on which was fastened the big and high trapeze.

"Oh, Bunny! Where you going?" asked Sue.

"Up here. I want to see how high it looks."

"Oh, Bunny Brown! You come right down, or I'll go and tell mamma! She
said you weren't to climb up high."

"I--I'm not going very high, Sue."

Bunny was half way up the ladder. And, just as he spoke to Sue, his foot
slipped, and down he fell, in between two rounds of the ladder.

"Oh! oh!" cried Sue. "Oh, Bunny! You're going to fall!"

But Bunny did not fall all the way. As he slipped, his hands caught hold
of a round of the ladder, and there he clung, just as if he had hold of
the bar of his swinging trapeze.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DOLL IN THE WELL

Bunny Brown hung there on the ladder, swinging to and fro. On the barn
floor below him, stood his sister Sue, watching, and almost ready to
cry, for Sue was afraid Bunny would fall.

"Oh, Bunny! Bunny!" she exclaimed. "Don't fall! Don't fall!"

"I--I can't help it," Bunny answered. "My fingers are slipping off!"

And indeed they were. He could not hold to the big round stick of the
ladder as well as he could to the smaller broom-handle stick of his
trapeze.

Bunny Brown looked down. And then he saw something that frightened him
more than had Sue's cries.

For, underneath him was the bare floor of the barn, with no soft hay on
which to fall--on which to bounce up and down like a rubber ball.

"Oh, Sue!" cried Bunny. "I'm going to fall, and--and--"

He did not finish what he started to say, but he wiggled his feet and
legs, pointing them at the bare floor of the barn, over which he hung.

But Sue saw and understood.

"Wait a minute, Bunny!" she cried. "Don't fall yet! Wait a minute, and
I'll throw some hay down there for you to fall on!"

"All--all right!" answered Bunny. He did not want to talk much, for it
took nearly all his breath and strength to hold on to the ladder. But he
was glad Sue had thought of the hay. He was going to tell her to get it,
but she guessed it herself.

Putting her doll carefully in a corner, on a little wisp of hay, Sue ran
to the edge of the mow, where there was a big pile of the dried grass,
which the horses and cows eat.

With both her chubby hands, Sue began to pull the hay out, and scatter
it on the barn floor under Bunny. Her brother hung right over her head
now, clinging to the ladder.

"Haven't you got 'most enough hay there now, Sue?" asked Bunny. "I--I
can't hold on much l