Less confident of her success, she struck the iron lightly and carefully this time, but without making the slightest impress in the wall. Driving a peg into a stone wall was not the simple thing she had imagined it to be.
“I know it can be done, and I’m going to do it,” she told herself determinedly. “If I can only find the seam between the stones, I know I can drive it into the mortar.”
After slowly chipping the plaster away over a foot or more in diameter, she found an upright seam. Her arms ached from the unusual strain; her hands and face were covered with grime and plaster dust; and perspiration trickled down her face, streaking it.
Nevertheless, she worked on persistently and at last found the cross-seam. Eagerly placing the bar in position, she began driving it into the mortar between the stones. She struck it very carefully at first, then harder and harder.
“No wonder these houses last forever,” she thought. “I never saw anything so hard in my life. This one’ll stand here several centuries more and not show the least signs of wear.”
With a last effort she struck the iron several more blows; then, putting her whole weight on it to test its strength, she heaved a sigh of relief. It did not budge a particle. Fastening the rope securely, she threw the end over the wall. Everything was ready now.
While waiting for Florence and Peggy to return with the implements, she had tied several knots in the rope and made two loops near the upper end, and now, lying flat, she peered over the edge of the wall to see if the loops came in exactly the right place, just over the edge of the roof.
“All set! Here I come!” she called joyously to the girls waiting below.
“Oh, Jo, do be careful! You might fall,” urged Florence.
So intent was Jo Ann in getting over the edge of the roof that she paid no attention to Florence’s warning. Climbing over a wall two feet or more thick was quite a different proposition from getting over a board fence. She could not back off, and the smooth plaster offered a poor fingerhold while she was catching the loops in the rope.