowly
for school again, all the time wondering what he should say to the
teacher about being late. At last he reached the door and prepared to
tiptoe quietly in, but he had no sooner put his head inside and
commenced to make an excuse than all the children began to laugh.
Timothy was very much ashamed. He looked to find, what they were
laughing at and saw--What do you suppose he saw? Standing in the
middle of the floor, in the place in the class where he himself should
have stood, were his little shoes, very muddy indeed and with a cowslip
in each one of them.