oked and saw Lovelace Peyton, I began to shudder too. He
was hanging half in and half out of a little window high up in the
shed like a skylight, and the big bottle was slowly slipping as he
tried to wriggle either in or out. There was no ladder in sight, and
neither of us was near tall enough to reach him. He was beginning to
whimper and be scared himself, and I could see the heavy bottle start
to slip faster from his arm. We had less than a second to lose. I
thought and prayed both at the same time, which I find is a good thing
to do in such times of danger. You haven't got time to do them
separately. The idea came! I have had lots of teaching by different
gymnasium teachers wherever we happened to live for a few months, and
I'm as strong as most boys. I know how to do things with myself like
boys do.

"Hold your bottle tight, Lovelace Peyton; don't let it fall; it'll be
good for mixing in and I can get you loose," I called as I scrambled
over the wall and met Roxanne just under the window. I saw him hug it
up tight again as he stopped squirming.

"Quick, Roxanne, step on my shoulder," I told her; and I bent down and
held up my hand to her.

"Oh, can you hold me up, Phyllis?" she gasped; but she put her foot on
my right shoulder and, leaning against the wall, I pulled myself up
little by little, holding her hand while she clung to the wall to
balance herself.

"Keep still, Lovey, just a minute longer," she said shakily. "Just an
inch more, Phyllis," she whispered to me; and, though I was almost
strained to death, I stretched another inch. Then I heard her give a
sob and I knew she had the bottle.

But even if she did have the bottle we had to get it down without a
jar, and I was giving way in every bone in my body. But I thought of
Napoleon Bonaparte and Gen. Robert E. Lee and braced a minute longer
as Roxanne climbed down over me with that horrible bottle in her arms.

[Illustration: Then Roxanne and the bottle and I all collapsed on the
grass together]

Then Roxanne and the bottle and I all collapsed on the grass together;
and if we had known how, I think the poetic thing for us to have done
was to have fainted. But we did know how to giggle and shake at the
same time, and that is what we did until Lovelace Peyton howled so
loud we had to begin to get him down. And the getting him loose took
us a nice long time that was very good for him. We had to get the key
and unlock the shed and get a table and a chair