“My Lord alive,” cried Aunt Mary, turning her gaze upwards, “am I expected to go alone all that way to the top?”
“It’ll pay you to keep on to the top,” screamed Clover; “you’ll have, comparatively speaking, very little fun if you hang on to the ladder all day—and you’ll get so wet too.”
“There’s more room at the top,” cried Mitchell, “there’s always room at the top, Miss Watkins. Put yourself in the place of any young man entering a profession and struggle bravely upwards, bearing ever in—”
“Oh, I never can,” said Aunt Mary, recoiling abruptly; “I never could climb trees when I was little—I never had no grip in my legs—and I just know I can’t. It’s too high. An’ it looks slippery. An’ I don’t want to, anyhow.”
“What rot!” yelled Jack, “the very idea! Why, Aunt Mary, you know you can skin up there just like a cat if you only make up your mind to it. Here, Mitchell, give her a boost and I’ll plant her feet firmly. Now—have you got hold of the ropes, Aunt Mary?”
“Oh, mercy—on—me!” wailed Aunt Mary, “the yacht is turnin’ a-round an’ the harder I pull the faster it turns.”
“Catch her from above, Burr,” Clover called excitedly; “hook her with anything if you can’t reach her with your hand.”
“Oh, my cap!” shrieked poor Aunt Mary, and the cap went off and she went on up and was landed safe above.
“How on the chart do you suppose we’ll ever unload her?” Jack asked, wide-eyed, as he swung himself quickly after her.
“What man hath done man can do,” quoted Mitchell sententiously, following his lead.