a foot, and again the rope was cast
(another rope), and a second noose still higher made secure. That is all
there is to it. The steeple-climber stands in a stirrup held by one
noose while he lassoes the shaft above him with another noose,
supporting another stirrup on which he presently stands. And so, foot by
foot, the climber rises, shifting noose and stirrup at each change,
resting now on one, now on the other, and finally reaching the cross, or
ball, or weather-vane at the very top.

"That's Joe Lawlor chuckin' the rope," explained Walter; "Merrill, he's
on the swing. Say, Lawlor's a wonder at rigging. He can do anything with
ropes. He's the feller that climbs up the front of a house with suckers
on his feet."

Of this fact I took note, and then inquired if I couldn't get up further
inside the steeple, so as to be nearer the men. Walter said I could
climb ladders up to where they had punched a hole through for the rope
to hold the block and falls, and I tried it. Alas! when I got there,
after breathing dust and squeezing between beams, I found that I could
see nothing. I was almost at the steeple-top, and could hear Merrill,
through the wooden shell, humming a tune as he worked, but I was further
away than before.

"Hello in there!" came a voice. "Don't monkey with that line." And it
came to me that this rope, reaching down by me from yonder little hole
(the one knocked through), held the block which held the swing which
held the man. And an accident to this rope would mean instant death. I
touched it, and drew my hand away, as one might touch some animal
through the cage bars, and I felt like saying, "Good little rope!"

It was coming on to dark now, and we all went home together, over the
bridge and up the avenues, talking of steeples the while. And Lawlor
explained the action of his suckers in climbing walls, which is
precisely that of a boy's sucker in lifting a brick. The big
climbing-leathers, well soaked in oil, are pressed alternately against
the stones, the right leg resting on one while the left leg presses the
other against the wall a step higher. And so you walk right up the
building or church or flagpole, and the smoother the surface the easier
you go up. In fact, if the surface is rough you cannot use the suckers
at all, as the air gets under and prevents their holding.

Then the men spoke of various jobs aloft that called up memories.
Merrill told of cleaning the fifteen-foot Diana statue on th