Aunt Melissy scolded him for that as soon as
she caught her breath and got over being frightened and was sitting up
on her part of the anchor enjoying the scenery.

[Illustration: THE BALLOON WENT OVER THE WIDE BLUE WATER JUST AFTER IT
GOT OUR FAMILY]

"I never had such a trip as that before, and never expect to have one
again. The balloon went over the Wide Blue Water just after it got our
family, and we were all afraid we would be let down in it and drowned;
but the people who were in the balloon threw out something heavy which
we thought at first they were throwing at us, but it must have been
something to make the balloon go up; for we did go up until Aunt Melissy
said if we'd just get a little nearer one of those clouds she'd step out
on it and live there, as she'd always wanted to do since she was a
child.

"Then we all sat up and held on tight, above and below, and said what a
nice day it was to travel, and that we'd always travel that way
hereafter; and Uncle Silas and the hired man unhooked their furniture,
so they could land easier when the time came, and Aunt Melissy passed
around the lunch, and we looked down and saw the water and the land
again and a lot of houses and trees, and Aunt Melissy said that nobody
could ever make her believe the world was that big if she hadn't seen it
with her own eyes.

"And Uncle Silas and the hired man said that of course this was going
pretty fast, but that they had travelled a good deal faster sometimes
when they were in town with Cousin Glenwood, and pretty soon he showed
us the town where Cousin Glenwood lived, and he and the hired man tried
to point out the house to us, but they couldn't agree about which it was
because the houses didn't look the same from up there in the air as they
did from down on the ground.

"I know I shall never forget that trip. We saw ever so many different
Mr. Men and Mr. Dogs, and animals of every kind, and houses that had
chimneys taller than any tree, and a good many things that even Uncle
Silas did not know about. Then by-and-by we came to some woods
again--the biggest kind of Big Deep Woods--and we saw that we were
getting close to the tree-tops, and we were all afraid we would get hit
by the branches and maybe knocked off with our things.

"And pretty soon, sure enough, that anchor did drop right down among the
trees, and such a clapping and scratching as we did get!

"We shut our eyes and held on, and some of our furniture was bru