"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 on both the inside and
outside, and Roxanne pushed while I pulled. We tore him and his
clothes both a great deal, but at last we landed him. Then Roxanne put
him to bed to punish him and to mend his dress at the same time. That
was when she told me the great secret that it is hurting me to keep,
because it has got my Father mixed up in it in a sort of conspiracy
like you read about in books. I don't dare write it even to you,
leather Louise.