“Window’s too narrow,” Fred objected.
“If you can let it out of a window, what’s the matter with lowering it over the loft on a rope?” said Jess, slowly.
“We could! Good for you, Jess!” cried Fred. “I’m not anxious to go down that ladder, let me tell you, with one end of the table and some one else at the other end liable to let the whole thing slip and knock me off. Let’s get a rope and let the table down.”
As Margy had once disconsolately remarked, if there was one thing that was scarce and hard to find in River Bend, it was a good rope. It was her complaint that there was never anything on hand to serve as a jumping rope, and the boys were always discovering that they had no rope to use when they really needed rope. Mothers guarded their clotheslines jealously, and woe betide the boy or girl who cut it in two, or even chopped a tiny length off. “You’d think a clothesline was made of gold,” to quote the exasperated Margy.
“I’ll go get a rope,” offered Artie. “Dad has some down at the store, and he said I could have it, if I came after it. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“I don’t see what Ward calls it, he is doing,” said Jess, presently. “Even if he had to stop to get his breath, he’s had time to find that key and be back. Perhaps I’d better go down and see if he needs me to help him hunt.”
Fred and Margy and Polly waited in the loft till the shadows deepened to such a dark gray that they began to think it must be nearly supper time.
“I don’t know what you think,” said Fred. “But I know we’ve waited long enough. I’m going in.”
Margy and Polly followed him down the ladder. To the natural shadows of a wintry afternoon, the heavy gray snow clouds had added a deeper tinge, and though it was only a little past four, a light in the sewing-room of the Marley house showed that Polly’s mother had found it necessary to have the help of artificial light in finishing her work.
“Let’s go over and look at the room,” suggested Polly, and the three went in the side door and up the back stairs, which brought them to the room set aside for their use.