"Mun Bun's in the balloon!" cried Russ.

"We got him up, but we can't get him down," added Laddie. "The rope's
stuck."

And that is just what had happened. I think you can guess the kind of
game Russ and Laddie had been playing when the accident happened? They
had tied the clothes basket to the rope running over the wheel. The
pulley had been used when Mr. Bunker kept a horse, for pulling the hay
up from the ground to the second story of the barn.

Then, with the basket tied to the rope, Laddie and Russ had taken turns
pulling one another up. The rope went around several pulleys, or wheels,
instead of one, and this made it easy for even a small boy, by pulling
on the loose end, to lift up quite a weight. So it was not hard for Russ
to pull Laddie in the basket up to the little door of the hay-loft.
Laddie could not have pulled Russ up, if Russ, himself, had not taken
hold of the rope and pulled also. But they had lots of good times, and
they pretended they were going up and down in a balloon.

Then along came Mun Bun.

"I want to play, too!" he cried.

"We'll pull him up!" said Russ. "He's light and little, and we can pull
him up fast!"

So Mun Bun got into the clothes basket, and Russ and Laddie, hauling on
the rope, pulled him up and let him come down quite swiftly.