"Don't let go, Billy," Cricket screamed. "If you do, I'll go kerflump."
Billy grasped the pole tighter.
"You'll—you'll fall," he stammered.
"Course I will if you let go. Go on! Let the bucket down. I'm having a fine ride. Do you like it, George Washington?"
George Washington walked a step or two further down the beam. He was not at all sure he did like it. As there did not seem to be room enough for him to turn around and run back to Cricket, as he very much wanted to do, he stood still, mewing uncertainly. Billy, in agony of soul, but obedient as ever, lowered the pole carefully, casting reproachful glances over his shoulder. Hilda and the twins stood in fascinated silence, looking at Cricket getting such a beautiful high ride. As for George Washington, as the pole slanted more and more, making his head lower and his rear higher, he made a few despairing steps forward. Lower went the bucket, and George W.'s Martha lost her proud arch, and George stuck his claws deep into the wood.
"Oh-ee!" squealed Cricket, suddenly beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable herself. The ground looked very far below her, and she began to feel as if she were pitching headforemost. She held on with her hands, as tightly as George Washington did with his claws. Then the bucket hit the water, splash. Dipping it made the big pole dance a little.
"Oh-ee," squealed Cricket, again, clinging tighter. "Hurry up, Billy, bring me down."
"Miau-au," wailed George Washington, suddenly, giving a mighty spring of desperation. Alas! he missed his calculation, if he had time to make any, and disappeared from the eyes of the children into the dark depths of the well. Cricket, forgetting her own precarious position, involuntarily gave a little grasp after him, thus losing her own hold, lost her balance, and over she went,—and if she had fallen that fifteen feet to the hard ground below, it might have brought to a sudden end her summer at Marbury.
As it fortunately happened, however, she caught at the pole as she went over, grasped it, and hung suspended by her strong little hands. Frightened Billy had been holding the smaller pole all this time, in a vise-like grip.
"Let me down!" screamed Cricket. "Carefully, Billy!" and Billy, stiff with terror, nevertheless had the sense to obey. He raised the small pole steadily, lest the other, with Cricket's added weight, should come down too fast. In a moment more she was near enough to the ground to drop lightly down.